Our Best Friends

Here we are walking next to The Lac de Guerledon which is a huge lake near to Penderff. It is very beautiful and great for walks and it even has two beaches, restaurants etc and water sports.
We took Ragdale, Floss, Fleur and Teasel for a long walk last Sunday. It was Teasel's first real walk and she behaved beautifully and was very tired when we got  home, thank goodness!

New Babies At Penderff

Well, here are our new addtions to our family of aniamls. Three baby canaries, in this picture they are four days old and have no feathers and their eyes are closed. The Mother and Father are working very hard to feed them as in three weeks times they will be ready to fly. We have three nests on the go at the moment so lots of babies to care for!

Teasel

Well, here she is on her first day at her new home with us. Already she is running poor old Beakie around and the other's are very tolerent of her, she will soon be part of the family.

A New Puppy!

At the time of writing we still have another five days to wait until we go and fetch our new puppy. She is a eight week old Jack Russell and we have named her Teasel. We miss Growler so much we thouught it was a good time to have another terrier, although she can never take the place of Growler, it might just help filling the gap in our lives.

Floss's Birthday

Thursday 24th Jan, it's Floss's 10th birthday.

My beautiful girl is still looking young and is as energetic as ever! She is so looking forward to the 2013 season and meeting lots of new friends who come to stay in our gite.

Happy Birthday Floss!

The New Ensuite!

At long last we have finished the ensuite. It was a very big project for us to take on as Jeremy had to learn some new skills very quickly, we wanted this to be our own work (with a little help from our friend Arthur!)

Our first guests stayed in November for one week and they said that the added comfort of having this was wonderful, they actually said it was like staying in an upmarket Boutique hotel..........wow!

Anway, building and decorating done, we are now ready for the 2013 season.

So, now we are in January, we are spending our time chopping down trees, logging and splitting them to keep the home fires buring, we are totally self sufficient in our heating which is wonderful, no huge oil or gas bills for us.

Getting uptodate 2012

Many apologies for not keeping my blog current, we have been so busy for the past two years, but  now I'm up and running again, so welcome!

Here we are in the summer of 2012, with our guest's the Turners, having fun on our rowing boat and having a picnic.

This has been a difficult year as in April,our darling little Jack Russell, Growler, who is in the blog earlier on, had to go to Rainbow Bridge to stay with our past beloved pets. Growler was 18 years old and had a brilliant life, always the boss, always kind (except to rodents!) and we will miss him so very much.

This summer has been busy, we have made so many new friends who came to stay in our gite, and we hope very much that they will return to see us again. Jeremy and I are busy at this moment in time building an ensuite shower room and wc for the upstairs double room. We have also been "Annie Sloaned" which means that we have been painting and distressing furniture to make our gite a comtemporary and warm home, not the usual holiday property, but very much in keeping with the age and style of the building, we hope that you will all love it.

Since my last blog two years ago, we have also put in a new pool in a new private garden for the gite which has fantastic views over the forest and fiels, check it out on our website.

Floss tops up her tan

Here is Floss savouring the first hot day of the season on her sun bed. Please note, she wears a hat and glasses to prevent sunburn but she dosn't need suntan cream. She does work hard normally, honestly!

Another year older?

Oh well, here is the author of this blog looking a complete plonker at her birthday barbie (kindly hosted by Pam and Pete) I really wish that my hair would look as good as this all the time, thanks Pam! We had a lovely evening.

Spring Lambs!

Here are some of our new lambs. We have five sheep and they all had their due dates when they should lamb, but of course they didn't stick to the rules! Jennie had her twins early one morning in the field, they were a week before they were due. Ma, have me such a fright! Jeremy was away and she decided to lamb in the field, the first lamb was fine but she had trouble with the second, our friends Pam and Pete, luckily were here, so they stayed and held her hand whilst I drove like mad to find out neighbour who is a sheep farmer. Dominic arrived and delivered our little boy safely. We finally had nine lambs and they are all doing well and when you look into the field it is like looking at a primary school playground!

