When we bought this house, we found, propped up against the outside wall, a large metal fire back, broken in two, with the name Isabelle Mahue and the year 1935 cast on it. We had no idea who she was or what she had to do with this house and nor did the neighbours.

Today we went for a walk, passing a large house whose garden is always beautifully kept; the elderly owner was in the garden and asked if we were looking for the sarcophagus (at which point I really wondered how good my grasp of the French language was) and when we looked blank, invited us into the garden. He took us to a small, ancient, Roman church tucked away behind the house, in the porch of which were, to my amazed relief, two sarcophagi. Apparently many centuries ago, the church belonged to a local bishop; he and another priest, who was killed on the road outside the house during the wars of religion, were buried in these sarcophagi, which were placed on the roadside, but when the road was widened several years ago, they were moved into the chuch porch.

This elderly gent, who had been sent away to a religious school at the age of 14, with the intention of making a priest of him, then took us for a look around the church, with its hand-tooled leather altar front and frescoed walls. He apologised for the lack of light (there’s no electricity), but showed us where the key is kept so that we can let ourselves in, early in the afternoon, on a bright, sunny day, if he’s not around. The whole place was superb and I’d have loved to take photos, but it just didn’t seem an appropriate thing to do, so if you’d like to see it for yourselves, you’ll just have to pay us a visit.

The man asked where we live; ” Oh, the Mahue house!” was his reaction. Apparently, he knew Isabelle Mahue, who was very short and very fat; born in 1883, she lived in the house which is now ours until her death in1970 and is buried in a little cemetery beside the Roman church, along with several bishops and other locals.

We learnt lots more about our neighbour, such as his job as an interrogator of torture victims during the Algerian war (we disagree on whether he was the torturer – our French isn’t that good yet) and how his father filled in half the moat that runs round his house, and have been invited to go back on a warmer day so he can show us photos. A fascinating man.

The kitchen was a whole 8ºC this morning; noticeably warmer than the rest of the house, which started off at 5º but dropped to 4º as the day wore on. The forecast is for -10º tonight, but then beginning to warm up a bit next week. I hope so; I feel like the Michelin man in my 5 sweaters, 2 pairs of trousers and (inspired gift from Kieran) my electrically heated socks!!! They’re brilliant!

Nick and Kieran started work on what will be the second bathroom today; the ceiling is now plasterboarded, but not plastered as we went out for a bike ride this afternoon. The brilliant sunshine belied the temperature; we had to keep moving to keep warm.

I prepared the yellow bedroom for painting this morning, but when I got the paint out, discovered that it was frozen in the tin. An hour on top of the stove in the kitchen and it was OK to use, but what a good excuse to have a heater on where I was working!

The “ice sculpture” photos are of what Nick tipped off the top of the water butt 3 days ago; it’s very beautiful, but I wish it would melt now.

Today was my first English class after our hols and I’ve found it really hard to get my head around preparing the lesson this week. But after several hours of head scratching and internet searching, I finally came up with a lesson plan I was happy with. We were doing the future tense, so, having covered the weather, past, present and future, I introduced the topic of the upcoming French presidential elections. The French all have strong political opinions, so I thought this was something that would interest them; it certainly did…… however, they were so animated by the subject that they completely neglected the whole point of the class, ie, to speak English! In spite of my repeated reminders, the majority of the class was conducted in French!!!!! (note to self – learn to be more assertive)

But who could be cross with such lovely people; Nick was using the car today, so I cycled into Nogaro for class, to the horror of my students, who wouldn’t contemplate going out on a bike in such cold weather. Maithée, my hardest-working student and fellow cyclist then insisted on giving me her silk gloves for under my thick gloves, so that my hands stayed warm on the return trip, assuring me that they were her spare pair. Thank you, Maithée.

When I got home, I discovered that the grey bedroom, which we’ve been using as a store-room, study and general dumping ground is now empty, in preparation for its conversion to a second bathroom. The computer is on the landing, which feels very strange; a subtle hint, perhaps, that I need to get on with decorating the yellow bedroom. Perhaps I can sneak a radiator in there before I start; I know I’m a wimp, but I’d rather be sitting by the fire than working in about 3-5ºC, which is as warm as most of the house gets at the moment.

Roll on spring!

It’s bitterly cold now; -8ºC for the last few nights and only about 4ºC max in the daytime. The days have been beautiful, though; clear blue skies and sunshine, so it could be a lot worse. It just means the motivation to leave the kitchen fireside is remarkably difficult to find as the kitchen is the only heated room and the rest of the house is at about 3ºc.

Last night the supply to the water heater froze up, but that’s now thawed and lagged. It’s really no warmer in the grange that it is outside; it’s where I store veg and this morning the leeks were frozen!

However, Nick and Kieran have braved the cold over the last couple of days, putting up more ceiling beams in the back of the grange and plastering one wall and the ceiling in the next bedroom. As soon as the plaster’s dry, I’ll have no excuses left and will have to start decorating in there. I hope it warms up a bit by then!

