While most of our news so far has been about touring around the region, and generally having fun, I thought it was about time we showed you the property, and what we are getting up to to earn our keep. It's not all beer and skittles (or even wine and boules!) in Provence! We do have work to do, albeit very pleasant work most of the time.
This is the main house, where James and Lavinia live. You can just see the roof of our house, which is behind theirs, and slightly higher.
Looking at the property from the side, you can see more clearly how our part of the house is higher up on the right. Our house is the oldest part, about 14th Century, with the remains of the old water mill building joined on to our right. Behind the rock bank is the swimming pool. One of our first big tasks was to clear and weed all the vegetation off that bank and cut back the toi toi (pampas grass, for the northern hemisphere)
The small window on the first floor, level with James and Lavinia's second floor, is our kitchen, and the windows above are in our bedroom. Small windows on this side, but we have bigger windows on the sunny side.
This is our entrance; not quite so palatial as the main entrance! Our car is in the car port, and one of the neighbour's van's is in the communal parking area. The door to our courtyard is between the two cars.
This is the view from our car port! This building belongs to a couple in their 80's, Rene and Yvonne, and the house is split into three, with three generations of their family living there. It's all pretty basic living, but they are very friendly and always keen to talk - not a word of English, so Lew has an interesting time if I'm not around!
This is our courtyard on the sunny side of the house - after a bike ride in the sun: more about the weather later.
So, out our back door, through our back courtyard, and we're looking down on the garden and pool area with James and Lavinia's house to the right. This is the area where we've done most of the work so far, working on the bank, pruning oleanders, cutting back bamboo, pruning roses etc.
Plus of course the pool. Daily emptying of skimmer baskets, scrubbing down the walls and base of the pool, throwing in various chemicals, and doing filters, backwashes and all sorts of other pool vocabulary I've learnt!
The property is bounded on three sides by the River Argen, and in our part of the river are the remains of the old water mill and barrage.
Along the river is a path, which has to be maintained. The river floods from time to time, which completely re-forms the path and geography of the bank. The last major flood was 14 months ago, when the river nearly reached the house! There's still a lot of work to do sorting out the debris and trees which are half in and half out of the river.
Some areas look like this...
And it should all look like this...
These ten sheep belong to a couple down the road, Titi and Lydie. They live in a one roomed house, with no grass whatsoever, so their sheep move around the neighbourhood as required. We've had to set up an electric fence to keep them out of the chicken coop where there's free food, but otherwise they are no extra work for us.
So, last week work began with felling a large poplar tree, which Lavinia had decided was shading the olive trees too much, and it had to come down. Luckily we weren't expected to man the chainsaw for this one. No, they had contracted the job out to a couple of highly experienced arborists.......Titi and Lydie.... Titi had brought along his largest, finest chainsaw for the job...
Just the right size for the tree in question...
It didn't take Titi long to don full safety gear: helmet, visor, gloves, chaps, the lot, and then he was straight into the job...
The cigarette stayed firmly in place for the majority of proceedings..
All going well, so far. Lydie is just in view to left of camera, providing constant feedback and encouragement. I'm sure she was only shouting to be heard above the noise of the chainsaw..
Lavinia and I keeping at a safe distance, discussing the merits of Titi's "derriere"!
Mmmmn, suddenly things were not looking so good. Lydie called in for closer inspection and helpful advice...
When in doubt, hit it with something hard..
Finally things are starting to move in the right direction...aiming to the RIGHT of the yellow rocks..
Almost! Shame about the small conifer that got cut off in its prime, but a small price to pay, when it could have been the fishpond!
The rest of the day was spent cutting off the branches and dragging them over to the fire pit and burning them - heavy work, we were all pretty tired by the end of it.
Needing a day off after our exertions, Lew and I took off to Aups market. For those of you who have been requesting some more food photos, prepare yourselves. Aups is probably the best market we've been to so far, plus it was a stunning day, our first day in shorts and T shirts. The weather has changed so quickly from winter to summer, with about 3 days of spring in between. The last three days have been 24-26 degrees, and I'm checking the pool temperature every day, currently at 20 degrees.
However, back to the market.
Lots of lovely veges, as usual
Plenty of cheeses, with lots of free samples
White asparagus - we bought some to try and weren't impressed. Interestingly, asparagus is the only veg we've come across in France that is more expensive than it is in NZ. Not sure why, as its all local.
Lots of saucisson - Lew must have had at least half a sausage-worth of free samples here!
More cheese..
Small dogs.....oh, sorry, they weren't for sale.
The inevitable olives. The white bits amongst the green olives on the left are garlic cloves, which are marinated. Strangely enough, they aren't at all strong, and don't even taste of garlic really. Not quite sure what the point of it is, in which case!
Strawberries and raspberries are coming on strong already. These were a bit expensive; we're getting good strawberries for 2 euros a kilo - about 3 dollars.
Bread in all shapes and textures
Paella - we haven't tried this yet, but it looks and smells great, and you can buy a hefty portion of 6 or 7 euros to take away.
Lew is very partial to the chickens, which also smell very tempting
And for dessert, macarrons - soft almond biscuits in many different flavours. We were a bit disappointed with our choices, we bought an orange blossom, and a raspberry one. The natural one we tasted was incredibly almondy, but the flavoured ones tasted a bit synthetic. Maybe we just chose the wrong flavours.
With all the activity in the market square, the surrounding streets were surprisingly quiet, and we wondered around for quite a while in the sun.
Too bad if you want to drive down this street, there's only room for one!
A bit of street art, old style...
And my favourite...
Loosely translated as "its not OK to stick your posters here, but its OK for me to deface the wall with my posh writing"!!
Back to base camp for a bit more tree work. Titi turned up again with his log splitter, to attack the pile of logs/trunks/stumps which are too big to split by hand. This time he upped the safety standards considerably, and conceded to wearing a pair of gloves all day.
He made Lew feel a bit under-dressed with only a visor and gloves on. We were all sweltering away in 25 degrees in the shade.
Nine hours later (including the obligatory 2 hour lunch break for Titi) we had a pretty impressive three log wide stack! It was so long it wouldn't fit in the camera shot!
The pool was now looking even more inviting, so I was just considering launching myself in, when I noticed that someone had got there before me...
As I am now a fully-fledged operator of the skimmer net, I soon scooped him up into a bucket and took him over to Titi (as well as being a professional tree feller, sheep farmer, and log splitter, he was sure to be a snake expert too) and sure enough, Titi confidently identified it as being "pas dangereuse" - not a problem. However, even with the snake dispatched down the river, I decided that maybe it was a bit late for a swim, and I should just have a glass of wine instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment