As I mentioned earlier, Kathryn, Gavin Declan and Cameron came for a week's holiday a little earlier this month and a great time was had by all, helped by the fact that we had some really good weather, with lots of sunshine. We started collecting apples; we collected a big bucket and a half of walnuts; continues picking raspberries to put in the freezer (can you imagine picking raspberries in october, something cannot be quite right!!); the chickens did us proud and we enjoyed a number of omolettes and sponge cakes !!

Just to let you know that we are all prepared for the upcoming winter and when we come in to our tiny rented cottage and get our wood burning stove stoked up we will be as war as toast until next springtime!!

Am sure these pictures should have been much further back, but I have only just run across them!! Andy and Sholpan celebrating their wedding in Oxford in September. Sholpan's parents had travelled all the way from Kazakstan to be part of this very special day.

One sunny afternoon in September this young man arrived in our village for a few days. He received a field for his cow to craze in and food and accomodation with Rene who runs the local forge in return for a little work. It appears that he young man was just touring his homeland of France at a very leisurely pace, being helpful and enjoying hospitality along the way.

Back to the cast iron bread oven front we found in the barn when we first bought it. You will see that we have now set it into the wall of the 'kitchen' where it will be above the cooker in due course.

Just a few shots to show you that the walls of the terrace are now beginning to go up. All most exciting.

And here is the 'Hobbitt' doorway made form re-cycled beams, which will allow access to the water tanks for watering the garden and to the space for keeping the lawnmower etc. Should have included this in the last entry but couldn't find the picture!!

Because the weather has been so good and we know the winter will soon be upon us, Gavin decided to work outside for a bit and get the terrace organised. This terrace will be raised up and go right along the back of the barn and up the gable end and will be three metres wide from the barn walls. In the corner we are putting the water saving tanks we purchased earlier in the year. They are now installed on these ridges and ready for the area to be walled up and covered in.

What do you think of these doors!! Thes double doors lead from the hallway into the living room. One long roomfrom front to back of the barn with the dining area on the left through the doors and the lounge to the right of the doors, which will lead straight through to the terrace over looking the garden.

And now back to the buildings works!! We have finally been connected up to the mains drainage system for the village. We have been waiting a long time for Monsieur Frappat to come and deal with this matter

A VERY IMPORTANT CONNECTION !!!

Again, the pictures have not printed out in the order I had hoped . . . but . . . never mind. We took bags and bags of apples from our garden from the old trees we have inherited (in fact, mostly from just one old tree) and fed them onto a tray on the upper floor of the barn being used. The apples were pushed into a chopping up shute and pushed downstairs. Then wrapped in hessian and put onto trays, pressed and hey presto!! Fabulous golden apple juice poured out of the bottom of this fabulous old machine in a very short time.

This particular machine was set up in the 1930's by the current owners grandfather and his ten year old son is already learning how the system works.

We came away with a bit over one hundred litres of this fabulous golden nectar!!!

A marvellous morning - we were made very welcome by all the old farmers - they speak their own local dialect, rather than straight forward french!!! The main object of the exercise seemed not to be the production of apple juice (this just seemed to happen!!) but to bring a bottle of wine and share it around with every one there and catch up on news, chatter and gossip!!

Oh yes, the first picture shows one of the farmers taking away all that was left of the apples after the pressing process has been completed. We think that they feed this to their pigs.

I keep trying to down load these pictures into the right order, but it is just not happening!! Anyway, I suppose it does not really matter!! Yesterday - a beautiful bright Sunday morning, just after we had turned the clocks back for the winter time - we set off with a french friend and neighbour of ours to meet a friend of his who was going to press all our apples into juice.

Now probably about six weeks since I added pictures and notes to this Blog. And for those of you who follow it carefully, I am really sorry for that. Have no idea how the time manages to fly passed so quickly, but there it is.

It is raining today and so am going to make a concerted effort to get you all caught up with what we have been doing.

First of all we made a trip to UK in September. A friend of ours from our time in India was bringing his young lady home to Oxford from Kazakstan to get married. We were proud to be included in this very special occasion for Andrew and Sholpan and we wish them all the very best for their future together.

We also recieved some photographs this morning of another wedding which took place this onth in Thailand of two more friends of ours. Alan and Gavin spent a number of years working togehter in Japan and Alan was very generous in allowing us to stay with him in Tokyo last year while we had a fabulous holiday in Japan. He and Yuri (his lovely Japanese bride) came to France to visit with us earlier in the year.

And then during the second week in October we had Kathryn and Gavin, Delcan and Cameron here again for a holiday during Declan's first half term from school break. We were so thrilled that the weather was so good for this trip and we were able to be out and about while they were here.