The heater in the bathroom died a few days ago; nice timing! It’s currently in bits on the kitchen table; I hope they can fix it.

That’s it for now; if you’re reading this in a warm, centrally heated house, spare a warm thought for us!

After several nights of sub-zero temperatures and days of around zero, we woke yesterday to snow! Not what we were expecting down here, but life’s full of surprises, isn’t it? By this afternoon most of it had disappeared, due to a beautiful, sunny afternoon; so I’m glad we got out and took photos yesterday.

We haven’t got back into work on the house yet, after our hols; largely because, apart from the kitchen, the house is unheated. It was only 3ºC when we came home, but achieved a whole 8ºC today – it felt positively tropical! So the temptation is to stay put in the kitchen, “looking after” the fire. Tomorrow is meant to be our return to work day, so hats, gloves and electrically heated socks at the ready – we’ll see!

The locals tell us the cold won’t last long and that February 15th is the end of winter here; I hope they’re right!

We got back from Australia on Friday evening; for those who don’t know, we went to Perth for 3 weeks to visit Gemma and Johnny.

We had a fantastic holiday, staying at Gemma and Johnny’s apartment for the first few days, where they threw a “welcome barbecue” for us to meet lots of their friends. What a great bunch of people they were; Toni and Chris even brought a spare guitar for me to play. The apartment block boasts 2 swimming pools, so we were able to swim every morning, what luxury!

After a few days to recover from jet-lag, we hired a camper van for 9 days and travelled inland to Hyden, where we saw our first kangaroo, and visited the campsite museum, full of everything from biscuit tins to sewing machines and hand woodworking tools. There was also a collection of wax cylinder records and the machines to play them on, as well as old 78rpm record players and over 3000 records, all catalogued; the owner was more than happy to play anything for us, so we chose an Ella Fitzgerald and something by Frank Sinatra.The next day we headed down to the coast to Esperance. The town wasn’t much to write home about, but the beaches were incredible; pure white, fine sand, big waves and hardly a soul about! We climbed a “hountain” as Kieran called it – too big for a hill but too small for a mountain; Frenchman’s Peak was a huge lump of rock with a hole near the summit. The views from the top were breathtaking.

From there, we went to Albany, where we  had our first try at snorkelling. Nick’s moustache made the mask leak, so he had to give up, but I loved it and saw all sorts of fish. We visited some amazing rock formations and a huge natural bridge where the waves came crashing in, and saw the “blowholes” where big waves send great updraughts of air through holes in the rocks above, so strong they blew Nick’s hat off when he stood over them!

From Albany we moved on to Denmark, which must be full of elderly hippies; every other shop does tarot readings or aura readings or sells beads, crystals and joss sticks! A very laid back sort of place, though! Near Denmark is the Valley of the Giants, a forest of huge Red Tingle trees, where there’s a tree top walk. It was amazing to walk on a level with the tree tops; you could see for miles around. The next stop was the Gloucester tree, which Gemma was determined I should climb. It stands 61m tall, which didn’t sound that high to me, till we arrived and craned our necks to see the top. There were what looked like overgrown nails, 153 of them, hammered into the trunk in a spiral from the bottom to the top, where there was a platform. By the time I’d done the first 17 steps, I’d already decided that I didn’t like this game; but Gemma had gone to great pains to tell me about her work colleague, who was “even more of a scaredy-cat” than me, and who’d climbed it, so I plodded on, my knees like lumps of jelly. I did finally reach the top, where Nick kindly waited till I’d recovered a bit before taking a photo. Luckily, on my descent, there was nobody going up, as the person going down has to squeeze round the outside of the person going up!

The following day was a long drive to Margaret River, where Johnny would meet us. We tried to get fuel at one garage, but the van was too tall to fit under the canopy; we were very nearly out of fuel by the time we found another petrol station!

Margaret River is a very touristy area, with lots of vineyards, breweries, a lavender farm, an olive oil farm, chocolateries, coffee specialists, nougat makers and loads more besides. We spent 2 days tasting and testing as much as we possibly could, before heading back to Perth.

We arrived back in Perth on Australia Day, in the middle of a heat wave, so temps up to 42C. In the evening we went down to the banks of the Swan River with some of the other people from the apartment block, to watch the most amazing firework display I’ve ever seen, set off from pontoons in the middle of the river. Mother nature played her part, too, with thunder and lightning and a very refreshing downpour to cool us all down.

In the last few days we visited Fremantle, with its prison which only closed in 1991, played “supagolf”, or silly golf as we called it, and spent a day going to Rottnest, a traffic-free island an hour and a half’s ferry ride from Perth. We saw dolphins in the water, following the boat, causing great excitement to everyone on board. We hired bikes to get about the island, but it was too hot to do many miles, so we went swimming and snorkelling again in the afternoon, a great way of staying cool. Later that evening Nick and I went to the Ellington jazz club, withing walking distance of Gemma’s, to see the Chris Foster, Nick Abbey and Ben Falle Trio – brilliant!

So now it’s back to reality, the shock of sub-zero temperatures and even snow today! I hope you enjoy the photos if you can be bothered to look through all of them!

