I moved to South West France for good weather and right now I am wondering where it is. Last May was a bit of a washout and a lot of this May and early June is the same. Merde!

Well  it has been a hectic summer for us and at last we are settled back in our house. The kids are back at school and planning our next year is in the offing. I will be blogging properly again now I have a bit more time and energy.

Cathy’s uncle Rod and his wife Jane are visiting for a few days which makes the extended family total eight plus our five. The suggestion of going on the river came up and canoe hire at Tremolat was arranged with Peter Checkley of Aquafun.

On arrival at the river Cathy and her mum pulled out leaving us needing just four canoes.  We agreed Le Buisson as our start point.  All canoes, kit, oars sorted and off we went in the minibuses to Le Buisson.

I took Finn and Georgia in my canoe and off we went.  It took abot an hour to get to Limeuil where we met Cathy and Chris on the river beach.  We had our lunch on the river’s edge and took in the delights of this very pretty place.  mental note to come here again.

After an hour we set off again with a few swaps of children made. I now had Aine and Finn in my canoe. All was going nicely but unforunately Finn was getting bored so we transferred him to the canoe with Jack and we carried on.  We were getting to the end of this two hour section when we decided to have a little race.  During this spell we started to ship water causing Aine some little concern.  I tried baling out the water but this was not working so I called over Rod and Jane who quickly took Aine off.  Within  20 seconds my canoe sank and I was swimming in the Dordogne. 

After many whoops of laughter from the others Ali (from her canoe) and I (in the water)started baling out the water and after five minutes or so we got enough water out to allow me to geback on the canoe and head to the finish.

It seems I am too heavy on my own for this canoe because the drain hole at the back was dropping in a out of the water.  Surely it should have had a bung fitted?

One very damp me and one very amused family - except Aine who was very worried that the crocdiles would get me!

We have put the cottage at Granges Haut, Cahuzac up for sale again as the buyers pulled out just before signing. The used the ‘clause suspensive’ regarding the delay in transferring the planning permission to get out of the purchase.

Its a bit frustrating, as the notaire was so slow dealing with this aspect of the transaction she IMHO was largely responsible for causing the problem.  I don’t think I will use her again.

I feel sorry for the VEF agents as they put a lot into this and get nothing.  We will sell the cottage sooner or later and maybe not through them. We now have it up for sale privately and through a number of local agents: VEF, Eymet Immobilier, Valadie, Bourse, LeTuc and Richard.  Here we go again

I have had a very hectic few weeks running up to letting our house for the summer. We have our first guests in now who are a very nice three generation German/French Canadian bunch. I will be back with more very soon.

With the election of Sarkozy is France going in a new direction?  I was very surprised to see that Lot et Garonne had a majority in favour of Sarkozy.  Last time round the vote went in favour of Le Pen.  Is this a surprise or does it indicate that the anti immigratrion stance of Sarkozy is more important to the locals than the risk of change in other areas of life.  If I could say one thing with a bit of confidence about the attitude of local people (as I have come to understand it) it would seem that generaly speaking change is not welcome.

Perhaps the answer lies in the confidence of those who know that a good round of strikes will see off the problem!  It will soon become clear I think. 

A couple of days ago i noticed that the In Aquitaine forum was rplaced by a single word ‘merhaba’. I think that the site has been hacked by a Turkish person to what ends I dont know. 

 I will endeavour to get it back soon. Sorry folks.

Last week the kids braved the pool for the first time this year.  We had been checking the pool temperature daily and it duly arrived at a whopping 20 deg C.  In they went but, not for me as I thought it was freezing.  In fact they used the pool three days running before it got all cold and damp again.

It was easy to get the pool going again after the winter break, as I had not winterised it.  I left the pump on the timer to rum 30 minutes a day to keep things moving. As it is salt water it is less prone to freeze and no extra chemicals were used (anti freeze & anti algae stuff).  All said it took an hour to clean the summer cover of leaves twigs etc and another hour to vacuum the pool and voila it was ready.

It is so good to spend the day working outside. Its been a mixed bag of different things over the last few days. cutting grass, scraping off high spots and filling holes to make mowing easier.  Putting glyphosate weedkiller all around the outside of the buildings to keep the nastiest weeds away and make mowing easier!!!  Mowing is important as we have over 5 acres to mow.

The best job has been constructing stone steps at the side of the pool building. Its nearly finished and I am very pleased with them but my back isn’t!

The French are efficient in one area it seems.  Having exceeded a 90kph speed limit (caught hidden officer with radar gun) on Monday 26 March a demand for 45€ (or more if you dont pay quickly) dated 26 March was received by me at home on Wednesday 28th March.  Has French bureaucracy ever worked so fast.

It seems thatif I was doing 95kph no action would have been taken so I was 2 kph over the OK amount.  Oh joy!  If only CPAM could work so quickly.

Finally i had the pleasure of a quick and painless payment online. Isn’t France great?