Saturday 27th November and we’re hunkered down indoors as the leaves from the plane trees swirl around outside and the sky that was blue a minute ago has darkened. The wind has picked up and it’s feeling chilly – we don’t think storm Arwen is heading our way but it’s definitely feeling like Winter and time to seek out a big coat and some jumpers. Something that we always had to hand back in Shropshire and probably wore for 8 months of the year but here they’ve been consigned to a storage bag at the back of the wardrobe. So out comes Tracey’s woolly hat and at the same time we found this red beret – now doesn’t he look like “un vrai Gascon”?!
We have some Autumnal images taken around the station to share this month and the annual plea for “leaf picking anybody?” Tracey and Daphne quite like crunching through dry Autumn leaves but Lee is driven to collect every last one up. (Something to do with all those years on the railway I think, he’s imagining that the tracks are still here and that the trains will be wheel slipping into Sos).
It’s been a really dry month but look at the moody sky photograph below, and we had our first frosty morning on Nov 23rd, just 2 days after the first frost last year. The sky was clear blue and once wrapped up well, Daphne & Tracey had a fabulous hike in full sunshine, up onto the forest roads, then down and around an irrigation lake and back up across a huge maize field. Tracey remembers trudging through mud ankle deep in this field last year but this year it’s so dry the sand was just kicking up and over the top of her wellies. We’ve also had lots of lovely Autumn walks down the old track bed – more leaves! The colours have been spectacular this year and because it has been dry all the leaves are crispy & crunchy which makes it great fun for Daphne and Pasha – they act like puppies charging about and kicking up the piles. The first frost has signalled the end of our greenhouse tomatoes – we ate the last ones this week and apart from a few spuds sprouting up in the veg patch, that’s the end of our produce for this year. Just as well because we have loads of other jobs that are keeping us busy, mainly renovations to The Pump House; the old building that once housed a huge pump for water for the steam engines. You can see it in the background of the photograph of the station lamp, showing all the leaves on the driveway below.
Pump House Renovations, more drainage work and a new website
We are putting in a brand-new bathroom and completely renovating the kitchen, plus all internal decoration and new lighting. Next year we hope to build a solid wood abri over the outdoor eating area and come up with an idea for the huge 10 foot diameter well that is in the garden here. The tiling in the new bathroom is coming along and so is the decorating – but it’s hard work upstairs, walls that stretch up to the monitor roof line, at least 14 feet high and lots of original huge oak beams to negotiate. We have a growing loathing of rubbing down woodwork, undercoating, then painting and more painting but it must be done and we know it will be worth it when complete. Sitting down with our glass of wine at the end of each day helps massively. We have taken to sipping our regional aperitif called “Floc” – a mix of Armagnac and wine. The red version is lovely and works really well this time of the year when you want a soothing, warming drink, a sort of sipping sweet sherry that is poured into a particular type of glass over one ice cube; you couldn’t cane it back because it is rather sweet but one or two glasses after a hard day’s work, perfect. (It’s not bad at 11.00hrs in the morning in the local bar either when popping out for a baguette – shhh!) Note the carpet of leaves on the driveway and Lee on Mechanical Broom Patrol below. Thank goodness it was dry enough for him to use his leaf sucker otherwise he has Tracey raking & shovelling leaves for days on end!
We’ve had some more drainage works completed this month, down at the extended pool house to provide a proper run off for the roof water which previously discharged onto the grass creating a right soggy patch. We have some other news regarding construction works and that’s the website construction. Thanks to Lee’s very talented Godson anyone interested can now read all the back newsletters, see all the station photographs and find out what’s on offer in our quiet little corner of South West France. Here’s the web address
Please feel free to pass on the website details to anyone interested in railways, France or rural, remote less crowded holidays. We would love to welcome some holidaymakers next year and hope that travel prospects will be far less gloomy than they have been as we learn to facilitate safer travel globally. Everything crossed for safe travel in 2022.
We’re still building the website so it will evolve and any feedback, good or bad, is welcomed. See you next month, Lee & Tracey
