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Saturday July 26, 2014
Le Weekend
We have escaped for another weekend in France. George is still very thin and I managed to encourage him to spend a lot of time relaxing out of the intense heat. I cut the wisteria back completely away from the rebuilt extension walls preparing to enable Peter to render it later on without hindrance. I also cut the other side of it right back to bare wood, debating whether it would ever truly recover - although I remember doing that once before without lasting ill effects. I left the middle part with leaves to try and support it until next spring when I will cut that part hard back.
I also took half a dozen more cuttings of the hydrangea (second attempt) and some of the roses whose future is in doubt due to the building work.
This picture of the bakehouse may look the same as ever - but it now has a nice cream rendering all over - just looks better and better. [Managed to again weed out a load of nesting material from the extractor fan pipe, and block it up temporarily with newspaper, much to the annoyance of the great tits who were sitting outside with beaks full of moss ready to carry on....!]
In respect of other wildlife - I think the mice were none too pleased about the wisteria disappearing. They use it as a regular route across the front of the house - I could often see them in silhouette outside the window while I was sitting in the living room in the evening. Now of course the route is very exposed. I think maybe as a result of this we found a small mouse popping in and out of a mouse-hole right by the main doorstep (hole's been there all the time but never saw any mice using it before). The mouse seemed to be a bit groggy and not bothered by our stepping over it all the time; however, it must just have been the weather - which was unbearably hot - because eventually George put a blueberry down in front of it and it instantly stuffed into it and then disappeared. Ironic given that most of the time we are murdering the mice if we can catch them....
Finally below - the skeletal form of new walls have appeared in the kitchen.
Posted by Christina at 7:44 AM. Category: France
