Vive La France!

Bonjour mes petit moufettes! 


Did you miss us while we were away?

Our carriage awaits....

We departed this fair isle via the 'premier' air service that is Ryanair (It was really not as awful as I thought it was going to be!) destined for the Limousin region of France (south west of Paris in the middle of the loveliest rolling countryside). As my Hubby said, it's very pastoral and not unlike the South Downs of Sussex - apart from the fact that they all speak French, obviously!

The Limousin

We were greeted at Limoges Airport by my grinning Sister in Law, Pol and her lovely fella Col and driven to their abode in the village of Le Dorat, about 45 minutes drive away. When we arrived we immediately noticed how quiet it was with hardly any trains, planes or automobiles, it was trés peaceful.....and very, very warm indeedio, in fact it got to about 40 degrees for the first couple of days - thank God for a large, chilled Panache of an afternoon!

 Maison Lapeyriere - our home for the week

Pol and Col's maison is also their business and they have a Chambre d'hote (B&B) and below it is a laundrette - you can book your room here http://www.maisonlapeyriere.com/. Luckily for us all (although not quite so lucky for our heads!), Maison Lapeyriere is situated almost right next door to the local bar, Cafe de la Poste.......you can safely assume that the Landlord's takings increased vastly during our stay!!!!!

Pol et Col dans la Cafe de la Poste!

The holiday was two-fold.....to indeed have a holiday and get some much needed R&R but also, and much more exciting, to see if we could possibly find a little Maison a la France of our very own......and so the adventure began and off we trotted, cycled and drove around the Limousin countryside for seven days to try and find it. There are some beautiful, in fact some stunning properties in the area and nearly every other word from my lips was either 'ooh', 'aah', 'look at that one' or 'can we afford this one?' 

'Minimal' renovation required!!!

It being only our first trip of investigation, we would have been pretty darn lucky to have found the perfect residence straight away, HOWEVER, we did find A perfect property, albeit hugely overpriced in a town down the road called Magnac Laval....a beauty of a place with lots of land too which would have been superb for the puppies, The Girls and our goat, sheep and pig collection.....*sigh*

The 'perfect' property...

Obviously, staying with Pol and Col meant that we were introduced to their friends and some of the more colourful local characters who would appear at the door of the Cafe de la Poste at 7am awaiting a glass of rose wine before they drove off to work - I kid you not!!!  One of these friendly characters was Jean-Claude, a proper French man in every sense of the word, full of the country with a huge passion for La Chasse (The Hunt) and indeed a HUGE passion pour le vin! The following day we visited Jean-Claude and his wife, Francois at their home in Le Brousses for, yes you guessed it, a glass or two (4 bottles later!!!!) of rose wine. Whilst there we were introduced to his firearm collection and honestly, it is no exaggeration to say that the bullets could have taken out a bull Elephant never mind a little bunny!

A local restaurant - you either love it or hate it!

As well as the local French characters, there is also quite a large English population. We met a few of them and all seem happy and content with their lot in life (It must be soooo difficult to enjoy the lifestyle!!!!) but two of note are Tony & Sue. Honestly, they are rather FANTASTIC people who we got on very well with and enjoyed more than a bottle or two of rose wine (there's a theme developing here!). The first time we met them was at their home in a gorgeous Hamlet where they have a little place in the middle of nowhere (bliss!) with marvellous views of the rolling countryside.......and a swimming pool - tres bon!

Sue & Tony

Sue loves animals (Tony loves wine!) and has rescued the most gorgeous baby Red Squirrel - Cyril! He is a beautiful little creature who now has Sue as his adopted Mum due to his own Mother being missing, presumed killed by some very naughty predator. We all had a cuddle with Cyril, watching him running up and down our arms and around our necks and jumping from one to the other.....Cyril was a delight and it was an honour to be allowed to handle such a beautiful animal that are sadly so rare in the UK! 
It was an evening of swimming, squirrels and getting very, very squiffy!!! 

