A Walk in the Woods......

After the wind and rain, yesterday was"il fait beau" and we walked up the hill past Merlin and through the oak woods. We never cease to be amazed by as we come across hamlets previously unknown to us and unseen behind the cover of summer foliage. Our walk took us past the hamlets of les Cazettes and Poumayrol before returning via an old track leading us down the hillside.

les Cazettes

La Bouriane

La Bouriane extends from Gourdon to the Lot Valley and from Cahors to Puy L'Eveque. It is a region of oak and chestnut woods where the limestone disappears under a bed of sandstone, a lovely red and ochre colour. This soil favours the cultivation of chestnut, pine and walnut trees. There are vineyards galore on the slopes with a southern aspect. A number of rivers carve their way through the plateau creating a hilly, mixed wooded countryside scattered with farms and an abundance of wildlife. Butterflies, golden eagles, buzzards, kites, deer and boar are to be found throughout the area, and on Sundays, in the season, the sounds of the hunt can be heard ringing around the hills.

Le vent, le vent, le grand vent....

Mon dieu, after two days of torrential rain we were hit in the early hours by "le vent", and, with apologies to Bruce Springsteen, "it blowed away, it blowed away, my French home it blowed away'- well not quite. The potager is now a paddy field and the prospective chicken run is now a duck pond.

Chicken run -now duck pond

........ and there is a strange looking man wearing a mask, rowing around in the cellar singing, "All I Ask of You" in a very operatic voice- I think he must have been washed down from Paris! I have told Lindsay to stay away from the cellar at all costs.

Potager(paddy field)

It is a little calmer and drier now so hopefully the worst is over and after watching the tv news channels we seemed to have been spared the worst of the storm. Serves us right, only last week we were talking about the fact that we were rarely troubled by wind here------perhaps I should rephrase that.

Yesterday we visited Brive with John and Jackie, continuing Lindsay's preliminary search for her wedding outfit. We were unsuccessful this time but I'm sure we will return in the near future. We found a very nice bistro -Bistrot du Boucher- http://www.bistrotduboucher.fr/ John and I had a fantastic Limousin steak, beautifully cooked, while Lindsay and Jackie had Cabillaud with a wonderful sauce. She can't remember what is was and refuses to think about it because she says it's boring and I'm beginning to sound like Michael Winner and should be very worried. On that note perhaps I should now tune into "Final Score".

Where we are

We are living in a hamlet in the north west of the Department du Lot in an area known as "la Bouriane". The hamlet lies between Frayssinet-le-Gelat and Gourdon. It is made up of nine houses and a fine Romanesque church and cemetery. It is surrounded by farmland and oak and chestnut woods but is very close to several friendly and truly welcoming communities.

Briefly- The story so far

Having spent many years holidaying in the south west of France with our children Matthew and Erin, we returned in September 2007 to search for a new home and a different way to live the rest of our lives. Matthew was living and enjoying a successful career abroad. Erin who was with us for nearly eighteen years had tragically lost her life to meningitis in January 2004. This, after also losing our son, Adam, twenty one years earlier, shattered our previously happy and contented lives. The jigsaw of our life had been cruelly dismantled and could not be put back together as before. In the aftermath of the trauma of Erin's death we were forced to give up our work and our home but we were determined to go on and build another life with new memories for Matthew and, of course, for Erin and Adam because they still are and always will be our children, in a different place, but still with us. So with the help of our son, Matthew, and some very good friends, we survived the truly awful first years and arrived to start the next chapter of our lives in our new french home on a bright but cool November morning in 2007.
We are now happily settled in a beautiful and peaceful part of France which holds many happy memories for us. We have wonderful, friendly neighbours and a caring community around us. Matthew, who continues his career abroad is now engaged to Bethan and they are to be married in September in North Wales. We are so happy for them.
That's it so far, in a nut shell, as they say(more may be revealed later........).