A walk around a chateau, and progress.

Went to look around Chateau Trevarez, but only two rooms were open because the RAF bombed it flat during the war and it's a bit expensive to restore. The gardens were nice though.

Wellingtonias in the grounds - about half grown and already taller than the castle.

Bit grim for my taste to be honest, and it was only used half the year for hunting parties.

Nice trees in the grounds - more interesting to me than the buildings.

Almost as nice as our garden! Things progressing well - probably because the slugs haven't found us yet:

All's well in the tunnel - the toms are twice as big as this now, and the peppers are waking up at last.

View from polytunnel to potato patch, with pea and bean poles in mid-ground. The green netting is scaffold net, which is to keep caterpillars and cats from destroying the veg. Early carrots under the one in the foreground.

Pea frames for the 10 ft high "Champion of England" peas to scramble up.

Belters.

How not to make a chicken tractor.

After drawing lots of little designs and some larger ones on 1:20 scale with dusty scale rules, squares, and fancy pens from my old building design course which I bombed out of due to having not enough money for beer, I settled on a chicken tractor design that would cover half a veg bed and house four chickens in comfort. I could then rotate the tractor about the plot, keeping grass down, eating weed seeds and bugs, and harrowing the ground for me. I would have two tractors: one for eggs and one for meat. All would be simple, cheap, and easy...

...as long as I knew French and knew that cheap pine shrinks a bit when the weather's dry, which I didn't. I spent too much time explaining what I was after at the local builder's merchant and forgot to ask for untreated wood, and only remembered when I was taking the wood out of the car back on the Island. This meant planing the treated wood off every plank. The wood is pine from the Landes part of France - a vast sandy scrubland - and it grows very fast. This means the wood is sappy and expands with the weather. This means my nice smart coop, once tight as a ship's keel, is now sporting 5mm gaps between the planks! It's taken me weeks as well! I need a drink! I guess that the French aren't bothered about stable building materials - I used "volige", which are planks of wood used as roofing. Wish I'd just bought an "Eggloo" now and joined the trendy chicken set...

New plan for the gite.

Looks pretty but...

...cheeky Deathwatch Beetle has eaten our beams! It's going to be a problem sourcing timbers to replace the damaged ones that aren't in the same (rotten) condition so we're gutting the gite and starting again with nice clean timber, whitewashed walls, nice safe wiring, and a simple, nice kitchen. We'll then let it out to re-coup the costs. Another job is added to the List!

Amazing what a Dyson will hoover up - this hollow bit of wood is holding the floor up!

Looks pretty, but half of that big rustic beam is made from plaster painted black, which is now falling off. The white ceiling is chipboard as well!

Dyson power again: this beam looked solid until it disappeared into the vacuum cleaner's nozzle.

This is the result of not living in a house during the winter. A complete bag o' bollox, so it is, to sort out, but when it is it will look great. Might even move in!

A bit of progress and some lawnmowers.

We're getting busier and busier now that spring's well and truly under way. I'm usually working until 7pm most nights now, and there's still not enough time in the day to get things done! Better than sitting in an office any day though. I'd never go back.

A couple of handy horses lent to us by a neighbour to keep the field happy until we get round to cultivating it, planting hedges and trees, and keeping our own livestock.

Early peas. The ones in the front were damaged by frost but there's hundreds more coming up.

Early potatoes in an awful weed infested bed - I will be sorting that out tomorrow.

Broad beans looking good.

Chicken ark no.1 (eggs) half done. It's taking me forever to do due to all the planing off of the treatment from the wood. Next time: "non-treatement s.v.p." Quite chuffed with it even so - it's the first one I've ever made! Just need to tidy it up, fix the roof, oil it and then get 3 Light Sussex and a meaty cock. I will be making another one (meat) and a few rabbit arks as well, then beehives at some point...