Lifestyle's blog

They were the crunchiest, fattest carrots we had ever tasted. What made them even more tasty was that we didn't buy them and we didn't grow them ourselves. They were a gift. Not from a neighbour but from the birds that come and go in our garden. I'm afraid there's not much by way of update on the work on our property in the Dordogne in this post. But I have to tell you how we happened across these carrots.

With regard to the renovation of our Dordogne property we really did things back to front. Even before we unpacked our bags we had ordered and put a deposit on a 10 metre by five metre swimming pool.

After all, the house was perfectly habitable. It didn't need anything more than a lick of paint. How wrong could we be.

Finally, I get the time to write about our experience of renovating our barn in the Dordogne and life in France in general. I should say that this is the story of our experience, the trials and tribulations of our renovation project and that others may have differing opinions.

Of course, any good advice for other would be home owners are all welcome too.

Forgot to mention our fantastic evening out at the Issigeac bodega last Sunday evening.

Bodegas are all the rage here in the Dordogne and Lot-et-Garonne. Every year during July and August our local towns host a huge street party. They are organised by that towns rugby club as a fundraiser.

Bands play all types of music in the street. There are lots of food stalls and lots of people just wandering about, chatting drinking and eating.

It's a really enjoyable event for all ages and goes from around 6pm until the small hours.

I had intended telling you all about our experiences to date of renovating our French farmhouse and barn but at this time of year there are so many other distractions in our garden that I think I'll put that on hold for now.

The Dordogne countryside is teeming with wildlife. This year, though, is a bit special. We've been blessed with a visit from a very rare visitor to British shores, the Golden Oriole.

Thanks to Gerry and Cliff I can now rant to my heart's content but nobody actually has to listen to me.

I'm new to all this but I think it will be a nice way to let you know what we're up to and for me to keep a diary that I can't lose.

I will use my new blog to tell you about my new life in france. I thought when we moved here that life in the french countryside would be slow and relaxed with all the time in the world to do absolutely nothing.