South Brittany Holiday Cottage

Stanley the Donkey

2007-06-02T17:13:00.000-01:00

We have bought a donkey. He is company for Woodah, the horse. He is a Cotentin donkey, which originates from the Cherbourg Penninsula. We have named him Stanley. I will add some photos of him to our gites website soon.

South Brittany Cottage Lada 4x4

2007-05-13T08:11:00.000-01:00

We have been and bought a Lada Niva 4x4. We thought that it would do for towing the boat and to come in useful around here. We thought that if we can find a chain harrow then we could tow it with the Lada. But we have not been able to find one, and we haven't been able to find what they are called in French. We know what the fixed harrows are and have seen them, but no luck yet on the chain harrow.

Art and Boats

2007-02-27T15:52:00.000-01:00

It has been a while since I have added an entry. The art work has been going well, and the large pictures that was sent back to the UK have sold and the gallery has asked for another 10, along with some large hanging seahorses and blue marlins. So I am having to get on with the making of them as my parents are coming over next month and they will have to take the pieces back with them. The bookings for the holiday cottage have been doing well, and the summer is fully booked. I have just returned from the UK as I went back to take a RYA course to get a certificate to use the boat. I also took the ceveni test while I was there, which allows me to use the inland waterways of Europe.

Living in France

2006-11-12T08:54:00.000-01:00

I have been making a load of metal mackerel to get ready for my parents to take back to the UK with them when they come out to visit later in the month. When my parents went back in September after staying here for the summer, they took some of the metal art work with them, and put them in a gallery, one of the pieces was a shoal of mackerel on a colourwashed timber frame. Well it has sold and the gallery have asked for another 5 pieces the same. So I have been cutting out, shaping and welding all fish, and today I am going to start painting them. They will then need to be varnished, which takes a while as I give them 3 coats on the fronts and 1 coat on the backs. I will have to find some wood pallets to make the mounts and colourwash them.
I would never of thought that I would be doing this when I came to live in South Brittany France.

French Artist

2006-11-12T08:50:00.000-01:00

I started making metal fish, cutting them out, then tapping them and making them 3D , then painting them and varnishing to finnish. I then mounted them on to pieces of colour washed wood and adding hooks to make them into key holders. My wife then started to sell them on the markets, and they sold quite well. So I thought I would like to have a go and try to make a living from it, so I went to the authorities and registered. So I am now registered as an artist here in Brittany France.

Holiday Cottage France

2006-09-02T19:32:00.000-01:00

Its been some time since my last entry. The weather this August has not been so good as the last couple years. Our French holiday cottage has been booked well, and we have met some very nice people again this year. I must add an availability calander for 2007 soon.

Weather in South Brittany

2006-07-13T20:49:00.000-01:00

The weather cooled off for a while here in South Brittany since the last posting, but it has warmed up again now. It isnt so hot as it was, at least you can work in it, and you can sleep at night albeit with a fan still on.

Gite in Brittany

2006-07-02T06:36:00.000-01:00

The weather here in South Brittany has become very hot, we have had the air conditioning going for the last few days. We had a change over day yesterday in the gite/cottage, so Helena cleaned the inside and I cut the grass and hedges. The guests left early which meant I could get an early start, which was good as it got hot cutting the hedges after 10 ish, and I had finnished by around 11.

Gite in Brittany

2006-06-15T07:32:00.000-01:00

The weather here at our gite in Brittany for the last couple of weeks has been great up into the 30's, it has been really sticky and hot. But it changed yesterday, when it was overcast and cooler, and it is overcast again this morning. I have had a look at the weather forcast that we have on our cottages website and it is supposed to be partly cloudy for tomorrow and then sunny for the weekend.

Holiday Cottage Brittany

2006-05-21T19:24:00.000-01:00

I have fitted the kitchen units in my parents gite or cottage in Brittany now, and the electrician has second fixed. We need to get the plumbing second fixed and it should be ready for decorating.

