The weeks of summer are indeed weeks of frantic activity. Everything is in full bloom and everyone is in a hectic rush to make the most out of summer before the days start to close in. The weather has been splendid, and although a little hot for me, everyone else seems to be basking in the weather and vacationing.

Last Sunday night we went to a fireworks display and there were two dancers there of a very high quality. I really had a great time. On Wednesday we went for a picnic at Chambord with Patrick, Patricia, Severine, Elaura , Gilles and Bastien. The temperature was in the high 30 ’s and a place under the shady trees was a perfect way to spend the day. I think everyone enjoyed the day. We played football and soccer, and took Maddie and Abby-Rose with us, as well as the Bruneaus new little toy Yorkshire terror, Diabolo . He is so cute!

We were supposed to have a BBQ with Martin and Avril, but we were rained out.

Our big house project for this week is to finish the laundry. I have bought a new washing machine and a freezer and | want to be able to fit them into my very small laundry. This involved moving all the plumbing and the evacuation pipes, which was all done today. We now have to put up walls, plaster, crepi and paint. .

This summer has been sooo hot. People who know me (Lynda) will know that one of my reasons for leaving Australia was to escape the heat. I got so fed up with the heat that I marched upstairs with a stiff rum and proceeded to cut off all of my hair!! No joke!

Luckily, today we had to go to Brico Depot to by some liquid rubber for a leaking roof, so we could stop in at our golf club on the way back and spend a lazy afternoon by the pool. It was just glorious!

So, tomorrow, Richard has got to start painting all this stuff onto the roof. We already took all the tiles off, karchered them and replaced them, but Richard wants a guaranteed watertight finish. Then we can get back to putting the ba13 on the ceiling. We are determined to make an office space in our old laundry since our laundry is now in the main house.

L am also eagerly awaiting a response from the Maire as to getting a Code d’Urbanism [CDU] for the restoration of Wishing- Well cottage. You’ll hear a lot more about this little project in the future and the silly budget that I have for its restoration.

Welcome to our ‘new look’ page for Luçay le Mâle.
We have now incorporated the facility for other English speakers to record their adventures to share with others. Just register on the right hand side of this page.
We have got lots of months to put in ourselves, and get it all back up to date. I’m also looking for lots of information about the village, for any kind soul who would like to supply them.
Get blogging today! Residents only need apply!

So much again has happened, and I’ve forgotten most of it. In February, we spent a couple of Sundays at Amboise Chateau and Chateau de Blois. Both built at similar times, but both contrasting. Amboise was simply stunning, whereas Blois very disappointing. Amboise was the chateau the great Leonardo da Vinci spent his last days in and his very simple tomb (pictured below) is there to see in the chapel that stands in the chateau grounds. With Amboise, the tour is laid out in a way where you can learn and understand what happened there. Blois, in contrast is really just showing furniture and
paintings and exhibits the odd modern day gallery. We didn’t learn much about it at all.

Chateau Amboise	View of the town from the chateau
One of the towers	Bridge over the River Loire
North side	The two of us
View of the chapel opposite the chateau where the tomb of Leonardo da Vinci lays

The weather has been very strange. It has been one of the mildest winters. Chilly, but nothing really,
really cold. In early March we had high winds and then a lot of rain. So much rain that the river behind our house burst its banks. It would have to take a big flood to get to us though. Then after the rains, we had a week of glorious sunshine, which was very out of season. The following week, we had snow. Not enough to cover the ground but the whole week remained very cold. But since then, it has been beautiful, temperatures around the mid 20’s, which again is unusual for the time of year. Flowers started to bloom very early too.

First the floods. Normally this is just a field
A week later, the temperatures plummet and we have snowfall
And since the snow, the weather has improved and we’re enjoying mid twenties days
Maddie loves this time of year. Not too hot or too cold, he can sit on his step and admire the view.

At the beginning of March, we had new neighbours move in to the house 200m down the road from us. They are from Northern Ireland, Martin and Avril. Very nice people, out here for the same reasons as us - to get away from the rat race. They have become very good friends and we have helped them out here and there, getting themselves established over here. And they have helped us too, Martin
managed to install our French satellite system for us, so we finally have French tv here at long last!

