So what happened to May?

For the life of me I can't understand where May went! I know, I know, I'm getting older and so the years seem to shrink but it's getting a tad ridiculous. Last time I posted it was the 3rd of the month and tomorrow it's June. It's not as though we've been gadding about. French lockdown restrictions have been eased, and will do a little more from Tuesday but even so. I've had to have a look at my photographs to see what we've done this month. So here we have a pictorial record of May 2020 at The Old Notaires House.

It was the month that I noticed the bearded iris around the village. I had never really spotted them before, maybe it's been a particularly good year but some of them have been stunning.

After the rain

This has to be my favourite, such beautiful faded colours

Before we were allowed to stray more than a kilometre from home we were still exploring new paths around the village and we forged a new route. At one junction was this seemingly ancient stone cross marking the Saint Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage route. I know I've mentioned before that the Rocamadour path goes through our village and there are several examples of the cockle shell on ancient buildings.

Cross of St Jacques de Compostelloe

We also found this old wood shed. I can't resist an old building -  barns, sheds, old doors are a magnet to me. In a roundabout way this led me to artist Sharon McDonagh who paints on the subject of decay and also 'urbex'. Urbex stands for Urban Explorers, people who go out in their urban environments photographing old and abandoned buildings. If you have Instagram do a search for Urbex, there are some amazing photographs.

Old shed

Making the most of our new freedoms we went dog walking a couple of times at Château Sédières, a favourite of both us and Mortimer. We need to go back soon as the water lilies are just about to flower.

Never one to miss an opportunity to paddle

Château Sédières

Work on the house has been going well. Andrew is ploughing on with the new electrics. Nothing had really changed since electricity came to the house in 1959 but because we are redefining spaces it needs a complete re-design of the system. It also means 101 decisions and I need to be confident that the furniture will remain where I've designed it, sockets stay in place and the lighting works. With metre thick granite walls it's not an easy task to add a power socket. I've been continuing the window restorations and will be doing so for quite a while as there are still eleven to go.

One of many that need refurbishment

Poor Andrew spends a lot of time chiselling out the old granite walls for cables. It's tough work.

We have been having some fun too. The brocantes are slowly starting to open and we've purchased some vintage lighting and some art. The weather has been beautiful, really quite warm for May with several days at 30 degrees. This is the first year of the barn terrace so I was able to get out the table we found at the end of last year and we added a large sunshade. It's now a rather pleasant spot to enjoy a coffee or evening apéros while we watch village life.

This one is for the garden guest suite

We needed to try this one out for size and fortunately it's perfect for the new dining room

And of course we've both had haircuts which was such a relief, if not a slightly bizarre experience.

Haircut in a bin bag and a mask

Slowly the village is coming into summer mode, fishing is now allowed and this is a favourite spot just by the chapel.

Fishing in the River Corrèze

And of course the markets are back and we are enjoying the most wonderful vegetables.

Woodland asparagus

So that was May. I will try really hard to not leave it quite so long until the next blog post. If you want to know what's happening on a slightly more regular basis then we'd be delighted to see you here on Facebook or have a look at our Instagram squares