French Gite

2006-05-15T20:48:00.000-01:00

I have been busy working on my parents gite. I have finnished the plasterboarding upstairs, completed the bathroom, shower and airing cupboard, ready for the electrician to second fix. I then have to start the decorating. I have done the plasterboarding downstairs now, and I need to fit the kitchen before the electrician arrives (on Thursday) so he can second fix downstairs at the same time.

South Brittany Cider

2006-03-15T08:14:00.000-01:00

We have bottled the cider we made, and ended up with 270 bottles. When we started to bottle, and we tasted it, it tasted a little watery, but I opened a bottle a few days later and it was really nice. Tastes just like the cider you can buy in the shops here. It is far better tasting than the cider we had last year, last year we never made it ourselves but we exchanged the apples with someone, but it never tasted so light and refreshing as what we made this year and for the amount of apples they had from us we never had that much cider.

Gite Flooring

2006-03-15T08:13:00.000-01:00

Its been a while since I have added anything here. My father and I got the joists fitted to his gite and layed the T & G flooring, we went off and bought a compressor and a nail gun to fit the floor with, and then secret nailed into the tonges and grooves. It turned out really well, and it is looking great. I have started to put the metal rails and uprights around downstairs to dry line the walls, this will form the cavity and the insulation then fits into the railing. This will be on 3 walls downstairs with the wall with the fireplace left stone.

Renovating the Gite

2006-02-12T19:47:00.000-01:00

We have ripped out the old joists in my parents gite now, and we have been and ordered new along with tongue and groove flooring. The timber should be here tomorrow morning, we will then have to get one joist in place at the height of the stairs and start placing the other 15 level from the first.
In the meantime we have finnished making a small workshop from one of the small out buildings. Which will house my tools, as they are kept in the lean-too at the back of my parents two properties, and this will be coming down to make a larger garden.

Gite Gites and more Gites

2006-02-06T16:11:00.000-01:00

We are still waiting for the joists and flooring to arrive for my parents gite. Hopefully they will arrive this week. In the meantime we are getting one of the small outbuildings ready for a small workshop, so I will have somewhere to keep my tools.

Snowing at Brittany Gite in Morbihan

2006-01-28T22:01:00.000-01:00

We have had snow again here in Morbihan today. It has been snowing quite hard here at South Brittany Cottage all day. It started around 10.30 this morning and it is still going now 11.00pm albeit it has slowed up.

Gites in Brittany

2006-01-24T08:09:00.000-01:00

After the concrete hardened off we started looking at the joists and flooring of the upstairs in my parents gite or cottage. The floor needed to be completly replaced as it was just bits and pieces of chestnut laid down any old way. So we started to rip it up.We decided to leave a small section to work off and fit one of the velux windows to give us some light. So the next day we went about fitting the velux, which went in very easy. The refitting of the slates is a little tricky on my Parents gites as they have been laid on the angle to look like diamonds which means a lot more cutting and harder fitting the flashings (what seals the velux to the slates).We now need to decide what we are going to do with the joists

Brittany Gite Holiday Cottage

2006-01-19T10:30:00.000-01:00

Well the concrete arrived and we had it pumped in to the cottage and me and my Dad spread it around and tamped it level. We also laid the floor in the small outbuilding, which I am going to have as a workshop. We need to start moving my tools out of the cottage that we are renovating so a workshop will be ideal.

Brittany Gite

2006-01-15T19:38:00.000-01:00

We hope everyone reading this had a good new year. Not really had much to add to our Brittany gite weblog, hence the first entry for the year! Tomorrow we have concrete being delivered for the floor of my parents other cottage, It supposed to be arriving at 10.30am. Once the floor is down we need to start thinking of what we will be doing with the upstairs floor. The bookings for our gite have been coming in for the Summer, July and August is almost fully booked (Just the last week in August left).