We didn’t want to have English speaking friends, wanting to immerse ourselves as much as possible
with French people, but spending time with them has made us realise how much we have missed not being able to speak in more detail about things. So now, it’s about balance. I feel we are very lucky, as we normally don’t associate greatly with our neighbours, but with Avril and Martin, we feel we have made real friends, rather than just acquaintances.

Avril, Richard and
Lynda

Restoration wise, we have done a little bit. It took us sometime to awaken from our hibernation, but
some of the major things we have achieved are fitting a verandah at the back of our house, install plumbing and electricity to our en-suite bathroom, stripped back and repainted and glazed the back door and Lynda has also made the starting of a vegetable patch along with filling the garden wall with
choux to prevent weeds getting in.

Our first attempt at plumbing and electrics. It was fun and now the mess is hidden behind plasterboard. But the most important thing is it all works!
Our new verandah, cools the media room by shading from the sun and also offers a place to sit outside.	Back door has been stripped, filled, repainted and reglazed.
Lynda has filled between the rocks with choux and started a vegie patch below.

Socially, we have spent a lot of time with Avril and Martin, almost on a daily basis some days. Had a
couple of all night sessions (just chatting and talking) and also had a picnic in Chateau Chombards grounds with them and Martins brother and sister in law when they came over to visit in mid April. We still visit Patrick, Patricia, Severine and Elaura and play cards with them and also went to a fireworks display for Easter with them.

Picnic at Chambord. Avril, sister in law Teresa, nephew Shaun and Martn far right.	The picnic continues.
Played football as well. I was slightly tired.	Easter holiday with a firework display and fairground attractions. Went with Patrick and family.

Other things, I have recently started a correspondence course on Freelance Journalism. Already I have managed to organise a paper to write for, The Brisbane Valley Sun, where I am writing simple 250 word articles on life in France and how it compares to Australia. My writing has slowed down a little, due to the fine weather we are having, but I am fulfilling my quota to the paper, even if my studying has slowed a little. I’ve also been made a moderator of an internet forum I use a lot (against my will at first). It’s the largest forum about my favourite football team, Everton and keeps me fairly busy in the evening time, banning people and deleting posts etc. It’s fun though.

Lynda is also happier now the warmer weather has arrived. It means she can get out to her garden a lot more, and it seems to be the happiest place for her, amongst the plants and wildlife.

There’s been lots of other stuff that’s happened, I just can’t remember what it was. I need to write
things down more.

A long time has passed since the last update here, but so much has happened. I expect I will miss some things out, but I will try to remember as much as possible.

Much of November and up to mid December was spent on the house renovations, primarily in the kitchen. The plumbers came in and worked, while we worked on fitting the cupboards, sanding, painting, and fitting the cooker. We had many problems with the plumber and stated that we need the work complete by 17th December as that is when Tiffany would be arriving and we didn’t want to go through Christmas without a working kitchen. We were assured that all would be complete.

Well, a tradesmans word is as good as his actions. We saw him for one day per week, and although he managed to get power into the kitchen and plumb the water to the taps, he failed to get the vacuation pump installed. This was because of his supplier failing to get a part to him on time. In fact several parts were needed, but he did not realise this until he had received one part. The final day, we were told it would be impossible to get the parts required and the pump working before Christmas. We were livid and asked if there was an alternative solution, even temporary. We were told no, but we then had the idea of using the old pipework that went through the walls out into the back garden. This method had been working for 100 years, so a few more weeks wouldn’t hurt. Although now technically illegal, we asked him to hook the sink drainage to this pipe. This he did, and we had a fully working kitchen. He wasn’t too happy about doing it and even looked confused at us even suggesting such a thing, but in the end he complied. We were happy again.

The amount of work we had put in to getting the kitchen ready for Tiffany’s arrival, we were not about to let a simple piece of plastic pipe get in the way. The kitchen was workable by the time Tiffany arrived, although not thoroughly decorated. Basically to finish off, a second coat of paint needs to be applied to the walls, silicone sealing around the workbench to the walls and simple polishing up.

The second week of January, the plumber returned for a day. By then the electrics to the power points in the kitchen and the main lights in the media room had failed. The plumber couldn’t find the fault and so will leave it to his electrician boss to sort out at a later date. Frustrating again. He did however, get quite far in installing the evacuation pump in the new downstairs toilet and set up the toilet next to it. Again, he discovered that another part is needed.

