'Les Balcons' welcomes its first guests...

'Les Balcons' welcomed its first guests,an Australian family, yesterday under a blue spring sky.

Le Bourg ready for first guests of the year to the Loire Valley...

Finished preparing 'Le Bourg' in Barrou for receiving its first guests of the season tomorrow on what was a beautiful spring afternoon.

Yzeures-sur-Creuse's new wine bar

We went along with friends to the opening of the new wine bar Y'z in Yzeures-sur-Creuse last night.

The bar is quite small so they accommodated us in the courtyard of the restaurant where free wine and nibbles were on offer. Maureen,who was with us, spotted the only seating available had become free under some cover which was just as well as the heavens opened up. Our position was made even more favourable when they brought the nibbles in out of the rain and plonked them down in front of us!

Pleasant evening in good company with free wine and nibbles...we wish them every success.

Footnote: All the French were drinking beer at the new wine bar

Blossom time at the 'Old Walnut Mill'

Mexican orange blossom and cherry blossom in the courtyard of the Old Walnut Mill

Back at 'Les Balcons'...awaiting its first guests to Centre-Val de Loire

Back at 'Le Balcons' yesterday where it was 23 degrees in the garden!

Ready to welcome first guests of the season next week...

Final prep at Les Balcons...

With our first guests arriving next week doing some final tidy up of gardens at 'Les Balcons' in Le Grand Pressigny where spring has well and truly sprung!

Parc du Lac de la Bergeonnerie in Tours...

After visiting the 'Jardin des Prébendes d'Oé' on Monday I couldn't resist seeing what the park at the 'Centre Aquatique du Lac' had to offer on such a fine day. It's another surprising place which we have driven past on countless occasions...stunning!

Springing into Tours in the Loire Valley...

After dropping Pauline off at the airport in Tours yesterday (visiting her mum in Scotland) I decided to see how spring had made its appearance in the 'Jardin des Prébendes d'Oé'...glad I did!

and (Monday) evening...

Beautiful spring day in Barrou...

Sunday...this is a new view we have in the village, of Grande Rue, it is from 'Route du Moulin A Vent' as they have cleared some trees from the river bank in a project to stop erosion.

This is the view back towards the river bend and the 'Moulin'.

It was a beautiful day here in Barrou yesterday.

Designing through rose coloured glasses?

We bought (and drank) this bottle of rose recently mainly because Pauline liked the bottle. It is called  'Cote des roses' and is from Gerard Bertrand in the Languedoc region and very nice it was too!

What appealed to her was the bottle design it has a rose cut bottom plus a glass stopper...a design step too far...what do you think?

Two little abandoned houses in the Loire Valley...

Took this pic of  a 'cabanon de vigne' during our walk around Betz-le-Chateaux at the end of January the surrounding fields are now given over to crops of a different kind. These little houses were used by workers on the vines...

with their own fireplace...



not sure if this led to their sleeping arangements.



This was another (rather grand) abandoned home we spotted.

Hyper linking...

We recently had our new 'Linky' electric meter installed...lovely!

The rollout of 35 million Linky meters across France is costing a total of €4.5/€5 billion. The main costs break down into 80% on procurement and installation of meters, 10% on data concentrators and 10% on an IT system.The costs to ERDF  will apparently be offset by the savings they will make on not employing (in France?) the 2,000 technicians manual meter readers.

After our experience of the 'Link vans' I can understand the high cost of installation. We had received notification of our installation by post  to say our area was just about to be fitted out with the new meters and were awaiting confirmation of a date. However, on discussing this with our neighbour (over aperos) we were advised that we actually had to book an appointment.This actually suited us as we had our houses plus neighbours (part-timers) houses to attend to. Pauline did an excellent job of tying in appointments by phone (which is never easy here) for 6 houses. 

On the appointed day the 'Linky man' arrived in Barrou at 8.30am and Pauline led him around the village (she is now invited to their next social event)  dealing with five of the six properties. He was very efficient,it has to be said. The house in Le Grand Pressigny was booked in for the next day but it would be some other 'Linky man'.

As it happened we had to go over to the house in the afternoon and when we arrived a 'Linky man' was parked across the street attending to our neighbour. As we had a a window of between 10.00 and 12.00 for the next day we asked him if he had time slot for us. He checked his log only to tell us that he wouldn't be doing ours that would be another 'Linky man'. 

The next morning we headed over early so we would not miss him. On arrival we saw the Linky van parked up the road and approached the 'Linky man' to let him know we were at the house and could be done anytime, but he informed us that he was not in fact our 'Linky man', That would be someone else.  Our man did turn up during the alloted time and again did a tidy job of installing our new meter.

Since then, however, we must have seen a dozen  'Linky men' crossing both villages in every direction and they have reappeared opposte our houses on different days attending to different neighbours, now I know that it cannot be easy tying in whole communities but perhaps because of their huge budget the need for efficiency has gone out the window! BTW  the 'Linky men' we were exposed to were very capable and pleasant.

When work can be a pleasure...when in the Loire Valley

Started to prepare the houses for first guests arriving at the beginning of April...but the beautiful day here in Southern Touraine made it less onerous.

Early morning on the river Creuse

Later

Fom the balcony at Les Balcons

Chateau at La Guerche

Birthplace of William the Conqueror

Sunday's church came courtesy of a visit to the town of Faliase in Normandy. We had decided to check it out after having seen the signs mentioning the castel of William the Conqueror,glad we did.

This is actually where the all-conquering William was born although the fortress you see today probably bears little resemblance to the original castle,some of it actually looks more like a power station!

Sadly time restraints meant we couldn't explore behind the walls...may have to return!