Christmas Greetings

2005-12-25T10:00:00.000-01:00

Christmas greetings from South Brittany Holiday Cottage

Breton Cider Update

2005-12-21T08:30:00.000-01:00

Yesterday Hervey arrived to show us and help with the next stage in the cider making proccess. We had to empty the barrel and put the cider in to another smaller barrel we had and a few large plastic bowels and then empty the sludge/sediment from the barrel and wash it out. We then transfered the cider back in to the barrel. We have to leave it again now to carry on fermenting. I still have to keep topping up the barrel with water each day.

Our Cat Went Self Catering

2005-12-13T11:19:00.000-01:00

Last Friday My wife Helena was working at Muzzillac doing the Christmas market, which went on all day and evening. So I arranged to meet here there to give her a break and some company. So I left South Brittany Cottage around 3pm and met Helena at Muzzillac, the afternoon and evening went quite well and we arrived home around 9pm. On getting in I commented on our young cat Minnie not being around, which was unusual as she normally shows at the door when we get back after being out. We called and looked for here all night but she never showed up. The next morning I went out looking for her, expecting to find her lying by the side of a road after being hit by a car. I looked everywhere in the village, but I couldnt find her. When Helena returned from work we both went out looking again but we still couldnt find her. We carried on looking for the next 3 days asking neighbours if they had seen her and if they could look in their sheds in case she was locked in somewhere, but nothing, no sightings at all. So we thought that was the end of her and we wouldnt see her again and the pair of us were really upset as she was a lovely cat full of character. We was getting ready to go to bed last night, our fourth night without her when Helena noticed a pair of eyes looking in through the cat flap, and when she opened the door, as Minnie hasn't learnt to use the cat flap, she walked in. We couldn't believe it, she was back. We dont know where she could of been, she was looking well and healthy, but did go straight to the food dish and ate quite a lot. Maybe she was locked in somewhere?

South Brittany Cottage Cider Making Update

2005-12-03T10:32:00.000-01:00

I have been checking the barrel of apple juice every day and topping it up with water. I think next week I have to empty the juice from the barrel and clean the sediment out, but I'm not too sure, I have to wait until Herve arrives to see if my translation was correct.

South Brittany Cottage Apple Juice/Cider

2005-11-28T12:33:00.000-01:00

I have checked the apple juice again today. It has started to ferment as there is foam around the hole in the top of the barrel, and you can see the pulp around the top of the juice. I have added the pictures of the apples being pressed to our South Brittany Cottage website and they can be seen here: http://www.southbrittanycottage.com/photogallery8.htm

Snow in Morbihan - But Not At South Brittany Cottage

2005-11-27T16:33:00.000-01:00

Yesterday me and my parents went to La Roche Bernard and as we left our hamlet of Ste.Anne we found traces of snow. And by the time we travelled 5 minutes it was a white world. It looked lovely over the fields and on the trees, but it never lasted long, it was all gone again within a couple of hours.

Breton Cider

2005-11-26T18:11:00.000-01:00

I have checked the barrel of apple juice over the last couple of days and I have topped up the barrel with water. As the juice starts to ferment it foams and the foam builds up and overflows out of the barrel, so you have to top it up with water.