In this time, the dishwasher Lynda had ordered at the end of October last year had finally arrived in January. It was worth the wait. She managed to get an excellent deal with it. The dishwasher wasn’t available in the shops, but it’s closest model was 999 euros. She managed to get the next model up for half the price by going direct with the manufacturers. Even though it is an intergrable (fitted) we installed it ourselves, and even extended the drainage through another pipe through the wall of the house and out into the garden. The dishwasher is superb and is the quietist dishwasher I have ever
heard (or not heard as the case may be).

Kitchen is finally useable, although a little polishing up is required to make it complete.

Things never go according to plan, and two days before Tiffany arrived, my laptop decided to die. It wouldn’t boot up, I couldn’t repair Windows as the CD drive had also failed. This would make things awkward as three people would want to be using Lyndas laptop once Tiff had arrived. I think all the dust from sanding had gotten into the system and caused it to die. I wasn’t going to give up on it as there was lots of important information on the laptop and so after Christmas I bought a cable to hook the laptop hard drive to the desktop pc and start fault finding. I discovered that the hard drive had
failed, so onto ebay and I bought a new hard drive and a new cd drive. Once I received them, I fitted and reinstalled windows and by the second week of February, had the laptop up and running again.

Onto the really exciting news of Tiffany arriving for a five and a half week holiday in the middle of a French winter. A few days before her arrival, Lynda phoned her up in Australia to make the final arrangements. Lynda asked Tiffany if she had packed yet, to which her reply was yes. Lynda asked if
she had any gloves. Tiffany said yes. Lynda asked have you packed them. Tiffany replied no. Lynda said pack them. Tiffany asked why. Lynda said because it will be cold. She then asked the same question for a woolly hat, scarf and jumpers, to which the same response was made. It took quite a bit of effort to get through to Tiffany that it will be cold in France. Maybe it’s difficult for her to comprehend as when she was last in France she came in the middle of a heatwave where the temperatures were in the mid thirties. Add to that she was in the Australian summer at the time of the call, might make it harder to appreciate the cold here. She would soon learn though, oh yes she would learn.

We arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport at around 7am, a good half hour before Tiffany’s plane would land. The journey had been quite difficult, as we had left at three in the morning and driven most of the three hour trip in dense fog. Nonetheless we had made it in time and were anxiously awaiting Tiffany’s arrival.

At the airport, it is not possible to go into the baggage claim section, the last section before the traveller comes through the arrivals door, but at Charles de Gaulle, they have large windows showing this section instead of the walls in most other airports that stop you seeing into this section. Lynda and I waited nervously at all the people pouring in claiming their luggage. No sign of Tiffany yet. Then, two young women walked through into the baggage section, one in a British Airways uniform. We paid no attention, until one of the young women started waving to us. Incredibly it was Tiffany. She had
grown so much in the past 6 months, that she looked 20! The woman who accompanied Tiffany was a BA stewardess who had taken Tiffany through the disembarking process. We were amazingly invited into the baggage reclaim section to meet Tiffany and wait for her bags to arrive.

And so began a holiday that went so quickly. The following day was Tiffany’s birthday, she became a teenager on the 18th December. The day after we held a birthday party for her, and had many of her French friends that she had met on her last visit over for a dancing competition. Parents were invited
too and much merriment was enjoyed. Lynda kept offering the men my whiskey, and when I told her how much it had cost, she could understand why they wanted whiskey and not the usual drinks they have!

The day after her birthday party, Tiffany went to a French school with Elaura for the day. A great experience for her and she had quite a few of the young boys chasing after her calling her beautiful (in French of course!). She participated greatly in Elaura’s English class and was asked to record a question and answer tape with the English teacher so pupils could analyse it later. Tiffany was so impressed with the English teachers English, she thought he was English. He was French of course.

And then Christmas came. We were invited to Patrick and Patricia’s on Christmas Eve for dinner, along with their family, including their two sons, their wives and children. A banquet was laid on, including fois gras, snails, salmon and duck. Then at one in the morning of Christmas Day, everybody sat down and opened their Christmas presents. This went on til about four in the morning, which was too much for us and we trotted off home. We were invited back for Christmas lunch the following day, which we barely made due to our sleepiness.

A nice cosy place to have Christmas. It wasn’t to stay that way once Tiffany had been around for a while.
A shocked Tiffany. What she was shocked about, I don’t know.
Another banquet enjoyed by all/	Playing games at 4am.

