The flowers that bloom in the spring tra-la!!

The spring may be cooler than normal but the flowers are blooming including those planted last year bringing some colour to the garden of Les Deux Platanes.

Rhododendrons and azaleas are lovely at the moment

The aquilegia (anconi in French) have such lovely colours

The entrance to the cottage has been receiving a makeover this spring with some new paintwork and new woodwork so its all looking very nice for all our cottage guests this summer.

All looking very tidy and ready for the summer of 2013

One of our recent guests was a keen photographer and managed to collect a range of photos of animal guests visiting the garden.

Now this hedgehog looks interested in posing for the camera!

A lizard creeps along a wall to catch a spot of sunshine.

Thank you Robert for the photos we were pleased you enjoyed your week and maybe we will see you again in your motorhome in the future?

We had a bit of a trip out on Monday as it was a bank holiday here. A lady we met had told us about a distiller up on the Cher between Chenonceaux and Montrichard, so we thought we would try to find him. We did - at Chissay-en-Touraine. He distils fruit into eau-de-vie and also crèmes. We tasted one or two finally deciding on crème de peche. It will be lovely with peach desserts, or even in a kir. Can't wait to try it! The distiller has offered a free visit to his workshop for anyone staying in the cottage. He offers tours in the afternoons, and he speaks English. A morning visit to Chenonceaux, followed by lunch, then a short trip along the river to his place for the 3pm tour would make a nice day out.
His website is : http://www.distillerie-girardot.fr

Zoo de Beauval

We promised a blog about our recent visit to the Zoo Park de Beauval at St Aignan, so here it is.

We have never visited this attraction in all the years we have visited and lived here, but we know it is a very popular place during the holidays - in fact all year round, so we decided to arrive as soon as possible after opening time. I ordered our tickets on line which was no cheaper, but meant we didn't need to queue. Sure enough, even at 9.10, there were already a lot of cars in the car park and camping cars and coaches in the designated areas.

The zoo itself is a delight to visit. Even though it was very busy, once we got past the entrance, we were able to wander at our leisure and see all the animals.

We spent a nice morning, strolling around the compounds then left for lunch which we had already prepared for a picnic. We were given a stamp on our arms which allowed us to return to the park.

We have no hesitation in recommending the zoo as a place to visit. The pandas were especially cute and played to the crowd!

Spring is here

Unlike 2012 the 2013 weather has been off to a rather slow start this year although the birds seem to be out in force this year bringing some colourful and interesting visitors to the garden of Les Deux Platanes!

A Hoopoe spotted on the grass at Les Deux Platanes with its long beak and beautiful plumage.

Recent guests to the cottage spotted a Hoopoe in the garden searching for some tasty morsel. His distinctive call (hoop-hoop-hoop) is one of the sounds around Le Breuil. The Cookoo has been singing regularly and the green woodpecker has been around occasionally.

The spring flowers are now out in abundance with the flowering cherry putting on a lovely display.

 

The cottage framed with flowering cherry

 

The apple blossom is magnificent this year so we should see a good crop later in the year.

 

 The wine fairs are now in full swing with many local towns providing opportunities to taste the 2012 and earlier vintages. One of the growers on our wine tour route has won a silver medal for his white wine at the international Sauvignon Blanc competition held recently.

Guests were provided with a gazebo - click on any picture for a larger image.

It may be a cool spring but it's central France, so 'cool' is always comparative. The garden of Les Deux Platanes was provided with a gazebo to provide some shade from the cool spring wind during a barbecue.

On a different note, this weekend we are having a 'Dam Busters' commemoration to remember the 70th anniversary of this famous raid during WW2. Friends are coming for a showing of the film, followed by a 1940's style tea.

warm spring weather!

Spring is certainly in the air, late March and the first day of April have been reasonably warm and dry we even managed to sit outside for lunch a few days ago so maybe it’s a sign of things to come?

Maureen has all her flowering plants developing in the greenhouse, must be at least 200, so the cottage garden should look very nice once again for all our guests. Madam Monique has the larger flowering plants stored in her greenhouse for the winter and I am sure they will have had a lot of TLC should it be required. Maureen has also been busy weeding all the flower beds and we have just taken delivery of 15, 80 litre bags of bio compost from the local gardeners co-operative to give the soil a boost in preparation for the new planting.

Last summer in central France was warm and dry, we are always amazed at the difference in the weather when we are only 360 miles south of Dover!

Next week we have arranged to join a group of friends to have an evening meal at our local ‘Michelin’ restaurant.  Can I dispel any ideas that we eat at Michelin restaurants on a regular basis….although this one is simply amazing value. A guest at les Deux Platanes in 2012 was a catering consultant and they had a meal at this Michelin restaurant, he told me afterwards that the price paid was 30% of a similar meal at a Michelin Restaurant in the south of England. So if you are planning a stay at Les Deux Platanes, you could give yourselves a treat and reserve at a table at L’Promenade.

Our flowering cherry tree is just about to bloom, look out for a photo on this BLOG soon!

