Bureaucracy!!

 Sometime ago (about 2 years I think) the Government decreed that all roads should be named and residencies be allocated a number. We thought what a great idea it will help delivery drivers tremendously. The prevailing system being a telephone call to guide them to your property or alternatively they have to ask around until they find someone who has heard of you.

However we heard nothing further until last year when we were summoned to a meeting at the Marie where we were told the future name of our road but not the number of our house. However there would be a delay because the suppliers of the name plates were very busy but we would certainly know our new address and house number by Christmas.

Christmas came and went with no further news until our neighbours arrived from Paris in April. About this time road names appeared without any fanfare. As soon as Jean-Jacque arrived he asked us what our house number was, we had no idea. He had received a letter in Paris telling him his house number and instructing him to call at the Marie (with appropriate ID) to collect his number and sign for it. Apparently people actually living in the village had to rely on word of mouth as to what they were required to do.

John duly joined the queue of disgruntled residents moaning about the lack of information. Our address  is officially 295 Route du Mas de Bouye but our neighbour's is bizzarely 277 Route du Mas de Bouye, their house and ours are separated by a few metres. How is this going to help any White Van Men, particularly as there are only 7 houses in the road. We understand it is something to do with some number on some plan!!

Don't rush to amend your address books.......the Post Lady knows where we live.

Life is a bowl of cherries ...

 ... if you are optimistic, that is!

To recap, we had a Larch growing in our back field which the deer decided to eat a couple of years ago.  Dead tree was removed but we took no action on replacing it.  Until last month.  We did comment that we had seen small cherry trees for sale at the local supermarket and we duly bought three.

As you can see the hole from the Larch had to be considerably enlarged (and our ground is not as easy to dig as Monty Don's!)

So we will keep our fingers crossed and hope that the deer do not find them.  We are not worried if we don't get a big bowl of cherries, but it would be nice to have some Spring blossom.  However, once we had finished it did occur to me that the 'heads' of the trees are just about at munching height for passing deer!

Time will tell.  But in the meantime, the Head Gardener wants to boast.

Spring is just like a bowl of cherries ... lovely but not here for long!

What we came back to!

 We've just returned from a week in England to see friends and we found that the garden has fully woken up to Spring.  I am delighted to tell you that our efforts to create a blue haze up the alley are finally succeding.  We planted an initial 1000 bulbs in January 2015 and I posted a photo of the effect we were hoping to achieve.  Well, this year it is beginning to look like this photo.

Half way there!

We came back to lots of tulips in bloom however I am not as happy as John, infact I am disappointed. I bought 500 tulips called "Bleu Aimiable", however there is no blue in sight. The picture in the catalogue showed them as a distinctly dark lilac verging on blue but as you can see they are pale pink! As you would expect the suppliers will be informed of my displeasure. 

In keeping with everyone else at this time of year we have loads to do in the garden and no doubt everything will grow faster than we can keep up with it........but we're up for the challenge. It stays light until 9.00pm!!

Spring has sprung for the wildlife as well. The trail camera captured the regular visits of the hare and Mrs Fox although she indicated her displeasure at not finding any goodies when she called. Her teats are very visable now so she has just given birth or is about to. We assume that she lives quite close by but we have no idea where. 

Link for Mr Hare :-  https://youtu.be/hzZLzU8ScJQ 

 Link for Mrs Fox :- https://youtu.be/SwWxhp-6mpE

Presumably a female rabbit is also looking for somewhere to have her young as I noticed an enormous pile of earth behind the porcherie. As I went to investigate I fell down the tunnel that she had dug into the lawn.......I didn't end up in Wonderland!!

 The kestrels are very active and seem to have chosen a hole in the back wall above the main corridor this year. They have tried this area before and found our daily living too disruptive, so we await developments.

John has just come in to report the Cuckoo is calling, so it's all happening.