Aquilegia
I am a bit obsessed by this colour. These are everywhere here and they are growing wild in the verges too.

The ducks are getting larger. They hang about outside the back door hoping to dive past and eat any uneaten cat food. I have to put cat food away as they are very good at tricking me and getting through my legs. They like to follow me and love the garden.

Sketching with a brush.

The markets at Fours. Plants and stalls of old things. I bought 2 glasses that George tells me are the kind of things doctors used to measure medicine to give you in the surgery? I will take photos. I found enamel mugs and an old bucket. I am looking for old handles for my doors. The kind that look like eggs. I also want a light that has a pulley to go up and down.

A VW van that sells flowers.

I am painting the room here. The door now is also painted. I am so pleased I took this on. I now have a lovely sunny beach chalet in the forest.

The storm clouds over the lake or 'Barage' as it's called here. Honeysuckle twists out of the hedge.

It's lovely and wild looking before the grass gets cut and hedges trimmed.

Our lamb looks good and healthy. We moved the females back to the larger field last night and we had a call early this morning from our neighbour her mother had her head stuck through the wire fence.  They both spent the night out in the rain poor things. They seem ok though thankfully. I often feel a bit apprehensive about the welfare of the animals. The ducks have wandered off now. The goose is a bit jealous and chases them. The ducks have been here a week, very tame eating lots of slugs and sadly a frog this morning. 

I have lots of these self seeded around the place they are toxic to animals. Thankfully all the animals avoid plants that are toxic. Although things like brassicas and beans can also be dangerous to sheep so you have to watch out for the sheep jumping into the veg plots. 

Bed and bed head.

I have had so many slugs in this tiny bed. The broad beans I planted, thankfully I only planted half of them, were attracting so many slugs. I also had parsley which was almost completely eaten and my Echinacea are struggling. I have been going out with the ducks and finally after a week the plants are beginning to win against the now few slugs.

Beyond this is a strawberry bed, it's been weeded a lot since this was taken;

 I have decided to use some of the stone to make raised beds along here. I started yesterday just making the footings for some semi circles to create something so the plants can be higher up along the side of the house. Otherwise there is a lot of blank stone walls. I can't do much in each go as the stone is quite heavy, I think I need a sack truck to wheel the stone about. It's peeing down with rain toady otherwise I would include my starting point. 

The mild winter meant some plants didn't die off after self seeding in Autumn. These Cerinthe are lovely and have created a natural looking colony. Great for bees too;

Muscovies, Male

The blacker one is a female.

New Work

Boy with a rabbit, a large rabbit.

Family selling animals birds mostly.


Fete at Luzy where I bought the ducks. Last year it rained so it was in the Grande Halles this time.

Enamel and Cupboards.

lovely stall at the brocantes

Garden furniture

I had a good look at this table the lady offered it for 30 euros. Now I think I should have bought it. She also had some rustic shelves I really liked and you can just see some material on the floor on the left. There were some lovely bits. Normally I do a quick scan around and then go back and have another look at the good stalls. This time because George was struggling with his back I didn't do another inspection. Also we had ducks in a box in the car and I wanted to get back to them.