Cyril et La Grande Moufette

*Update on Cyril* Sue reliably informs me via the medium of Facebook that young Cyril has not been seen for a day or so and that adult Squirrels have been spotted in the area along with a Pine Marten (who love nothing more than chomping on a juicy squirrel!)....we have our fingers crossed for Cyril's safe return or that his family have found him and taken him off to be a proper L'écureuil roux!

Cyril - Mr Seriously Cute!

Sue also cooks and she cooks the most amazing vegetarian food. I am, by my own admission, a carnivore, I really enjoy meat, especially a medium rare steak or a pork roast on a Sunday, so my initial reaction is always one of "where's my chew?", etc. However, cooked and prepared properly, vegetarian food is A-mazing and Sue's was no exception, particularly her Coleslaw *drool*. Tasty, full of flavour and absolutely delicious - and all locally produced.

Ready-made allotment!

The town of Le Dorat has a huge square next to the Collegiale (a big Church-y thingy and quite close to the Monkery next door) where they hold an event known as the Producer's Market. Stalls are set up by local meat, fish and vegetable producers and you can purchase uncooked meats et al and have them cooked to your liking which you can then enjoy with a portion of frites and a glass or two of rose wine (again, locally produced). There were 8 of us that night, however only five of us were drinking wine. At the end of the evening we had gone through NINE bottles of wine - this was after the pre-market Kir cocktails at Chez Pol et Col.....it was a flipping brilliant evening but oh how my head hurt the following day!!!

Tres Tipsy!

Pol and Col are the proud owners of five horses although I think two of them are ponies, one of them definitely is. The nags live a couple of miles up the road in the rolling (and very dry) fields of the Limousin and each morning and evening they would be fed, watered and their poo would be cleared. This is a job, that rather bizarrely, I really enjoyed. Trudging the fields in the summer sun, picking up dried horse poo is a no-brainer, very relaxing and actually rather enjoyable......bizarre but hey, that's moi!

Ou est la shit au Cheval?

In the 'Big Boys' field Pol has turned a small area into a 'garden' and is growing her own fruit and vegetables. Or at least she would be if a little Hare had not decided that this was the place to get his own quota of fruit and veg! Big Brother and I were put into action to build a suitable barrier effectively stopping this little Hare from his regular picnics! At the time of writing the Hare has not returned so perhaps we did a good job.......and, as a baby Hare is called a Leveret we decided that his name would be Kenny.

The Big Boys - Jack, Benny and Dudley

We had a truly wonderful time in the Limousin with Pol and Col, their friends, their animals and the local characters and events that we attended. We went their not knowing what we were going to be greeted with and returned with our hearts full of adoration, our heads full of dreams for the future and memories of the holiday and our tummies full of wine and fantastic food....how could we not have fallen in love with it?! I want to move there NOW!

Hubby - let's move here!

In our absence, our petit chiens Max et Millie have been properly looked after by Grandma Celia, with walking assistance provided by Aunty Kay. We came home and it took the little buggers a couple of hours to realise that we were indeed their 'Dads' and that yes, we were in fact home and it was most definitely us. As for the Girls, they're all fine and dandy although Ruby has taken it upon herself to become broody so that's another loss of egg production, the little sod!

Les Girls

It goes without saying that we owe a HUMONGOUS Thank You to my Mum for doing such a grand job - and thank you Kay for your help. They always have such a lovely time with Grandma when we go away and it's a comfort to know that they're being spoiled in our absence. Now, all I want to do is load them in the car and drive to Le Dorat!

Don't leave me again Dad!

This chapter's music is by an artist called Shy'm and her track 'Tourne' and it is my soundtrack to the holiday, I heard it every day on the local radio and I defy anyone to resist the urge to 'put their paws up' at around 1 minute 7 seconds......a simply beautiful track although I must admit I haven't got the foggiest idea what the hell she is singing about (Isn't Tourne the French for Turn?!).

Right, I'm off to detox!