We took the morning off yesterday - it was Sunday after all!! And went to this plant sale at an Arboretum nearby. I think there is no doubt that the Arboretum itself will be well worth a visit at some future time. But for now we managed to buy quite a number of good plants for the garden. In fact this is the last entry for today in this blog as I am off out into the sunshine again to plants the rest of yesterday's purchases!!

This picture is of the beams in our kitchen. The weather is so gorgeous we have the door and window open all day and this fellow obviously thinks this might be a good place to build his nest for this year!! He and is partner have been in and out quite a bit checking out the facilities to see if it would be suitable!! We shall just have to wait and see!!

And now the trenches look like this!!

So now we have had ten tons of gravel, eight tons of sand and thirty bags of cement delivered and we are off and running for foundations for the terrace at the back of the barn and the garage in the front.

The Commune Caretaker for Naillat came and fitted the water meter to our connection from the road, but nothing else (no tap etc) for us to be actually able to get any water out of the system!! Anyway Gavin has fixed up this funny old set up so that we can get on with work involving water!! He said I was not to put the picture on to the Blog!!

Now seems to be the time for apple blossom and it is all over the place!! Hopefully this will be a good sign of a good crop later in the year. The cherry and plum trees flowered some time ago and the weather was still so diabolical that the crop will doubtless suffer this year. But as this is our first year here the whole thing is somewhat trial and error!!

I did not really think we would get started on any sort of kitchen garden (Le Potager) until next year!! But Gavin's tummy got the better of us and so we have started with a soft fruit area. Raspberries, blackberries, red and black currants and green, yellow and red gooseberries.

No I know we said we were buying 'point of lay hens . . . . but, can you imagine our surprise when first thing the next morning we found an EGG !!

And in fact, since then we have found six altogether - we are thrilled to bits !!

And then . . . . . home sweet home . . . . .

So what do youthink of 'our girls' ??

From this . . . . . to this . . . . . for the time being anyway.

Well, finally the day dawned!!!

We were up at six in the morning and on the road by half past!! Big effort for a pair of retired old foggies!! And an hour later we were at the monthly Farmers' Market of Les Horrelles.

Another half an hour later and we had found what we were looking for and had purchased nine 'point of lay' chickens to move into the accommodation we have been building for them over the past month. We bought three standard brown hens, three black ones with ginger 'highlights' and three white ones with grey tips to their feathers. They were very unceremoniously packed into three cardboard boxes. We handed over our money and they were ours!!