As ever, properly morngy in Limoges airport ready to fly home. Beautiful frosty morning today, mist hanging in the trees, very noisy bull in the field out front. He was properly carrying on. He was focused very intently on the farm down the road so I think he may have been bellowing for num nums. 

Usual ritual, cleaning, washing up, not leaving bread in the bread bag. No one wants to return to a bag of hairy cherry tomatoes left in the fridge from a previous trip.

Spent a couple of minutes surveying our handywork of the last few days, had a wander around the back garden and down the lane. Big balls of mistletoe in the top of the trees and a gentle tapping of a bird’s beak on something close by. Sigh.

It’s been a rollercoaster this first year. It’s been particularly wonderful watching a full turn of the seasons in this beautiful place. At one point we’d love to be here, fully stocked up like we’re expecting a zombie apocalypse, and wait for the snow. I can’t imagine anything better than watching a blizzard roll in over the hills from in front of the wood burner. 

Every time we turn the key it’s like coming home, but the crushing downer I end up on every time we leave I find really difficult to cope with. I miss it terribly, and I want to get started on some of the other rooms in the big house now, very very much.

The big kitchen needs to be our next project, but this is a complicated one. We need a wall removing, which we don’t think will be too difficult, but the layout is tricky. We have a sink in the corner, a built in corner cupboard, an awkwardly placed stone fireplace and a very low window. All of these things are making planning placement of units difficult. We have some big decisions to make on how to heat the house. We’d like some sort of wood fired/combi central heating, along the lines of a French equivalent to a Rayburn, but we have to figure out how that will work, and power our lovely big school radiators which I’d hate to lose. So much to think about but very excited to get things started. 

Also can’t wait to start on the veg garden, lots more clearing to do, and build some raised beds from the trees that we’ve already taken down.

So, I’ll busy myself in the winter, with planning and plotting and scheming until our next visit in the new year. I have been asked to write another article for French Property News, the deadline for which is Feb/March for the May edition, so that will tie in nicely.

Lots to do my lovelies!

TTFN xx