I can’t believe Easter was only last week – so much has happened it seems like it was weeks ago!
I know I posted last week’s blog on Monday evening but I purposely left out the activities we had on Easter Monday. You may remember the ladies of the Comité des Fêtes asked if we would be happy to use the Kergudon gardens for the annual village Easter Monday Easter Egg hunt. Of course we said we’d be delighted to.
Easter Monday was the perfect spring day, bright, warm and clear. Katherine and Monique (Comité des Fêtes ladies) arrived early to hide the eggs before collecting the children of the village and bringing them to Kergudon. Within 5 minutes all of the eggs have been found and corralled to share out among the participants – to ensure no-one went home empty handed. I say all, we did manage to find one egg after the children had left to enjoy between us and we found another yesterday – oddly neither very well hidden, just goes to prove the more you look for something the less likely you are to find it!
The day was a great success for the children, to continue our integration to the village and, an additional bonus was that we got some media coverage of our gîtes.
After the Chasse aux Oeufs we went to another Easter Monday annual tradition of the area, the Marché sur l’eau – a market held next to the dam of the Lac du Drennec. The market had a number of the local artisans selling their products, including the pork farm and boulanger from Saint Cadou, and we had a fantastic lunch of local sausage and potatoes.
Having spoken about getting our bikes out to explore the area since arriving, we did use them to travel to the marché. It was the first outing for our bikes in almost 4 years and all they needed was their tyres pumping up – although sadly Dave’s rear tyre didn’t stay inflated for the journey home! All fixed now!
The remainder of the week was spent continuing to develop the gîtes and focussed on HAYLOFT. I won’t add another picture of the kitchen having done last week – although now it has a sink and drawer fronts – as most of the effort was spent in the bathroom which has been completely re-plaster-boarded in preparation for the sanitary ware. 
We had hoped to install some of which last week but we have been given our first taste of French ‘client service’ and are still waiting not only for our items but any sort of communication from the, very large and well known, DIY store we have bought from.
We have been able to progress other jobs that need to be done, including putting in the electrics for a heated towel rail in PRIORY, and 
stripping out the kitchen, in preparation for replacing, and and sub-dividing the eaves bedroom in GRANARY. The pressure to complete HAYLOFT remains however. Our first guest (who I am delighted to say reads this blog) arrives in 4 weeks’ time – I’m not panicking (yet) or thinking about a Plan B but I will be on the phone to the store (again) tomorrow morning …
We continue making other changes and small improvements – painting and preserving an iron cauldron, putting up 20 hanging basket brackets, carrying a sofa bed through the village to a new owner (I’m sure we are already recognised as the slightly eccentric English pair) and, having met one of our neighbours moving his horses into a field next to us, he was kind enough to move a granite trough – merçi Gilbert.
Next week’s activities depend greatly on whether we receive our bathroom items but there is still plenty to keep us occupied …
À bientôt.