2013 and Astronomy @ Les Deux Platanes

Its that time of year again, the spring flowers are starting to peek through the soil and the birds are singing once again. We will soon be preparing Les Deux Platanes for another season and hopefully we have some beautiful weather in store as 2012. Maureen has all her garden flowers on order from the nursery to ensure the cottage garden is once again a beautiful and relaxing place for all our valued guests to enjoy their holiday in this beautiful and historic area of central France. Over the winter of 2012 - 2013 we have been fortunate to visit New Zealand. NZ is in many ways like central France, few vehicles and tourists are thin on the ground due to the size of the country and the low population. NZ also retains that quaint charm of the past, people are warm and friendly and the scenery unspoint and beautiful - just like our area of France but without the history!

During our visit to NZ we had the opportunity to make a late evening visit to New Zealands premier observatory at Mount John (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_John_University_Observatory) .
It was a very interesting visit and this set me thinking.....always dangerous! It was soon clear that the night sky on the mountain top in NZ, although very good, was certainly no better that the night sky from the garden of Les Deux Platanes. In fact the light polution is much lower in rural France due to the complete absence of street lights! If we could observe stars from Mount John then guests to Les Deux Platanes could certainly observe a vast range of stars if we had a good telescope.

Hey Presto! telescope ordered and delivered so those who may be intersted in enjoying the beautiful star filled sky from the garden can do so - maybe accompanied by a nice glass of wine!

A short video on the telescope you can use can be found at :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV_2nl8VHwg

All we need now are clear night skys and these are normally available in abundance!

Visiting the renovated Fortifications (castle) at Chinon.

You can be sure of one thing when you choose to visit any historic buildings in mid November ......... you will encounter few tourists. Today we travelled to Chinon to visit the recently renovated chateau and castle. Other than four visitors from the USA we had the entire castle to ourselves. The entire castle has recently undergone a massive 14.5 million euro renovation and this plus all the latest visual and interactive displays provides the visitor with a wonderful overview of its history.

Château de Chinon is a castle located on the bank of the Vienne river in Chinon, France. It was founded by Theobald I, Count of Blois. In the 11th century the castle became the property of the counts of Anjou. In 1156 Henry II of England, a member of the House of Anjou, took the castle from his brother Geoffrey after he had rebelled for a second time. Henry favoured the Château de Chinon as a residence: most of the standing structure can be attributed to his reign and he died there in 1189.
Early in the 13th century, King Philip II of France harassed the English lands in France and in 1205 he captured Chinon after a siege that lasted several months, after which the castle remained under French control. When King Philip IV accused the Knights Templar of heresy during the first decade of the 14th century, several leading members of the order were imprisoned there.
Used by Charles VII in the 15th century, the Château de Chinon became a prison in the second half of the 16th century.

Full details @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Chinon

Chinon is one of the many places you can visit from Les Deux Platanes.

End of the season

End of the season

Oh dear , looking at our BLOG I see that there has been no reports since early August and its now early November!!!! A lot of water has passed under the bridge since early August and the lack of BLOG postings has been down to ………..BLOG APATHY.

I was not aware such a thing existed but it appears to have struck with vengeance in the later months of this summer. Our last guests have just left Les Deux Platanes, three Australians. It’s a strange thing that we commenced the year with four Australians and ended the year with three Australians both groups had mixed weather as you may well expect in March and November! However both groups also enjoyed the log fire which apparently is an unusual feature of any Australian house.  The cottage is now being closed and ‘put to bed’ for the winter and we very much look forward to preparing it for our guests in 2013.

The town band, pompiers, gendarmes and ancient combatants made up the guard of honour.

Yesterday we participated in the 11^th November remembrance ceremony and parade and associated service in Chatillon, our local small town. There was a very good turnout of locals and along with Christopher Coombes who was invited to lay the French wreath with the mayor I was invited to lay a Poppy wreath some good friends had brought from the UK. After the remembrance service and associated events the local ‘ancient combatant’s’ had arranged lunch – 9 courses including wine! The French can certainly put on an impressive meal in the local village hall. Seventy of the ancient combatant’s attended along with four English, we were very well looked after, I have to say and it was an honour and privilege to be invited.


It was a privilege to be invited to lay the Poppy wreath on the 11th November.

On Saturday 10^th November we were invited to the Auberge de la Tour (a local restaurant) to celebrate the birthday of Nick another English friend who together with Janet lives a few miles from here. On arrival at the Auberge I was concerned as it was very busy indeed. Every table was booked plus an adjacent room – 3 big birthday groups plus normal customers. Could they cope with such high numbers?  As it turned out everything was just fine, great food, great service and a great evening.  The Auberge certainly seem to have improved significantly over the past few years – great news for gite guests as it’s the nearest local good restaurant.

After nearly seven years the renovations to the main house are nearly complete - great I say to myself!. I have just managed to finish the roof terrace before the bad winter weather arrives, internal decoration can wait until next spring. Its been a long hard but enjoyable slog I have to say and I am very pleased that the vast majority of the heavy work is done as I seem to suffer from more aches and pains as the years pass. Its not the sort of renovation task I will choose to start again now that I am over 60!



Roof Terrace - Work in progress - late August 2012

Roof terrace finished other than the triangular windows in the ends! Hooray!!!!!!!!!