work in 2010

The winter of 2009-2010 was extremely cold which was quite unusual for the Gatine area, it plummeted to minus 11 degrees in areas, not put off by the cold and being hardy caravanners we took the opportunity of cheap Ryanair flights and flew out for a long weekend. Our friends thought we were crazy and we had several offers of accomodation because they thought we'd be cold. It soon gets HOT in a caravan with the gas heater on and with the radiators in the kitchen and bathroom we were as 'snug as bugs in rugs'. At the end of February hurricane Xanthia also passed by with some of the strongest winds recorded only 13km from Neuvy Bouin. We were a little concerned about our property especially the willow tree but apart from a few broken twigs everything was fine. Donna and Roy did a terrific job of tidying them up into a bonfire before we arrived. Friends who live only a mile or two away had suffered much more damage to trees, pool covers and satellite dishes so we escaped lightly.

The Declaration Prealable was authorised for 2 new windows and a service door to be fitted to the barn to make it more presentable. In March Nathan set to work to transform the side wall into somthing that resembles a large house. One thing we did have to make clear on the form was that it was not for habitation but to be used as a garage for a car otherwise habitation tax would have come into play.
Most of the March visit was taken up tidying up the land, it gave Jan the opportunity to play with her new toy (a ride on mower) its very old but does the job of keeping the grass down. Dave used the pressure washer to clean some of the black water marks off the stone wall and it came up much brighter.
To replace the old diseased pear trees that had been removed the previous September we planted 9 new fruit trees, 2 x Victoria plum,2 x Braeburn apple,2 x Conference pear, 1 x Bramley apple and 1 x peach(sadly the peach doesn't look to have survived) and a fig tree which Jan paid 99p for, it was reduced from £25 in a bargain corner and that is thriving. We also made a small tree creche to try to encourage some saplings that were given to us to grow bigger before planting them where we want them.