Chateau Blog

And my first go at growing garlic!

The Oregano Harvest. I’m running a little late this year, or maybe the oregano is ahead of schedule, I’m not sure. It’s June and I’ve just caught it before going to seed.

Just because I love it.

After 4 years - our big chandeliers finally arrived! What a ridiculous journey. Ordered in 2022 May. Built in China, shipped to Europe in 23. Stollen by Hungarian customs. Rebuild in 2025 after years of insurance and manufacturing negotiations. Shipped in March 26 and arrived in June. The boxes were beaten up but miraculously the glass beads and metal frames seem completely fine. I’m still digging through the boxes to confirm, but so far so good.

Tilleul flower season. The flowers are inconspicuous but their scent isn’t. It’s gorgeous. All the way down the driveway.

This weeks potato harvest

Bomby’s chestnut bomb Alaska, flamed in Grand Marnier for good measure.

They grow up so fast!

Baby chicks. 14 and counting

Auch cathedral over the Gers River.

Evening light.

Wisteria season

This year the Irises have done particularly well.

Our California poppies love the Gers

Veggie bins: I had no idea that lettuce could survive a minus 9 C winter. This year we had an unusually harsh frost that killed all the citrus and avocado trees, all of the bananas and damaged the olive trees… but the lettuce came through it just fine! Who could have imagined, frost hardy lettuce!

Dawn to dusk burn barrels. We put them on the tree stumps that we want to get rid of. It usually takes about three days to burn one out. Tough work, but it gets rid of all of the windfall branches and sticks, and gives me some purification time with the fires.

Last spring we started a little project to clean up some fallen trees that had been overgrown with blackberry and blackthorn thickets. We were hoping to clear what we thought to be a flat area about 8x8m to use as a storage area for gravel and tile. As we cleared we found that the flat area of thorns and deadfall was a bit bigger than we had expected. 120mx9m

Big storms and downed trees last week. The wind came in from the north, which is totally unheard of here. It took out a bunch of lovely old trees, mostly the ones with unhealthy or diseased root systems. So sad.

Spring springing.

In the process of creating a new gite above the chapel, we have taken down the old (structurally unsafe) beams and will be redoing the floor both upstairs and downstairs. This mid way stage though gives us an opportunity to see the lovely old 9thC chapel as it would originally have looked, before it was cut up into separate rooms.

Building a new toilet block for the event space at the old orangery.

The chapel is getting a new life. Built 1400 years ago this Romanesque chapel used to be the village church, until the village outgrew it. It has had many incarnations over the centuries. a chapel, a forge, a store room. In its new life it will be meditation, yoga and dance studio. ✨🪈🧘🏼‍♂️🪩✨

I picked up these nice old chairs on marketplace. Here they are drying after a couple of coats of anti rust treatment.

Lovely visit from the kind of old family friend that feels like family 🤗✨Please come back soon dear Liz and family.

After part of our dining room ceiling collapsed, we decided to seize the opportunity and insulate the ceiling and therefore the bedroom floor above it. We got to see the amazing wattle and daube of its 16thC construction (twigs, horse hair and clay, and beautiful old beams beneath), but decided to rebuild with modern materials (fibre glass and Sheetrock). We are also replacing the beautiful but dangerous old wiring, while we are in there.

I love the French canal system. Do you know that it takes 7 days and dozens of locks to go from our local river port on the Baise, Valance sur Baise, up to the canal system at Buzet sur Baise and the Garonne river. From there you can go all the way to Holland by canal boat…. Albeit slowly.

After several months of digging ditches, running power and visits from our electrician, our new pond aerator finally has lift off! It doesn’t look like much, but it’s a very necessary first step to a healthy pond.

Tis the season 🌻

The best way to handle a heat wave.

A little trip into Bascous. The heat is keeping everyone indoors, so these sleepy little villages are even quieter than usual.

After a year off, I’m back on micro blog. Here are some of this springs projects. Mostly still in progress as you can see.

The stream and new overflow pond. The new chicken house and run The new collombage for the relocation of the pool tech room New planting beds in the gite courtyard

Good one!