5th. On our walk today we came across this entrance gate with the town’s shield above it, on the wall of an abandoned building on the fringes of the town. There is the tower of an old stone windmill behind the building which must at some point been a building of significance. Something else to research.
10th. My neighbor, Monique, who I sometimes join for a dog walk had told me that there are two Chateaux in the town. This morning while Cassidy and I went into town we took to the smaller alleyways in the older parts of the town and found one of them. Chateau Bardon. Research tells us that it has been around for centuries as a fortified building on this site but the earliest text is dated to the middle of the C15 in which it is granted the right to appoint Provost to the Barony of Didonne. It is now privately owned and not open to the public.
Not a lot has changed over the centuries where graffiti is concerned, witness the penis on the top left hand corner of this stone block in the castle wall!
11th. Went into St Georges and harvested over 500 olives from the tree at the end of my old street. After 2 hours of sorting through them and cutting out the worm damage I gave up and threw the lot away. Just too low a return of effort to carry on. A shame. But it is to be hoped that the fully ripe fruit that remain on the tree in March will be maggot free!
12th. As I was in St Georges this morning to post Christmas parcels to UK, I took advantage of the good weather and the fact that we are now allowed to take our dogs on the beach to take a walk.
19th. We are enjoying some lovely warm sunny weather so on Saturday evening My neighbor, Martine, from across the road came over and we sat in the garden drinking mulled wine and eating tapenade and humus (both made at home) with Pitta bread.
20th. On Sunday morning my friend Michelle from St Georges came for coffee, again in the garden.
In the afternoon Monique, from down the road, and I went for a two and a half hour walk to explore the hamlets of Petit and Grand Beloire. It was a lovely walk mostly on quiet, secluded farm tracks and a few narrow country roads. I had read that there was a dolmen and an ancient farm with a mill in Grand Beloier and that in Petit Beloir there had been a Comanderie de les des Chevaliers Templiers. In fact when we stopped to ask directions to the dolmen of a man on the village green at Petit Beloire he mentioned that this was exactly where it had been.
The dolmen was singularly unimpressive!
When we got back we had a repeat performance of yesterday evening’s mulled wine and snacks on the terrace.
This is a good way to do Covid safe entertaining as long as it remains warm enough and I am tempted to search for a portable outdoor fire to extend the season otherwise there is going to be a long period of a dearth of company!
21st. With winter coming and the attendant dearth of salad from the garden it is time to kick-start the sprouting process again.
22nd. Autumn colours on our early morning walk. A little later we had a walk on the beach at St Georges. Tea shirt weather in October! Can’t be bad! or C’est pas mal (translates as “not bad” but really means excellent!) as the French say with typical understatement. Cassidy and I in our first “selfie”!!!!
24th. Lightly overcast but warm afternoon prompted a walk to one of the 5 beaches of Meschers, dogs being allowed after the 1st October. The Meschers beaches are more smaller but more interesting than St Georges with their cliffs and rocky coves. This beach has cute cabins one of which is a cafe.
The fishing hut on the left must have a tunnel entrance from the clifftop because there is no visible path to it.
The cliffs seem to have fossils one of which looks a lot like a curled pangolin, however it is more likely vegetable matter!
There is a sailing facility and this Cat had obviously just come in. Cassidy was in his element but I couldn’t let him off his lead because there were too many small children about and he is intimidatingly boisterous.
30th. During the week the gardening company came in and planted my two new fruit trees, a plum and a cherry. It was a lovely sunny day and I spent it assembling my greenhouse and ate my lunch in the garden at the work table next to the project.
31st Another good day and a chance to finish off the greenhouse.
capetocarpe 