Neither common nor garden - Update # 39

20 June 2016

John has been busy in the garden again, as these latest pics show... and, well, it's a start...

The growth of our perimeter plants is amazing

Apple tree and peach

Now I'll be able to get at the grape vine to prune it...

Those perimeter plants...

These are at the intersection, and what a display!

Not a ronce in sight

OK, so it's still a building site...

Don'tcha just love John's arty haze-framed photos - they give the garden a mysterious air!

Fresh as - Update # 38

18 June 2016

Laurie wrote to say the painting is done, and her enthusiasm is contagious:

At last all done, place looks fantastic...can't wait for you to see. The staining of the beams upstairs really do (sic) look amazing against the white paint, it's all very clean lines but doesn't effect (sic) the 'old barn look' at all...had a clean through and warned Tom, Brian and Gregg that there would be trouble if they get it dirty 😀 (although Chaz was the worst).
Enjoy the pics.

If poring over pics on the computer and peering at every tiny detail is enjoying the pics, then we have done, Laurie; that's for sure.

And here they are...:

Re-stained barn doors; original weeds

Re-stained oak beam - very dark and bold against the white

Clean lines and casseroles

New architrave around bathroom door; new teeny fridge

No trace of the plaster 'trous' left by Phil when he installed the stairs...

...and now, going upstairs:

Smooooth, white wall

Love that floor! Rugs ain't bad, either.

Can't help wondering how Laurie managed to reach that far corner...:)

Spot the sentries

Crisp, clean lines...

...and appropriately wiggly ones too. 'Close up' of the sentries.

And not forgetting the dépendance, which got a lick of thick, white matte paint on the bed platform, ready for the mattress which was delivered last week:

We think that painting the bed platform white will make the most of the natural light

Boogeys-I the first night in the Heidi-hole...:) Now all I need is a couple of goats.

It's so very hard to be so far away right now; it's sometimes almost too much to bear. But it gives me warm fuzzies to think that a family emissary will be there on Wednesday to enjoy the very particular delights of La Fromagerie.

We left a barn somewhere here - Update # 37

13 June 2016

...and now it's lost in the long grass. Oh well. Perhaps when archaeologists are finished finding ancient cities at Angkor Wat, they could use their airborne laser scanning technology to help us find it again.

In the foreground is the stone terrace with its flowering plants

Gaura on the right, lavender centre, rosemary to the left; they seem to have survived the winter OK!

The walnut is leafing up nicely...

John has been to tidy up the garden, and perhaps it would've been prudent to get him round there a few weeks back. He spent hours slashing and hacking and blade-trimming the long grass and then had to go around with the strimmer.





After all that effort, this is the clearing he managed to create in La Fromagerie's rampant growth:

The grape vine leading down to the hazelnut with its quince graft...

The road is just to the right, believe it or not!

The péripherique of plants that we planted is doing well :)

Perhaps our romantic notion of a 'meadow' is unrealistic, given the rate of growth in spring and early summer, but we will see what it's like through one full year of seasons, and then make a decision.

In the meantime, we've asked John to go back in the next few days and finish the task of tidying up.

Son C and girlfriend will be there very soon!