Tis the bleak midwinter

We knew that south west France had extremes of temperature.

We had been warned that the summers could get very hot (and we had first-hand experience of the high 30s whilst tiling the roof) and the winters could get very cold.... but we weren't quite prepared for how cold....

It has been between -8 and -13 degrees every night for the past 10 days.

We had a 6 inch snowfall that will not melt, as daytime temperatures remain below -3 degrees....

And we are waging an anti-freeze war inside the house; an extra jacket for the water heater; extra lagging for the waste pipes and every day we take the heaters down to the cellar to defrost the pipes that have frozen again overnight.  The paint has frozen in the barns, and even our trusty JCB has now frozen and burst a hose!

But when the sun shines the Dordogne looks amazing under a thick layer of snow and ice...

The snug stone houses with the chimneys smoking..

And the bare plum orchards....

And even our own potager looks stunning buried under a thick layer of snow, against the clear blue sky.....

The Potager is finished just in time

Immediately after Christmas we were back to work.  Nick actually started making the gates for the potager during Christmas.  He has always worked with wood, and it is his main love.
Having set up all his benches and woodworking tools outside the big barn, he settled to his work in the gentle afternoon sun with the promise of a turkey dinner and mulled wine when he had finished...

We decided we would use post and rail fencing for the whole plot, as it is such a pretty natural form of fencing, so we used a lower two rail version for the potager...

We attached netting to the bottom rail, and a layer of gravel at the bottom to discourage the wildlife from setting up home in the raised beds..

Then with the help of the JCB we finished gravelling the pathways.

We want to grow grapes and kiwis, so we also dug in posts and set up a wire trellis system to support the vines as they get bigger and hopefully heavy with fruit...

Excited that we finally had everything in place, we took a trip to the nearby garden centre and bought our first fruit bushes...

Three raspberry canes - Mailing Promise and Heritage are both summer fruiting, and Fall Gold, an Autumn fruiting yellow raspberry.

Two gooseberry bushes - a white and a purple variety.

Two blueberry bushes for the ericaceous bed, both large fruit varieties.

And three Kiwi vines, one male and two of the female Actinidia variety. 

We planted them all as soon as we returned, and it was a joy to plant in soft raised bed soil, without having to break the heavy clay ground as we did to plant all the trees.

After a short trip back to England to collect some materials for the renovation, a new greenhouse, and two beautiful old vines from Nicks parents, we returned to the sunshine, and to finish the final elements of the potager.  

We had laid a concrete base to secure the greenhouse, so we were able to erect the frame easily. 

And having glazed it, Nick set to work to make the shelving and potting benches I had designed for the inside of the greenhouse.  We had picked up some thick plywoood from England at a really good price, so I have some really sturdy shelving to start this years seedlings, and a good thick bench to pot up, with a place to mix the potting compost.....

And he has even put in a car battery, with a solar panel on the outside of the greenhouse to power it, so that I can connect up the kettle and an Ipod dock to have music and cup of tea whilst I'm working.....perfect!

We just need to buy a water tank and then some guttering to direct the rainwater from the roof to the tank, and I will have an easy way to water the seedlings separate from the main watering system for the beds.

As the weather was starting to turn very chilly, we decided to wrap all the newly bought plants with some fleece...

And we were just in time!

The night time temperatures got lower and lower to -8 degrees, and then it started to snow....

Christmas in the Dordogne

Christmas and New Year were very different down here in Dordogne.  I have always enjoyed the build up to Christmas; the mounting excitement at work, the ever-growing list of parties and the spectacular light displays throughout London.  But as the lead-up to Christmas started so early, it was easy to become tired of the commercialism before the actual day had arrived.   We usually flew out to Canada mid December to spend the festive season in the Rockies, playing in the snow, ice skating on the lakes and avoiding the crowds.

I expected Christmas in rural France to be quieter and more traditional, but I was not anticipating how beautiful it could be.  We visited Sarlat, a mediaeval town less than an hour from us, and the cobbled old town was stunning...

The Christmas lights were subtle, and the place was almost deserted, with most people heading for the Christmas market at the lower end of the old town - a warren of small wooden cabins selling crafts, mulled wine and local gourmet food.   We preferred to wander round the empty streets soaking in the atmosphere, and imagining Christmases of years gone by...

We spent Christmas Eve in Bergerac, which is as beautiful as Sarlat in our opinion.  The old town was buzzing, shops were all open, the traditional red carpet had been laid between the shops and the Marché de Noël was in full swing.  Although there were more people, the focus seemed to be on socialising - enjoying mulled wine in the streets, chatting with friends and enjoying the music.  There was little evidence of the mad crush to buy last minute presents in the pre-Christmas frenzy we had seen so often in London, and the reason we used to seek the peace of the mountains in Canada.

In the stone farmhouse, that we are using temporarily as a home before renovating it - temperatures had started to drop dramatically, and the metre thick stone walls, and uninsulated roof and floors were devouring any heat from two small radiators.  So a lucky find on Lebancoin (the online market the french use in preference to Ebay) meant that we became the proud owners of an old Godin woodburner - a large double door version which can be used with the doors open  to really enjoy the heat and flames.

Christmas Day was spent in front of the logburner and a huge stack of oak logs, enjoying the warmth with plenty of good food and wine..... perfect.