South brittany Cottage Apples Pressed

2005-11-23T08:27:00.000-01:00

Yesterday we had our apples pressed here at South Brittany Cottage, to make cider. We collected the apples and lay them on a sheet of polythene a while back, I then went and seen Hervey, the person my parents bought their house off, to find out where I could get barrels from. He said he had some, and kindly gave me a 200 liter barrel and a smaller one, he said that he thought that the amount of apples we had this year would produce around 200 liters of juice, the smaller one was in case we had a little extra. I then went to another family in our village who i was told had a press. I asked if they could press my apples for me and was told they would telephone with a date. Well the guy arrived yesterday morning 9 o'clock, and we were very lucky with the weather as it was very mild, dry and sunny. The press was towed behind a tractor and operated from the tractors power take off (PTO). We had to shovel the apples into a scoop on the side of the machine, which then mashed them up and via a conveyor belt took them to a top gantry, were the pulp fell into a hessian type of matting, which was spread out, then the matting folded over the pulp and a lattice made of wood placed on top of the matting. This continued placing the matting, pulp and wood boards until there was a large stack in the middle of the press and all the apples were gone. This stack was then winched to the end of the machine under the hydraulic press which then squeezed the juice out of the apples. There was a large house connected to the side of the press that fed the juice into the barrel which was in my cave (pronounced 'cav' where the French store their wine cider etc usually with thatched roofs) I now have to keep topping up the barrel with water each day for the next 3 days, and at the weekend Hervey will return to see how things are going. So I will keep you up to date with how things are going and what has to be done next. I am also going to put photos of the press on our South Brittany Cottage Photo Gallery so if you want to see what the press looks like check out our website.

Holiday Cottage Guestbook

2005-11-08T10:52:00.000-01:00

I think I have stopped the spammers from adding their stupid messages on our South Brittany Cottage guest book. As I stated in an earlier posting we were getting 3 or 4 entries a day on our guest book, with silly wording like ' I send send you and your guests my best wishes' or 'I like your site so much I bookmark it' and it was really getting a pain to keep deleting them all the time.They had to have been spambots (automated) as I played around with the php coding and stopped them from leaving their website url on the guestbook, so if it was a human that wanted to spam they would realise it be of no benefit to them. So I played around with the coding and altered the coding so that where you had to enter an email addres you now have to put the answer to a question - which is asked instead of the wording enter email address. And so far so good, no more spam. I will keep you informed if things change.

Availability Page

2005-11-06T13:41:00.000-01:00

We have now added an availability chart to our holiday cottage website. I have been debating whether to add one on our website or not for a while now, and thought I will give it a go. let me know what you think.

Apples Collected

2005-10-28T06:26:00.000-01:00

We collected the rest of the apples yesterday. We havent got so many this year, as you have a good crop every other year. We had trees this year that produced fruit that never last year. We have around a trailer full of apples collected on to a sheet of polythene which we need to get pressed into juice. Last year we had around 5 times as many apples, so we are not looking forward to next years collecting! (Another big crop).

Ryanair New Flights to Nantes

2005-10-23T20:06:00.000-01:00

Ryanair recently announced new routes flying from Nottingham East Midlands airport, UK, and from London Stansted to Dinard and Nantes. This is good news for us as our cottage is only 45 mins from Nantes airport.
Click here for more information

Guestbook Spam

2005-10-19T21:24:00.000-01:00

We have a guestbook on our website so after our guests have stayed in our cottage they can leave any comments they have in the guestbook. But unfortunately we have been bombarded with silly messages from timewasters that are hoping to get a backwards link to there website! No chance! Who would want to help these low life out? I have played around with the php code so that no one can leave their URL in the guestbook. But the thick fools still leave these week messages often in a poor excuse for English on my site, which if I wanted to leave there would actually help my site out, as google counts each entry as a page, which will make my site bigger with more links to my homepage which is what google likes. But I dont want them to leave them there as it is not what I placed it on my site for. It is a shame that there is this lowlife out there that has to spoil everything honest people try and do.

Spam

2005-10-19T21:23:00.000-01:00

We have had to remove the contact form from our contact us page of our South Brittany Cottage website due to people trying to hijack the form to send spam, so I thought it would be better if I removed it altogether and we have now gone back to just email address to contact us.

Blocked Drain - But Not With Our Guests

2005-10-04T16:52:00.000-01:00

I have to say a big thank you to Brian and Wayne that stayed in our cottage last week.We noticed that a drain was blocked and we thought that after the summer of being let, it was probably grease blocking it. So we set about rodding it to clear the blockage, and then pouring drain cleaner down.And all was fine for 3 days! So I tried rodding again, and after failing to clear it I then started to dig an exploritry hole to see if I could see the bend in the pipe where I thought the blockage was. Then Brian and Wayne, who were staying in the cottage, came out and started to help and we ended up digging up a flower bed uncovering a lot of the offending pipe and found it was tree roots that had got into the pipe where the bends were. So with the help of Brian and Wayne I ended up resleeving the pipe with a flexi - pipe the complete length of the original drain. So once again a big thank you to Brian, Wayne and also to Sarah and Sharon for the moral support and letting the chaps help.

