This climbing rose on growing up one of our perimeter walls. We had to put the mesh behind it when we had cows grazing in the field next door to save them snacking on the flowers. But as you can see, we did manage to rescue them!! Just hundreds of tiny buds - so will be as pretty as a picture for a while.

Must stop now and go and get lunch ready for the workers!!!

So now we are building up the walls of the cellar . . . .

And so back to work!!

We also went to a small town just north of Limoges called Oradour sur Glane. A truly moving experience for all of us.

This place was completed anihalated by two hundred German SS on 10th June 1944 and 642 of the 648 people in the community at the time were shot and burned and the place itself was raised to the ground by fire. Included the murder of 193 children. One lady and five young people survived.

In the early nineteen fifties General de Gaulle visited the place and it was decided to leave Oradour sur Glane exactly as it was as a memorial to the people who had lost their lives there and to all the other people in France who had lost their lives during the Second World War.

As a memorial, but also as a reminder of man's inhumanity to man, in the hope of there being no repeats of such savagery.

So far we do not seem to be learning, but the memorial remains.

A new Oradour has grown up closeby and is now a thriving town of two thousand people, many of whom are related to those who lost their lives.

After all that hard work it was decided that we could take a day off!! We went to the local market to buy olives, cheese, cherries and paella for supper!!

We also went to a Porcelain factory near Limoges. Porcelain is Limoges most famous production and is quite, quite beautiful. We took a short tour of the factory floor to watch adn learn about the process and then admired the finished results in the shop and did just a little shopping.

And so on this day we made seventy-seven cement mixer loads of concrete to make the base floor of the cellar!!! It took 'the team' just over three hours!! We were pretty impressed - we hope you are too!!

Once you have dug out a big hole you have to start filling it in again!!! the little spots you can see are little piles of concrete making supports for the strong metal mesh which goes under the concrete base.

And then to cap off the end of a very busy day one of our new friends popped round for a visit with her husband and while she was here she gave Gavin and well needed haircut!! His first since we were in India at the beginning of February!!

And after just a few hours work - this is what it looked like!!!

And then the man with the digger arrived and a local farmer delivered his trailer, which was to be used for carting the spoil away.

This is a set of 'before' pictures - you can see the red line where we plan for the cellar to go and the test hole that Gavin dug by hand to see what might be underneath and the neat and tidy outside the front area.

Just a couple of up to the minute pictures of some of 'the girls' just to show we are looking after them properly and they are looking after us with eggs!! We have had two days now with all nine of them laying an egg. And one of them is regularly laying large eggs with two yolks!!

Inside foundations are getting bigger!!

Christopher and Simon are our first visitors since we arrived here at the end of May. The opted for the working vacation arrangement!! It was their choice - Honestly!! They have worked very hard and so far have been here less than a week. We hae also taken them out and about a little bit, which has given us an hour or two off every now and then!!

It is important to check that it is possible to get through the crawl spaces underneath the gound floor!!

It probably wont be very clear to you right now, but these are beginning of the foundations underneath the ground floor!! Hopefully, in due course, all will become clear!!

Just looked back over what I have written and shown and realise that I have mentioned our 'lodger' twice!! Sorry about that!! But . . . .

Thought you might like to see one or two of our neighbours!! The first group do not have names!! But I did have to stop them eating the buds on the new climbing rose I had planted!! Next is Louise (our landlady) and her daughter Matilde and last, but certainly not least is Claude. A lovely character and full of all sorts of information and helpful advice!!

It would appear that we have taken in a lodger for a little while!! This little fellow has been turning up each evening about nine o'clock and flapping his wings outside until we open the window and let him in!! He then settles down for the night on a large nail in one of the ceiling beams - he doesn't seem to mind us just getting on with our evening, having supper, washing up, generally chatting or watching a movie. None of this seems to bother him. We leave the window open when we go to bed and he has gone when we get up in the morning. Just a beautiful 'extra' to living in the country.

Can't believe it is so long since I added photographs and comment to this Diary. Just give me a while to get the household and building site up and running for today!! and I will come and add some more - lots has happened over the last two or three weeks.