La Polyphonie C'est Sexy dans le pressoir

As part of the plan of breathing new life into the buildings at La Côte, we organised a little concert last Saturday in the barn, otherwise known as the Pressoir because of the wine press which dominates the room there.  The wine press was transformed for the evening into a temporary stage and the group "La Polyphonie C'est Sexy" sang some wonderful unaccompanied traditional French and Quebeccois songs in beautiful polyphonic arrangements.  They really are a fantastic and accomplished group and we were so lucky to be able to host them for our first try at hosting an event of this type at La Côte (certainly not the last) - the Pressoir isn't huge but we still managed to welcome an audience of over forty people with a bit of room to spare!  Watch this space in the future....

Gravel in the courtyard

New layer of gravel for the turning circle

It doesn't look like much, but yesterday I put down about 450 kgs of gravel in the courtyard, that's six trailer loads from our local quarry in Dangé St Romain.  This is in order to have a slightly drier experience of driving to and walking around the house, with all of the rain that we've had recently and in the knowledge that we have several natural springs running down the hillside towards the house and down into the river valley of the Vienne.  In due course we are going to install a 'French' drain around the house to help as well (apparently nothing to do with France, but designed by a Mr French!).  And yes, we need to buy a bigger trailer!  Still it already makes a difference, even if my arms are hurting a bit today from all that shovelling.  Wow, two blog posts in one day - I'd better have a rest now ;-)

Scrub bashing near Ropion

Clearing scrub and small trees on the slope by Ropion

 Well I'm afraid that the blog has been very quiet recently, but that doesn't mean that we've not been working hard!  Recently we have taken advantage of some drier weather to start clearing some of the scrub and small trees, particularly the dreaded acacia trees - perhaps the most unpleasantly spiky tree known to man, whose thorns seem to cut through even chainsaw gloves!  As you can see we now have some bonfire piles drying out ready for a drier weather and we have also been starting to clear more wood from various fallen trees and branches on the slope, ready to make into another wood pile in due course.