What a difference a week makes...

From the first rose last Saturday to this and after last evenings much needed rain will soon be a mass of colour!

Friends celebrating 20 years in France

Raised a glass tonight for Les & Eileen who celebrated 20 years here in France today...2020 may not go down as their happiest year but we wish them many more happier years... santé!

Mocking in the courtyard...

Our 'Mock Orange' in the courtyard of our rental cottage.

More colour in the courtyard...

At the 'Old Walnut Mill'

Yesterday's bit of freedom...

We are finding our daily walk invaluable as a means of stopping us go stir crazy - only problem is that in Barrou we are not spoilt for routes we can take because of the distance restrictions but then we could be in an apartment block somewhere so mustn't grumble!

Missing this a lot...

Getting together in Le Grand-Pressigny

Easter Sunday walk ...

We took our hour's exercise around the village again yesterday on what was a beautiful, hot sunny day. It is difficult to comprehend the difficult times we are in and how some people are being so badly effected when you are walking here in Southern Touraine with no one else around.  

As we walked past the church it was somehow reassuring to see the village had gone to the trouble of opening it up and with the help of a lit candle, leaving a light on!

Virtual dinner party...

Joined friends Mike and Liz and Dave (who organised) for a virtual dinner party last night...great to catch up.

A day of firsts...

On a beautiful day here in Southern Touraine yesterday we had our first rose opened up and we had our first barbecue.

Jigsaw boy...

While the 'jigsaw girl' was busy creating her masterpiece I had a little project of my own using a jigsaw of a different type. The timbers covering our well have rotted over the years so I have decided to make a little cover for it.

The fact that we cannot buy material means a bit of recycling of what timber we have - which is not such a bad thing.  

Jigsaw girl...

What has Pauline been up to recently?...well I know what she has been doing for the last 3 days...1000 pieces and a real stinker of a puzzle! Anyone want to try it?

Made me think of this...

           

Hard nut to crack...

We returned from Provence with a large bag of hazelnuts courtesy of Richard and Francoise's garden. They are very tasty but so hard to break into - so much so that they broke our walnut cracker!

The other thing about them is there is a lot of shell for not a lot of nut...btw the nut cracker above was hopeless for this as well,above was the reward for using the 'hitting with a hammer' method!

PS Growing up I knew a family of 'Nutts' who cruelly named their daughter 'Hazel'(true). Fortunately she was thick skinned.

Seeing the light...

We brought our geraniums out of hibernation on Sunday and gave them a tidy up and their first glance of sunshine for a long time. We will watch the weather in case of frost but left them out on Sunday night in anticipation of  yesterday's rain. Here in France you will most likely not see pot plants out until around the 15th of May as this is when,as their calendar dictates, there should be little or no chance of frost. We tend to be a bit more flexible and just keep our eyes on the weather. Last year at this time we had them out for our first guests of the season at the cottage and they survived 

Courtyard colour collage...

Colours in our courtyard at the Old Walnut Mill

Everyday's like Sunday...even Saturday

Yesterday in the courtyard of the Old Walnut Mill - only me and the bees

A reminder of absent friends..

These Arum lilies in the salon here in our 'place of confinement' are a reminder of friends who would normally be here with us around this time. They are from a friend's garden here on Grande Rue but they cannot be here to enjoy them and have given us permission to cut and display them. Many of you will, I am sure, be missing your houses here in France and our hearts go out to you. We can only hope that there is an end to all this sadness and when it happens  there will be world with more appreciation of life's simpler things and of our own fragility.

We are missing you all, as you know we are quite fond of a get together! 

We are also sad we cannot share our daily lives with our  friends and neighbours.

Experiencing ‘herd immunity'

Pauline and I were out for our allowable 1 hour a day walk yesterday, as we walked passed the farm behind the church in the village we noticed these cows ignoring the advice of self-distancing and they appeared to be adopting the UK's 'herd immunity' strategy!

Worse places to self-isolate...

We have just finished the work on altering our salon at the 'Old Walnut Mill'...happy with results and it makes a reasonable location to be holed up in. More on what we have done tomorrow...