Summer Arrives

Last time I wrote things were a little uncertain. We weren't sure if the facadiers were going to be able to finish the walls and we were in doubt that the lettings would be able to go ahead for the holiday season due to Covid-19.  The villas were both almost fully booked for the summer but by May we started to get a lot of cancellations. Thankfully in early June when the borders opened we got an influx of new bookings and now we have just 1 week in Villa Picholine in late August to sell. ( big sigh of relief....)

We have been continually working since we arrived back from Australia in January. The Pizza oven has been finished & tested, a new pathway to the front door has been laid. Bryan has also been busy in our garden - getting rid of the piles of sand, ballast and gravel. He has also started on a rockery at the front of our house. Moving the stones with the tractor was a bigger job than we thought (poor tractor). We  need to dig out under the stones to place them properly but the ground is now like concrete so that will be a  job for our JCB man in October. For now work has stopped.  Both villas and their gardens are all spick and span, the first guests arrived last Saturday and all is well. 

The veg garden has been suppling us with a good amount of spinach, beans, onions, lettuce and oh did I mention courgettes   -  we have eaten them in everything and the freezer is stocked with copious amounts of courgette soup and lots of green beans.  ( note to self:- only plant 1 courgette plant next year !) We picked the first tomatoes of the season at the weekend. There are a few more ready today so it's looking like lunch will be a tomato, mozzarella and basil salad. Bryan's favourite.

The stone merchants opened at the end of May and they rang to say our stair treads would be ready at the end of June.  We then had an updated time of first week in July.  So all being well we are off to Narbonne tomorrow to collect them.....  Guess what Bryan will be doing for the next few weeks. 

The pool area is looking really good now. The garden has matured really well and it is lovely and colourful.  It is a really calm place to sit after a swim and contemplate what the next job is going to be. 

We are trying to slow life down a little now the heat has kicked in and guests are here but it is a little difficult for us to implement. Sitting around is not our idea of fun. We will just have to keep on trying.....

We had a fab time catching up with family over Christmas and arrived back here a week late, at the end of January, (I'll save that story for later).  We had 7 weeks to prepare for the facadiers - a bit of a tight schedule but we were ready for a challenge.  Mid march arrived in a flash. Then Covid- 19 struck !

France was put on lockdown on the Tuesday at noon and everything ground very quickly to a halt. The facadiers rang on Wednesday evening to say they were ready to come the next day but couldn't get any product for the walls. We had worked so hard to be ready for them - it was so disheartening.

After a day of mooching about miserably we gave ourselves a good talking to, picked ourselves up and carried on with the work we did have products for.  Bryan has finished the portico above the swimming pool gate and he is now building our Bbq & pizza oven round the rear of our house.  The block paving has been laid around the back of the house and the gardens in the villas are looking very colourful and spring like.

Villa Picholine Terrace

The vegetable garden has been rotovated and we have sown beans, carrots, courgettes, spring onions, radish and lettuce. The tomatoes are potted up and waiting for the soil to warm up a little more before being planted out and I am waging a daily war with the vast amount of weeds that pop up and unfortunately for me the weeds are winning at the moment.

Les Oliviers Pool Area

The pool when we came back was a lovely shade of green and it has taken me weeks to get it back to a beautiful blue colour. It now looks so inviting and is warming up with all the sunshine we have had this last couple of weeks. I will be checking the temperature daily - I can't wait for our first swim of the year

Fast forward a couple of weeks and the facadiers rang to say the local builders merchants were opening to professionals and he had managed to find some base coat for the walls and that the next week he could get the top coat.  Things were looking up - finally after starting this project 10 years ago - we were going to see the outside finished.  We can't wait.  Inside is going to take a little longer - the stone merchants is closed so the travertine for our staircase could be a long time in the making.

Spring Vines

We are still on lockdown, but that doesn't change our days here at Les Oliviers. We are mostly self contained. I just venture out once a week for groceries as normal. Espace Vin in St Chinian is doing free deliveries and we can go out for our daily walk as long as we don't venture further than 1 km and have our authorisation paper with us. The fine, if not, is 130 euros each .





There is lots to keep us occupied in the garden and preparing the villas for this years guests.  Hopefully things will improve as the weeks go by and things will return to something more like normal.