Raining today so spent the day at Pont de la Taule painting and wall paper stripping. Need to build a fire place next week.
On the way back I watched the kayak race down the Salat river.
A trip to St G market for some seedlings - then planting out tomatoes, courgettes, onions and lettuce. These join the potatoes (now sprouting) and the strawberries Emily gave me. A fence around the veggie plot will hopefully keep the chickens out. The grass seeds in the new field 1 extension have finally germinated so the nettles and brambles were scythed down to hopefully let the grass dominate.
Whilst looking for mushrooms a few evenings ago I was crossing a stream (which had eroded a deep channel after the recent storms) and I noticed a short length (6" or 15cm) of dressed stone crossing in the stream bed - after a bit of poking around I realised I had stumbled across an old lavoire which was now completely buried under the hillside. I went home for a spade and began to dig. After two evenings and most of today I have unearthed the old Pinsou/Quélébu lavoire at Gouteto. There's some more digging still to do (getting all the clay out is hard work) but John said he'll give me a hand. It's about 30' x 10' x 2' deep (10m x 3m x 60cm deep) with two interconnected pools and twin outflows. The back is carved into the white limestone at the springline and I even found an old stone spout through which the stream used to flow (it needs to be refixed).
Very changeable weather at the moment...but a chance to catch up on household chores, scything, servicing the chainsaw, tidying the workshop and admin' like my french tax return!
Having prepared plans to double the size of Justin and Emily's house in readiness for the impending arrival of twins, I have been lending a hand with the construction. This morning I jumared onto the roof and demolished the chimney then abseiled back down (we didn't have a big enough ladder). Then he and I started on the construction of the new balcony. Using oak sawn a couple of years ago from trees felled at Justin's, we managed to build the first bay of the new balcony (which will eventually wrap around the enlarged house) by the end of the day.
After skiing through wet concrete yesterday I went for dinner at Anne-France and Magnus's place in La Trappe. They are over for their Easter holidays from Sweden and it's the first time we've met in the flesh - we knew of each other through our respective blogs. Fellow blogger Penny came too as did my neighbour Dani from La Bordasse. A relaxing evening after the 'ski'.
With 30cm of fresh snow having fallen yesterday, a quick trip to Guzet this afternoon seemed like a good idea (even though it's been closed a few weeks now). Unfortunately the snow proved to be very heavy. After breaking trail to skin up to the top of Picou, we tried to descend what is normally the black run called Coombe. Trying to move forward even on steepest parts was difficult and turning more difficult still. The snow stuck to our skis and tried to set like concrete. At one stage I fell over and couldn't move for the weight of sticky heavy snow on top of my skis and it took me some time to release the bindings before two handed I heaved to withdraw the skis from the snow. I wouldn't want to be avalanched in this stuff!
Outside it's been snowing all day, inside I've been busy baking Pyrenean Pasties for future packed lunches.
There is snow forecast for tomorrow above 1000m, perhaps as much as 30cm! Bizarre as today on the snow I was in a tee shirt. With a short snap of cold weather there is still plenty of skiing to be had (even at Guzet if you are prepared to skin up the piste). Today North slopes are still snow covered from 1400m with 60-80cm at 1550m but south slopes are completely bare until 1700/1800m.