Driving In France

2005-09-23T16:45:00.000-01:00

I have just added a web page to our holiday cottage website on tips on driving in France. It outlines the the general rules and gives some details to wording and signs found on the French roads.

Weather is Still Fine

2005-09-22T20:27:00.000-01:00

We had a few cooler days and a couple of half days of rain over the last couple of weeks, which was great for the land as everything started to green up again. It has cooled off in the nights now and the mornings are chilly, but the days are still really warm. My Mum and Dad returned home to the UK today, so it seems really quiet here now, they have been here for 3 months. We still have guests in the gite, this family are here for another week. We then have a break for 3 weeks and then another family for the half term week.

Regions of France

2005-09-15T11:14:00.000-01:00

I have added a few pages to our Self catering in Brittany website, They list the regions of France and give a little information on each. I am thinking of adding the departments as well, but there are a few of them so I will have to pysc myself up to start them! The new pages can be located from here Regions of France

Its Hot In South Brittany

2005-07-15T21:16:00.000-01:00

The temperature has been getting hotter and hotter here. It was like this 3 weeks ago, so hot that we bought some fans for the guests that we had staying in the cottage. But then it cooled off for a couple of weeks but this last week it is scorching again, the grass has burnt brown and it crunches when you walk on it. Today the temperature was showing 44.5!

RSS Feeds

2005-06-10T06:30:00.000-01:00

Well the guests we had staying had a good time and were a very nice family. I have been playing with the South Brittany Cottage website, there is an English family that lives just down the road and their daughters boyfriend used to build websites so I asked him if he could help in adding RSS news feed to our web site. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is used to provide items containing short descriptions of web content together with a link to the full version of the content. This information is delivered as an xml file. You can get programs that allows you to srape the information from these rss feeds and display them on your website, so this is what he did and now we can display up to date information on our Brittany gite website. We have the weather for two areas near our location and also our own South Brittany Cottage xml news feeds which I am using to display the availability.

Its Hot!

2005-05-27T16:55:00.000-01:00

The last couple of days we have been getting the place ready for the next guests that are arriving tomorrow. I have also been kept busy cutting the grass, which needs doing twice a week this time a year, and there is enough of it to be cut! The cherries are growing nicely so are the peaches, it shouldnt be too long before we can start eating them. The weather for the last few days has been scorching, on the way back from Redon yesterday the temperature was 38.5!

HTML Version of RSS Feed For Website

2005-05-16T14:02:00.000-01:00

I have just added an html version of our rss feed for our South Brittany Cottage website. So now the rss feed can be viewed on a web browser.

Larger Garden To Annex

2005-05-16T07:25:00.000-01:00

My Dad popped over for 10 days to give me a hand on his place. While he was over we got the Velux windows fitted in the roof of the front bedroom and bathroom, got the plasterboard ceilings up around them went and got and fitted a 5.5meter beam to pick up the existing beams in the downstairs main room and fitted it. Before he called to say he would be coming over I had started to clear the trees and bushes that were growing behind our annex, as it will double the size of the fenced garden area that we use as a garden for the annex. So while Dad was here we also concreted the patio to the wall and continued the concrete fence that runs up the garden that stopped short behind the bushes and trees. So it is nearly completed at our place now and looking much better and tidier.

Technorati: Tag: gites

2005-04-28T06:36:00.000-01:00

Technorati: Tag: gites

Rain - Good For The Garden

2005-04-22T07:02:00.000-01:00

Its raining at the moment, so hopefully it will wash the weed and feed in to the grass. I thought that once I had scattered the weed and feed it wouldnt rain any more for the year.

