It’s been snowing here! Quite a rare occasion for Brittany – the children have been having great fun – school has been cancelled for two days and I have lost count of the number of snowmen, ladies children and of course, snowdogs, igloos etc that have been built!
I have two chimneys in my house, both lined with a stainless steel chimney liner. From time to time a bird comes down the tube and flies into the wood burner at the bottom, this is not a problem (so long as the fire’s not lit!), I just open the windows in the room and open the wood burner and off goes the slightly puzzled bird.
The other day I woke up to hear noises to indicate that this had happened. I went downstairs, but could see no bird, so I pulled down the flue that covers most of the tube. After an hour or so I could hear the noises increasing, and out popped a Tawny Owl (Une chouette, which incidentally also means smart or great).
The owl was very sleepy (this being day time for humans and so night time for owls, I presume) and did not want to fly away.
After leaving it there for most of the day, I decided that I needed to move it, so donned some thick gloves and put it in the wood shed. I thought that it would fly away during the night, but the following day it was still there, bearly moving. Oh dear, it was surely suffering from shock, my daughter wanted me to find a dead mouse to feed it, but not have too many dead mice in stock, I left it for another night. Happily it flew during the night and now I can hear it twit-t wooing in the oak tree in front of the house each night. I like happy endings!
Well I did it! It cost a lot of money, but its fantastic, mows and collects wet grass and you can empty the collecter without even getting off your seat!
It is so simple to use that my son, Hugh, mowed the lawn today
Hey, that’s great, no more lawn mowing. As a single mum, I’m all in favour of child labour – hey look he can empty it, too!
One of my most important tools of my job is my lawn mower. I have over 1.5 hectares of land mostly laid to lawn and it takes me around 4.5 hours per week to keep the grass cut neatly. The tool for the job is a sit-on lawnmower with a cutting width of 120cm and three rotary blades. The cut grass can either be mulched by attaching a flap over the exit hole, which forces it back into the blades to be chopped up further and left on the lawn, or collected through a side mounted tube which throws the clippings up over the back of the mower into three collecting bins mounted at the back.
When I bought the mower they told me that it wasn’t quite big enough for the size of the ground, but at 3,500 euros, I considered that it was within my budget, whereas the alternative started at 10,000 euros. Mistake!
I have been riddled with problems with this mower, drive belts breaking regularly, pulleys needing replacing, springs breaking. I think that (a) its not a brilliant machine (badged generic mower with Briggs and Stratton Engine) and the work that it does it just cannot cope with.
This weekend, after a short holiday away from the gites, I tried to mow – the battery was flat, so I jump started it from my car. I mowed for about 5 minutes and the blades cut out (after a bit of investigation, this was also due to no power in the battery. I charged the battery overnight, but no joy. I bought a new battery and charged it, then started to mow again. After 10 minutes, the secondary (but also important) drive belt for the mower bed snapped.
I managed to find another belt at my local lawn mower shop and I fitted it today -it took around 2 hours.
The main problem with my lawns is that they are sown on what was farm land, very well cultivated and heavily fertilised with nitrates during the 1970s, before the Agricultural control boards began to regulate the use of fertilizers. Nitrates promote green growth in plants, ie lots of grass!
Whilst I was in the lawn mower shop, they informed me that a customer who has 5 hectares of land around a lake had bought a Wolf A100K, a semi professional mower with ability to cut and collect wet grass. This customer has found that this model is not big enough for his land, so he wants to buy the next model up, he is selling his second hand 25hour usage mower for 8,000 euros. A lot of money, but one of the most important tools of my job.
I havent decided whether to buy or not yet, I can go and try the mower out first, then decide. I’ll post the result.
Saturday is the busiest day for the gites, I ask holiday makers to vacate their gite before 10am and the new clients are able to arrive from 4pm onwards. I have five houses (total floor surface of 320m2) with a total of 11 bathrooms to clean. Beds to change for 27 people, welcome packs to provide, washing to do, guests to say goodbye to and new guests to welcome and show around. I do have a lady to help me, but it’s all carried out on a very tight timescale.
I think today was the hardest day in 5 years. Last week I had a family of fifteen people occupying 3 of the gites – they were very nice and had a lovely holiday. They ate together in one of the gites, and consequently crockery, cutlery, glasses and all cooking implements became displaced and muddled. They helped me sort it out – its fairly easy as most of the gites have distinct crockery,etc and also I provide an inventory, so that we could check off what goes where. The children helped me move all the items to the appropriate gites, whilst their parents packed the car.
This week I have another family of 15 occupying 3 gites (but not the same three as last week!) so next week I have to do the same again.
It was also difficult this week as people started to arrive for their holidays at 11am (not 4pm), and although they were happy to just drop off their luggage and disappear for lunch, it all takes time out of a very busy schedule.
Tonight I am waiting for the last family to arrive then a large glass of wine and early to bed!
Welcome to my blog. A short history of why I am here : I was working in the computer industry in England with two small children Elizabeth and Hugh (2 and 4 at the time) and never quite seeing enough of them. I had a nanny, so they were well looked after, but never really profitted from my life as a Mum.
Just before Elizabeth started school, my husband, Ian and I decided to “jump ship” and move to France. We bought La Lohuas in December 2002 and worked furiously in the first half of the year to create three gites. This worked well but didn’t bring enough money in to live, so at the end of 2004 we started to renovate the barn at the side of the property to make two more gites. These were finished in spring 2006.
The major change during this time was that Ian and I split up in October 2005 and he moved out. I am now running the business on my own and am in the process of buying Ian’s share of the house and business.
To see the full layout and photos of the gites, you can visit https://www.brittanygites.com/
