A few weeks before every trip, I start to look at the Acuweather.com for a long range forecast for Ribérac. This October was no different. Three weeks before my trip I was saying “good job I’m not going that week!” referring to week before I was to arrive, as it was wet all week. My week was fine and sunny and low twenties as it usually is!
…….but as we moved closer, the wet week slipped a few days at a time, until it was the week I was to stay. Stilll not perturbed and buoyed by my friend Harry’s comment that the weather is often better than forecast (Harry lives in LePort), I travelled down.
It rained on the journey but was dry when I arrived. The next morning when I woke up however, it was raining heavily. And so it did every day with the exception of Tuesday and Saturday and when I say rain I mean 30mm each day, constant heavy rain!
The autumn trip is now part of the garden maintenance routine. Prune the mulberries, scarify the grass and over seed and prune the late flowering shrubs….not all of this was going to get done! Luckily, now the barn roof is complete there are plenty of internal jobs that could be completed instead.
Pruning the mulberries has to be carried out in October, so that took up most Tuesday along with cutting the grass. I also managed to cast the foundations for a step into the Ping Pong barn made from very heavy chalk blocks. Wednesday was due to start raining at 11.00, so I worked to complete the step. Sure enough at 11.00…..
The rest of the day I wired in the light in the barn and when it got so wet it was unpleasant just to step out of the barn to get tools, I called it a day and drove to Perigeux to get parts to put a light in the cave (not a job I had planned this trip but it is inside).
As an indication of how wet it was, Friday started with light rain so I worked on the pointing of the stone walls in the barn. By the afternoon, there was rain of Biblical proportions and the ground water started to come through the rear wall of the barn (the barn is cut into the hillside). When I say come in, I mean pour in like a water fall!
Saturday was damp but not raining so I abandoned scarifying and just over seeded the lawn, cut down the wildflower bank, tidied the house and packed the van ready for depart Sunday morning.
Supper with my English friends down the lane was a very nice way to complete the week!
Frelon Cottage 