Whats The Difference Between Inlaws & Outlaws?

2005-04-21T20:57:00.000-01:00

Outlaws are wanted!!!
Only joking Merle! Helena's mother has just been to visit us, she stayed for the week. The last time she visited us was last October, and she said she couldnt believe the changes we had done here since then. We took her off sightseeing a few places such as the walled town of Guerande and then following the coast up to Herbignac. She also went to Vannes for the day with Helena shopping for shoes while I stayed home watching the Rugby on television. We took her to see the river Vilaine and Nantes/Brest canal junction which is a couple of miles from our cottage and very pretty, and then on to the large lake with beach and childrens play area. I think she enjoyed herself and she said it was very relaxing, although she never had the best of weather as we had a few showers that week ( I have just applied fertilizer/weed killer to the grass and would like it to rain now to water it in, but you can bet it wont now!).

New Guests

2005-04-08T15:26:00.000-01:00

Well we have just had our second guests of the year staying, and they left today. They were here for a week, a family of four that came from the same town we lived in, in the UK. Everything went fine without any problems the two children were well behaved and enjoyed themselves, the youngest would collect the eggs from the chicken house and even took our goat for a walk.

chicken Run

2005-03-30T21:19:00.000-01:00

We have opened up our chicken pen so the chickens can go in with the goat, so they now have a lot of grass for them to go looking for bugs and grubs. We removed the old fencing that was between the two pens, but the goat kept going in to the chicken pen and head butting the fencing to try and get at the roses that are outside the fencing. After just one day we had to replace a fence between the two pens to prevent the goat from making more holes in the chickens fencing. We left a small gap so the chickens can get through but hopefully not allowing the goat through.

Gite Standstill For The Rugby

2005-03-20T22:21:00.000-01:00

Wales done it! who would of thought that at the begining of the 6 nations championships that Wales would win the grand slam. Ireland were the favourites to win it this year but they were outclassed and out played. Not much happened at South Brittany Cottage this weekend apart from spending all Saturday watching the Rugby. Sunday was spent mowing the grass. We have had some great weather here the last few days, and it was so hot I had to wear a hat and the shirt was off while I was cutting the grass. lets hope it stays like this for a while.

Brittany Gite Has A Landsweeper

2005-03-18T17:20:00.000-01:00

We have now got a tow behind sweeper for the mower. I tried one that a friend down the road had, to see if it would do the job of picking up dead leaves twigs etc. and when it done what I wanted it to do I went on the hunt for one. I found one in the local Bricomarche in La Roche Bernard. It looks a bit like an old style push cylinder mower, but instead of blades it has brushes, it then flicks the debrit in to a large collection bag at the bag. And it is really good. It picks up the cut grass, dead leaves, twigs and stones. Well worth getting.

New trailer and Tiner for Mower

2005-03-17T10:54:00.000-01:00

We have got a trailer for the ride on mower now. I was going to have a go at making one using wheelbarrow wheels, but I went into our local bricomarche (diy store) and there was a trailer for the mower right inside the doors, and it was as cheap to buy it than to buy the bits to make one. So I went back got our big trailer and went back and bought it. It has a removable tail board and it tips, just the job.While I was getting the trailer I saw a spring tine dethatcher which tows behind the mower, it scrapes up the dead grass, thatch and moss in the grass, so we bought that at the same time. And after getting them home and assembling them they worked great.On the lookout for sweeper to tow behind the mower now, so we can sweep up the dead grass, leaves and twigs from the land and around the cottage.

Rss feed on South Brittany Cottage Site

2005-03-13T08:22:00.000-01:00

I got an RSS feed going for our website www.southbrittanycottage.com Im not to sure about the benefits of an RSS feed but I read somewhere that they are becoming more and more important, on websites. So lets see how it goes. If it doesnt work I can always remove it again.
Rss feed for our site is www.southbrittanycottage.com/rss.xml

Looking For A Trailer For Mower

2005-03-08T22:35:00.000-01:00

I have seen a few small trailers for the ride on mower or lawn tractor on the internet, so i will be looking into the cost of shipping to France from the UK. Meanwhile I will keep an eye open for one heare in Brittany.

