It’s been raining relentlessly now for about two weeks and the normal order of things has been restored.  The veggie patch has turned from dry barren wilderness to bog and my bike is still sulking, damply, in the corner.  Last week there was a brief respite when it was dry enough to venture forth and so […]

During last month’s ‘vague froid’,  I became aware of a recently acquired need I have developed to check the thermometre.  It wasn’t good enough for me to know it was cold, I wanted to know just how bloody cold exactly.  I think it must be a middle-aged thing, like hoarding sugar and knowing the price of diesel at […]

It’s February and so technically still Wintertime, but it’s icy charms are beginning to pall now and I’m really looking forward to the Spring.  The snow and ice have been great, but with temperatures well below or around freezing for a couple of weeks it was all getting a bit tiresome.  I wonder how the peoples […]

So anyway, that turbine I mentioned in my last post turned out to be complete rubbish and had to be replaced with yet another one – which is working great! Just when I thought we’d got away with a mild Winter this time around and the buds were getting ready to burst with a portent of Spring, […]

One of the jobs on Bob’s spectacularly long ‘to do’ list has been to upgrade our water turbine at Fisherman’s cabin.  It’s shortcoming was, that to turn it on and off, you had to sort of absail down the 12ft bank, avoid the alarmingly large hornets who chose this spot for their ill-placed nest, hack through tangly […]

For some time now, I have been hankering after a ‘housecoat’.  All my neighbours have one, or at least, the female ones do. These items are ‘de rigueur’ in Piégut and the surrounding area.  Practical and stylish, I’ll be equally at home wearing it whilst I tour round my local supermarket (when teamed with tarten slippers) as […]

In the Dordogne there are apparently more than 8800 lakes and the Department have now decided they need to do a census in order that they can be ‘regularised’.  This week we received notification that it was our little lake’s turn to be inspected and the Inspector duly arrived, complete with clipboard and a sidekick.  Firstly, we answered […]

It had to happen one day.  Fisherman’s cabin has received a bad review…. “Dear Di & Bob, Well, what can I say except never again! Miriam and I were promised a get-away haven with everything we might need but spending several hours hunting about the place I still haven’t found a TV, Hi-fi, Wi-fi, dishwasher or even a […]

I am in denial.  It’s still so wonderfully warm I can’t quite believe it’s time to bring in the firewood for the coming Winter.  But all the signs are there… for weeks now our neighbours have been trundling around with trailers full of logs and all over the area you can hear the distant thunk […]

Oh, little cabin in a wood, A fine, upstanding force for GOOD, What draws me back, what makes me stay, To while day after day, away? I love your sturdy oakiness, Your unasham’ed folkiness, Off beat, off grid but that’s all right, I love the night, by candlelight…. And though you’re not considered ‘plush’ (a compost loo […]