For Boxing Day (not that the French recognise this day as such), we were invited to Xaviers for dinner. We arrived and were somewhat perplexed at nothing being cooked. We were there for a couple of hours and still no food had been cooked. Valerie was beginning to look frustrated as she clearly wanted to cook and eat, but apparently with us not there. Not sure what had happened, whether it was a misunderstanding or Xavier had forgotten to tell Valerie (which has happened before), so we went away hungry, having to rustle something up when we got home.

The rest of the week, we took easy, spending time together, relaxing and keeping in the warm!

The next big event was New Years eve party, at Le Dauphin again. Around 20 people were invited and again we noshed ourselves until the early hours of the morning. Tiffany ended up staying the night and we didn’t see her for another 2 days after that as she continued staying with Elaura.

The table is ready for dinner.	Tiffany looks a bit squished.
Spot the third head.
Should have been the Festival of the Fools, not New Years Eve.

When she finally came back, we took her for her first visit to a major chateau. We went to the famous Fountainebleue chateau about three hours drive away. The tour lasted around 90 minutes and Tiffany was in awe of the chateau and its lush contents. She had never seen anything like it as there is nothing in Australia to compare with it. After the tour, we had a walk around the town and found a mobile ice skating rink in the middle of town which people were enjoying. A load of snow was sitting next to it, and this was unfortunately the closest Tiffany got to seeing snow on this holiday.

Chateau de Fountainebleue	This was the closest Tiffany got to seeing thick snow.

A couple of days later, we took Tiffany and the dogs to chateau Chombard. The dogs went for a very long walk with us and enjoyed themselves immensely. We didn’t go inside this chateau as it is pretty bare inside, and it’s best features are certainly external. On the way back home, we stopped in at a
electrical store to get Tiffany a couple of cables for her ipod. Due to the sales the store was having, we were stuck in line for 45 minutes. We were not happy once we reached the checkout as the cashier was extremely inefficient. Three quarters of an hour to serve 8 people is simply ridiculous. We were furious.

Tiffany and Lynda outside
Chambord.

Again, we were invited to Le Dauphin for this years Galette du Roi (cake of the king). As explained last year, the youngest of the group, would dictate where each piece of cake would go to. The person who finds a small token in their piece is crowned king and must declare his queen. Last year Lynda was “king”, this year it was my turn, so I declared Tiffany as queen. (A few days later, she stayed with Jeremy and Elodie and they celebrated the galette du roi, this time Tiffany was king). The downside to this festival is that whoever becomes king, must give a cake back to whoever supplied the cake in the first place.

Playing games after Galette du Roi.

The weather had for much of the time been very mild, around 15 or 16 each day. The final weekend before Tiffs departure, the temperatures dropped to what they should be for this time of year, just above freezing. With these new temperatures, we were all permanently on snow watch. Eventually, we did have some snow fall the day before we left for Paris, but it was barely a sprinkle and nowhere enough to cover.

It snowed a little, but
not too much.

On our arrival in Paris, we decided to visit the royal palace of Versailles. Here we saw a bit more snow covering, but again it was very thin. We took a tour of the chateau, and we visited a section Lynda and I had never been in before despite this being our fourth visit, the opera hall. Tiffany was inthralled
by this, and to be fair it was stunning.

Tiffany looking very cold outside the chateau.	A little more snow had fallen in Paris than home though.
From Versailles back garden.	Magnificent Hall of Mirrors.

We left around mid afternoon and made our way to the hotel which was situated near Euro Disney for our final night together.

Is that bed big enough for you Tiffany?	Well she was the Queen for the Galette du Roi.

At four in the afternoon, on the 25th Jan, we slowly made our way to the airport. We booked Tiffany on and soon it was time to say our goodbyes. It was very sad and Lynda, for the first time I’ve seen was very cut up about Tiff going back. Hopefully one day when she’s older, she might want to spend more time in France with us. It would be good for her to spend a year here perhaps, working and really seeing a different way of life. Where she is in Stanthorpe, rarely a person gets a chance to see life outside of it.

Lynda and I spent the following few days resting at the hotel and planning our work schedule for the next few weeks, to gain a regular income. The dogs remained at Le Dauphin where they would be well looked after and fed!