A.D.S.L Broadband Arrives

2005-03-08T20:36:00.000-01:00

We now have broadband at South Brittany Cottage, I forgot how quick it was.... and hear it is 4 times as fast as what I had in the Uk. It really is nice to be able to surf without falling asleep between downloads.

Mower Arrives at South Brittany Cottage

2005-03-07T23:34:00.000-01:00

We went back to the shop the following day and picked up the new ride on mower or lawn tractor as they are also called. Its a M.T.D with a 12.5 over head valve engine and around a 3feet cut. So now I am after a small trailer for it. As last summer the apples we had from the orchard had to be collected on an almost daily basis and it was done with a wheelbarrow, which was a little tiring, so a trailer on the back of the little tractor will be great.

Spotted a Nice New Mower

2005-03-01T18:45:00.000-01:00

I went off with Helena this afternoon, she needed to get horse food, and while we were at the shop I spotted a rather nice new ride on mower. After returning home and chatting it over, we returned to the shop with our trailer to buy it. But we were told that we had to go back again tommorrow to get it, or at least I think that is what we were told. So I will let you know tommorrow if things work out and we get it.

New Chain for ChainSaw

2005-02-22T18:47:00.000-01:00

I collected the new chain for my chainsaw on Saturday so the afternoon was spent playing around with it, fitting the chain, adjusting the chain brake, cleaning it etc etc. Oh and of course trying it out. When we arrived here we had to go out and buy all these toys that we just never had a need for back in the UK. I now have 3 chainsaws, a petrol strimmer, a petrol hedge trimmer and a ride on mower.
We have had small snow showers here! I thought we would have seen the last of that sort of weather in the UK. The showers never come to much but all the same it snowed.
I was at my parents cottage today fitting the metal partition walls ready to plasterboard in the kitchen area.

Bonjour Tout

2005-02-16T09:26:00.000-01:00

Bonjour tout,
Not a great deal happening at the moment, still workin on my parents cottage, upstairs still needs the three velux windows installing. Helena has been taking her time cleaning and tidying our holiday cottage after the visitors left.I have been spending a lot of time altering little bits on our gites web site, dividing the accommodation page into two and doing the same with the local attractions page and we added a frequently asked questions page aswell. A friend that lives around the corner helped me with doing the extra pages the same family that own the fishing lakes ( take a look at their site and see the size of their carp they have in those lakes!). Helena has gone to Vannes again to sell the jumpers on the market, so I went to feed the horses and chickens. I am going back to my parents house to carry on there for a while.

Brittany Gites:Gite Holiday In France-South Brittany Cottage

2005-02-13T19:40:00.000-01:00

Brittany Gites:Gite Holiday In France-South Brittany Cottage

Who Do I Support

2005-02-13T16:42:00.000-01:00

I spent all morning and most of the afternoon on the internet. Changing some of the metatags on our holiday cottage web site, submitting to as many search engines and directories as possible and answering emails to enquiries for booking our cottage. Then it was time for the big match England v France in the six nations rugby tournament! Who was I to cheer for? It turned out to be quite difficult as the first half England stormed away there wasnt much of a game, but come the second half, well..... England went to sleep, missed their kicks and France started coming back in to the game with England giving them penalties to kick.
So there it was two games and two losses for England and two games and two wins for France,(both games scrappy and just one) I knew it was a reason I moved to France!

Internet,La Roche Bernard,Plasterboarding

2005-02-10T16:21:00.000-01:00

Not much to say about today really, I spent most of this morning on the internet, sorting out enquiries and bookings for our holiday cottage. I then went to La roche Bernard to meet Helena who was working the market there.Then after lunch I continued with getting on with my parents cottage, putting up some plasterboard, and putting up some more metal stud work to form the partition walls.

