The new daffodils we planted are starting to flower, the cranes are heading back north and the fish are starting to show again. As is often the case in life, time is running away with us and we are now only 5 weeks away from our first guests arriving. The last month has gone way too quickly and whilst Nigel would have liked to have done a few days fishing, our jobs list has prevented it. Hopefully we will reach a point in March where we say we can do no more and will get to take a few days off.
We have now lowered the water level on Kingfisher and cleared all of the snags around the lake and also most of the trees that had fallen onto our neighbour’s field. These are now ready for chipping and as soon as the trench is filled this week we will get the chipper along the bank and finish clearing it all up. We always say that it does not take us long to take a tree down but the clearing up seems to take forever.
Talking of clearing up fallen trees, you may remember that when we first bought the property a very large oak tree had fallen and was sitting on the side of Kingfisher. Nigel decided to try out his chainsaw skills and has made a couple of benches from one of the pieces, These have created lovely places to sit and enjoy the view or do a bit of stalking.
We have also given the metal tables and chairs a facelift and painted the gate to the house. We have made a path up through the woods and just need to build a bridge across the stream at the far end of Kingfisher to make a nice circular walk.
The fish on both lakes are still being fed regularly and we have been enjoying the sunshine this week and taking some time off each day to back down to the lakes in the afternoon to watch them feeding and stirring up the mud.
Our biggest project this month has been sorting the gazebo area out at the house. We spoke about the it having been affected by the wind in our January blog and whilst we were waiting for the new one to arrive we decided to put some more matting underneath the gravel to stop the chairs from slipping. It was hard work shifting all of the gravel and when we had moved it we decided it would be better to put a more permanent seating area in place to save having to move the gravel again at a later date. Whilst Jo headed back to the UK for her mum’s birthday, Nigel and Maisie built a new decking area which was finished just in time for the gazebo to arrive. This took the pair of us 2 full days to put the 1300 pieces together but we are thrilled with the results and will look forward to having a beer or two with our guests underneath it.
We are still enjoying the information from the weather station and by looking at other records from the surrounding area it is clear to see that this winter has been a lot drier than last year. Between November and February last year there was a total of 826mm of rain whereas this year we have so far had only 450mm. We have had some really lovely weather this week with temperatures reaching nearly 19°C but the forecast is for rain for the next fortnight so we are hoping this will not impede our work too much as we get closer to opening.
Finally, a couple of pieces of information for those of you driving to France this year. Crit’Air stickers are now required in more and more big towns and cities as they have been in Rouen and the like for some time. These cost very little and can be obtained easily from this website https://www.certificat-air.gouv.fr/ Also some of the motorway tolls have become free flowing, similar to the Dartford Crossing and Runcorn Bridge and you need to go online to pay rather than pay at toll booths along the way. This is the website where you can find out more information and go online and pay https://www.sanef.com/
Until the next time bonne journée et à bientôt……