Where do we Begin?

A dry day and everything seems to have been happening. We were late up as we were playing cards with some new friends till 1 am. So, when we got up we found that JP was up in the bucket of the Manitou, jointing the wall up to the chimney.

We were amazed at how quickly JP put the mortar on. He had finished it by mid-afternoon.

After the men had left for the day, I went to investigate what had happened in the house. I had heard a lot of drilling and, when I went in to the salon, I saw why. Cyrille and Patrick had been preparing to put up the 'scaffolding' at the back of the house. It isn't normal scaffolding but is suspended and held in place by huge bolts through the wall.

But, guess what. It's forecast for rain tomorrow.

In my tour of inspection, I went up into the loft above the salon, and looked into the pigeonnier.

As you'll remember, the door from the loft into the pigeonnier is only about 1.5 metres high. However, the door is half open with guano spilling out.

I went into the pigeonnier and climbed up the small, home-made ladder to look into the next, top level. On one wall were the original 'pigeon-holes' where we presume the farmer raised pigeons for food and eggs.

The pigeon-holes are next to the window which our owl uses.

All of a sudden there was some fluttering and the owl made a quick exit out of the window! I decided to try to minimise the disturbance to our owl and block off this top level, so that we can clear out the pigeonnier on the level of the proposed bedroom. So, I quickly found a 'trap-door' to fit over the openning and went back to close off the 'owl area'. As I looked around, I saw a small depression in the corner, with 5 white eggs lying there.

We're hoping that the owl returns, but we're also concerned that she doesn't get disturbed by all of the work that will be done on the outside of the Pigeonnier, not that there's much that we can do about it.

Whilst we're discussing wild life, our Magpies are still showing sporadic interest in their nest, although things haven't got serious yet. The Nightingale has returned and is furiously singing day and night. We have lots of Black Redstarts, some Great Tits and Blue Tits, Jays and Sparrows. When we do get the sun, it brings the small lizards out, and today, I disturbed a snake which had come out of one of our dry stone walls in the garden. The Pyramid Orchids are in full swing and all of the trees on the hillsides are now out in leaf. The wet Spring means that everything is griowing profusely, including our lawns!