Some happy snaps for you :)

Bonjour all,

Hope you're well. Thought I would send you some more photos.

I'm sitting in a café in Sarlat, waiting for our car salesman to drop off a loan car to use before our new car is delivered in about 15 days time - very exciting! Speaking of Sarlat, it's a must visit if you're over here. The picture below was taken in the really old part of Sarlat - it's beautiful. It's used as a backdrop in a heap of period movies. Here is Soph and Connor holding up a pair of geese!

 
The photo below is Sophie standing in front of our house. These tulips only flower for ten days of the year! Had to take a snap.

The following shot is of our neighbouring village. It's across the valley from our hamlet. It gives you a good feel for how high up we are. The locals say if you can see the snow on the Massif Central mountains it's not a good sign for the weather. We saw them yesterday and sure enough today is freezing! It's about 15 degrees outside. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and over 20c - bring it on!

The house we have here is fantastic. It's massive and we feel very, very lucky. Here is Jane in the kitchen, pondering her next masterpiece!

 

The dining table is huge and how's this fireplace! Back in the day, the farmers used to sit around this type of fireplace, eat, chat, and probably sleep near it too. With temperatures reaching -15c in winter its impressive how these guys survived on the land.

 

  

Here is a frosty morning on the front patio, having breakfast - it's a great spot. Leaves are just starting to appear on those trees you can see in the foreground.   

 

 





I've never eaten so much cheese, cream, and bread, and drank so much wine in my life! And I'm loving it! But I still feel pretty healthy - go figure?! It's all just such good quality and the selection of red wines, in the supermarket(!), is mind blowing! We're big fans of the blood red wines of Cahor, we'll just have to drop down there to do some wine tasting. Here is us in a café in Figeac.

 

 



Here is our little man in Cahor. Connor is melting the hearts of many French madams with his "au revoir" when we're saying good bye - his very first French word.

 

 

Bye for now and best wishes from Jane, Sophie, Connor, and me.

 

We've almost bought a car!

Yesterday was a big day for us. We almost bought a car! But before I get into that I just wanted to show you some photos. The first below shows the view from the back of the house, La Vallee - what a spectacular back yard for Sophie and Connor!

The old chateau in the background, across the valley, is of interest as Sabina (the lovely Dutch owner of La Vallee) was saying the  locals believe this is was the hunting lodge for one of the old French kings. Sophie, Connor and I walked down there the other day.

The photo below shows  the view the other way looking back at the three  houses that Sabina and her French husband, Mark, own. Ours is the one in the middle. The house on the left is the pigeoner, which is where pigeons roosted and where the droppings from the pigeons was collected and used as fertilizer. They're common in this area of France and were really a status symbol back in the day. The house on the right is the renovated old barn. In the winter, going back a couple of hundred years, people sometimes used to sleep above the animals to keep warm!

Below is a photo of us in a beautiful circa 16th century courtyard which is part of the impressive romanesque St Etienne Cathedral in Cahors. It's a beautiful town and the capital of The Lot department we reside in.

The other day we visited Figeac, about an hour away. Below shows Jane and Sophie having a good time in the old city, with some beautiful medieval and Renaissance houses in the back ground. And yes they're baby wipes that Jane is holding. Mind you, I'm becoming pretty handy with the ole nappy changing too!

Now back to the car. With Jane not being able to drive a manual, and automatics a real rarity in France it has been a challenge. We've visited about seven car yards from Figeac to Cahors to Gourdon, our local town, and really just had the one English speaking salesman, and he was actually Italian! Our man in Gourdon, Frederick, came through with the goods - he's arranging a delivery from somewhere in France. We had a about a two hour discussion via Google Translate - a very handy tool in these type situations, but gee it takes some concentration as it doesn't really translate correctly very time - followed by a handshake, voila! A 2012 Renault Grande Scenic is now almost ours.

The only hurdle now to attain this car, is ,as per Frederick, we need to receive a certificate saying we now live in France, from our local Marie (council), which makes me a little nervous. As you've probably heard the red tape in France is formidable.

Sophie is looking forward to starting preschool on the 13th of May in our local village Payrac. It will be interesting to find out if there are other English speaking kids there - I'm not betting on it.

Classic scene this morning. As we're driving along one of the narrow country roads to Gourdon this morning, we see the principle of the Payrac preschool ( a nice, very school principally type lady we met the other day) plucking the feathers off four, what looked like recently deceased geese, on the side of the road! Why she chose to undertake this task on the side of the road, has got me stumped.

Bye for now,
Michael, Jane, Sophie, and Connor

Bonjour, we've arrived in The Lot

Bonjour from the Scott family!

We have been here for just over two weeks, and are having a ball. It's certainly had it's challenges, like the language for one, and the cold. But it's such a beautiful place, there is so much to see, and the people have been warm. We're living in a 300 year old farm house, picture below, in a very rural part of France, just outside of a little hamlet near a town called Payrac, which is in The Lot, just next to the Dordogne region in the South West of France.

 



Below is a photo of the house from a distance, it's the one in the middle. We are up pretty high here. The other day I could see the Massif Central mountains and they were capped in snow. They're are old volcanic mountains in central France - another trip to look forward to!


Cheers and au revoir from
Jane, Michael, Sophie and Connor