We’ve got the architect’s drawings now and suddenly our building project seems so much more real! The architect will submit his plans next week for planning permission, which should be granted in 2 to 3 months; we can do inside work before we get permission, but have to wait to do the external stuff.

Up to now, it’s been mostly demolition, or so it seems; so to have the prospect of getting the builder in to start on the construction is really exciting.

Well, we survived yesterday’s storm; in fact we came through unscathed and this morning dawned bright and sunny with hardly a breath of wind. It’s been a busy day, though, by our current standards anyway.

It started off normally enough; I had an English lesson to prepare for this afternoon, which was mostly done when the architect arrived at 10.30 with the preliminary drawings for our building project. He said he’d be here about an hour, so I thought I could finish planning my lesson then. But he was nowhere near finished when Kieran, Julie and Adrian arrived, starving hungry, at 12.30, so they drank tea while Daniel concluded what he needed to do. We hastily warmed some soup and ate while Julie explained that she and Kieran had had to abandon the new car yesterday evening as it took so long to get through to the rescue people that the credit on her phone ran out just as she was about to tell them where the car was! When she and Kieran got back to Julie’s it was to hear that the fridge had died as a result of numerous power cuts during the day. The three of them went to take the car to a garage this morning, which closed just as they arrived, so the car won’t be looked at till Monday now. I think Ade and Julie must have been very bad in a previous life!

I ate my lunch as fast as I could and took my half-done lesson with me, leaving the rest of them to their pudding. I managed to stretch what I’d prepared to last an hour and a half, but felt very guilty for not having done a better job when, at the end of class, one of the students brought out a “galette des rois”, the traditional cake served on January 6th to celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, and a bottle of cider. The galette contains a figurine and the person who finds it is crowned king for the day. My students were interested to hear of my blog and wanted the address, so…. pour tous mes etudiants, bonjour! Il vous faut traduire cette page vous-memes; pas par fonctionne d’ordinateur!

At some point in all this, Nick and Kieran found the time to insulate and plasterboard the outer wall of the yellow bedroom; just needs the wall and ceiling plastering now and I can start decorating. It feels like progress!

The architect had had to make several changes to his plans for the house, so he returned shortly after I got home; this time just for half an hour, or so he said. An hour and a half later, I had to go for aperitifs at the Clan (where I teach), leaving Nick to sort the planning stuff with Daniel. I was the only English person there this evening, so no chance to take the easy option where language was concerned; I think this must be the first day since we’ve been here that I’ve spoken far more French than English, including some pretty technical stuff. I’m exhausted and heading for bed.

Goodnight et bonne nuit!

We went to an auberge in Gamarde on Tuesday for a surprise 50th birthday party for our friend Adrian; as promised, the magret de canard was the best we’d ever tasted. Ade thought he was going out for a quiet lunch, but was surprised (pleasantly, I hope) when nine people turned up.

Yesterday Kieran and Nick started work on the tart-up of the next bedroom; they’ve plasterboarded the ceiling and started to insulate the outside wall. I’ve repainted the bathroom, which was looking tatty.

Adrian and Julie have just bought a new car and were planning to pick it up from St. Foy la Grande, in the Dordogne, today. But Ade’s got a bad back and can’t drive, so Kieran went with Julie. We’ve just heard that the new car has broken down part way home and they’re waiting for the breakdown people. Ade had to text us as he’s in the middle of a power cut; not a good day!

For the last 2 days we’ve been basking, rather smugly, I have to admit, in glorious sunshine and temperatures you’d expect in the UK in April or May. It’s amazing how fast things can change! The wind is now howling around the house and down the chimneys and the rain is falling in sheets (and pouring down the chimney onto the woodburner!) It’s only two years since the “tempete”, which tore roofs from houses, left hundreds of villages without water or electricity and flattened huge swathes of forest between here and the Atlantic coast. Because there are so many holes in our grange roof, we called Rooftop Chimney Cleaning Services to fix tarpaulins to the inside of it, to direct the water out through the eaves at the back; I can hear them flapping in the wind as I sit here, typing. We’ve battened down all the hatches we can; all we can do now is hope that the wind will subside before it does any damage, and that Kieran and Julie will get home without any more problems! Watch this space for the next exciting instalment of “A Year in the Gers”.

It was back to work today; and for most of France, in fact, as when a bank holiday falls on a Sunday, they don’t get the Monday off!

We had plenty to do; wood to chop as we’d nearly used all the previously cut firewood; the dishwasher to take to pieces to try to make it work without having to tip it up 2 or 3 times at the beginning of every cycle; and the bedroom to finish. The last was mostly my responsibility; it’s only a tart-up and I still need to paint the fireplace, mosaic the inside of it and wax polish the floor, but those tasks can be done at a later date. For now, Kieran’s itching to get started on the next room, so we’ve moved around; after all, who are we to stop him working!?

Kieran spent the evening modifying an X-box, using the tiniest soldering iron I’ve ever seen; so far, it’s not doing what it’s meant to, but I’m certain it won’t defeat him for long.