The first update for a while.

Building has been ongoing throughout the winter. We are now up to first floor level on the last villa. Our son & his family came to stay for a couple of months to help, (before they emigrated to Australia), and a lot of progress was made.

We also visited a nearby quarry and ordered a stone archway for our hallway. This was delivered and is now in place. After building the last two villas this one seems to be taking forever to build - but as someone kindly pointed out - it is twice as big.  It is now back to just the two of us and things are going a little more slowly.  All the floor beams and floor panels are on order and delivery is scheduled for the end of next week. The windows and doors have been decided on and the next project is to order the roof timbers. Bryan is working on the plans for this in his 'spare time' and we will hopefully be placing the order for these next week.

In between building I am spring cleaning Villa Picholine in preparation for the arrival of our first guests.  This year we have added a microwave and a docking station to the list of  equipment.  A garden centre shopping trip has also been achieved and yesterday was spent planting what I had bought in Villa Picholine's garden. The lawn was also mowed and a new flower bed created in the corner of the lawn where the grass was not growing very well.

The vegetable garden has been dug over and we now have broad beans, onions and lettuce planted. The strawberries have all been re-planted and a mulch/weed mat placed on them and we are just waiting for a few consecutive days of warm sunshine and the potatoes will be going into the ground. Tomato seeds are growing on a sunny window sill and are nearly ready for potting on. A lot more is  being achieved with the onset of lighter evenings.  The almond blossom has been stunning this year and has now finished but the peach trees we have in pots ready for planting are now in bloom - we will keep our fingers crossed for lots of fruit too.

Photo shoots have already started and we have a few more already booked. Bryan has been spending his winter evenings creating a video for a fabulous new project to be built in nearby Marseillan and this was completed this week also.  The weather keeps teasing us with nice warm days then it is back to wind and showers....We can't complain though on the whole it has been a good winter but we are so ready for sunny spring days.