Old girl

I'm afraid I have some sad news to share, my old hen whose photo is on the blog, died in November after a long and bravely fought battle. We had her in the house in a cage and I had medicine sent from England for her, from a very nice lady who has a farm and a website called "Happy Chicks". Unfortuantly to no avail and she died in her peacefully in her sleep.

Penderff looked so beautiful, all the trees were covered in snow, the sheep and calves of course had never seen snow before so they were very funny, playing and digging down to the grass, the dogs of course thought it was great fun, poor Floss, all the snow stuck to her fur on the legs and tummy like big snowballs, we had to defrost her! I don't think I fancy a dip in the pool at the moment, could be a little cold! This picture was taken before the snow got really deep.

Penderff in the snow

This is our driveway in the snow. We never expected to have snow like this in Brittany, what a pity we left our sledges in England. I couldn't leave the house for six days as the roads were so bad, Jeremy had to drive me to the shops in our 4x4, it was really exciting!

Floss the princess of Penderff

This is Floss showing off this season's new look tirara range. Jane very kindly brought this tirara for Floss whilst we were away on a girl's holiday (we, being Jane, Lynn and Judith)

Floss just loves to dress up, she is a real little girl, after of course she has finished her jobs with the animals.

Getting wood in for the winter

Jeremy and I worked hard today getting in firewood for the winter. We chainsawed, felled trees, split logs and stacked them in the woodshed, it was back breaking! Ragdale, Floss, Fleur and Growler all came to help (in Floss's case she was more of a nuisance than a help) Growler rode to the woods in a basket on the quad bike as he thinks it is far to far for him to walk at his great age. The chickens thought that they would come and see what we were doing in the afternoon and they found lots of juicy bugs to eat. It was a lovely warm sunny day and we ate lots of blackberries to keep us going.

Summer holidays drawing to a close

What a super summer we have had here at Penderff. Some old friends came back to visit us again in the gite and we also met two new famillies coming to Penderff for the first time. Our first new family has two little boys who had such fun in the swimming pool, it was a joy to watch their confidence grow in the water, and all the splashing and laughing! We are looking forward to their return next year. Our next new family had four children, the dogs thought that they were in heaven! Floss was soooooo in love with the little girl that she didn't eat properly for a couple of days after they left. The dogs had never had such much walking and playing with balls as they had that week. The swimming pool was also very busy with games etc most afternoons, fun was had by all. Our dear friends "The Robinsons" have been here this week, this is their fourth visit to us. We have all eaten and drunk far too much, and last night we were invited to share a paella with them in the gite which was great fun. I can't believe just how much Laura has grown in the past four years, she has loved spending time with Growler again. This is Lise and Laura in 2007 with Growler

Poor Growler

Poor Growler had to visit the Doctor's recently as he ripped his claw off and he also needed a blood test to see if he is ok, Growler is very old and is 15 years old. He was very brave but had to have two bandages on his legs and here he is sitting on Granny's knee in the garden recuperating.

Animals on the move!

Yesterday Jeremy, Floss and I moved the sheep and geese to their new field for the winter, where there is more grass and a bigger shelter for them. More grass means fatter geese for Christmas, but.......sadly, we can't eat our geese because they have become little people so its bread and jam on Christmas day! This is Floss looking pleased with herself after a hard day's work.

Nice things people have said

This is taken from a blog written by a family who have stayed here four times!! This is from their second visit in 2007.

Another lovely summer holiday in Brittany. A selection of highlights above: we spent lots of time with The Woodwards et al, Camilla joined us for a few days, we went to Jeremy & Judith's 25th Wedding Anniversary party, I lusted after Judith's car, we went to the dinosaur park, and we eat lots and lots of lovely stuff! The full holiday can be viewed here . Be warned - it is 171 pictures. (Well, we were there for two weeks!)

What happens next?

Judith and all the gang at Penderff are now blogging! You can catch up with goings-on at Penderff here...watch this space!