Feeding horses and fitting some doors

2005-02-09T19:23:00.000-01:00

Helena went to Vannes this morning to work the market there, which meant I had to feed the chickens and horses, only one horse is ours, the other belongs to the other English people that live just around the corner from our cottage,they own the carp fishing lakes. After feeding the animals I carried on renovating my parents house,(next to ours). I was putting up partition walls and fitting doors upstairs forming the two bedrooms.

Off To Golf with One Of Our Guests

2005-02-09T07:48:00.000-01:00

Yesterday I went off to play golf with one of the people that is renting the cottage from us. And Helena went with the other two people to Nantes, to show them the way to get there. I went to Caden to play golf, which is around 12 miles away, it is only a nine hole course, but it is very long with plenty of water features and lots of trees! I think Martin enjoyed the course and we had a good day.

A Day At Vannes

2005-02-07T19:54:00.000-01:00

Today we spent the day at Vannes, trying to sort out the paperwork for Helena doing the markets(tax etc). We went with a friend that is fluent in French which was infaluable,as we had so many forms and questions.But in the end, we think we sorted it all out, making it viable for Helena to continue to sell jumpers on the markets around the areas near our cottage.

A Typical Sunday

2005-02-06T13:38:00.000-01:00

Not a lot done today here, a typical Sunday really! We took the dogs out for a walk, and I went to where my wifes horse is kept and put two posts in the ground so she can tie them up to groom them etc. When we arrived back to our place, the guests that are renting the cottage asked if we could talk to the woman that lives opposite us to ask if they could look at her other property that she has for sale, but when I asked her she said that it was sold. So the guests are going to La Roche Bernard tommorrow to look at the estate agents there.

The first guests of the year arrive

2005-02-05T21:04:00.000-01:00

The first guests of the year arrived to stay in the cottage today. All went fine, I had a few things to do this morning cutting grass outside the cottage, touching up a bit paintwork outside sweeping up and cleaning the patio furniture.

New blinds for the bedrooms

2005-02-03T17:01:00.000-01:00

This morning I fitted a new light in the cupboard under the stairs and fitted a chipboard to divide the space under the stairs, so we can use it for storage space. Then I cleaned ot the lights in the livingroom and bathroom. Midday I went to La Roche Bernard,as it was market day there to meet my wife, she has a stall and sell wool English and Irish jumpers on various markets in the area. After lunch we went to the local Bricomarche (DIY store) to get some new blinds for the bedroom velux windows.We bought genuine velux as we thought they would fit better and be better quality,and as a bonus they were cheaper than the other make they had there for sale! So when we returned I got on with fitting the blinds, which were very easy. I then fitted the post box to the nice new pvc fence that I erected to the front of the cottage yesterday.

A New Fence For The Cottage

2005-02-02T17:58:00.000-01:00

This afternoon was taken up by putting up a new pvc fence outside the front of our holiday cottage. A few days ago we knocked a wall down that was seperating the small patio area from the small front garden to open it up. And while we were at it we took down the old fence, which was wooden posts with pvc coated wire between them.

Digging A Digger Out Of The Mud

2005-02-02T17:56:00.001-01:00

I spent this morning helping my mate again getting his 18 tonne swing shovel out of the mud in his drained lake. We had initially got it out of the mud, but the track had come off again so we had to try and get it back on again, which we did after a few attempts. We only had scaffold poles, a car body repair jack, and a hand operated winch. What a job! and I dont want to do it again for a while, if ever! So the Hymac is now out of the mud and up on the firm harder banks of the lake, so the lake can be filled again now. So I can get on with finnishing off the cottage, as we have guests staying for a week on Saturday.

First Blog

2005-02-01T20:32:00.000-01:00

Hi to all,
Hopefully I will be able to keep an online diary of owning and running a gite in South Brittany France