Aéroport International de Limoges

Today Elizabeth returned to the UK for a week leaving me here to cope with ALL the gardening, blogging and the warm weather. It is currently half the temperature in North West England as it is here... We have been to Limoges airport before to pick up family back in December. It is my ideal of how all airports should be.... totally hassle free.

It is 153kms from Braye and takes about 2¼ hours on a reasonable trip. It is the most economically way for one of us to return th the UK if you can put up with the ******** of Rynair. (yes I know its been on blogs before but I still find it funny)

The long wait at the checkin

A nice little eatery

The flight to Liverpool was delayed by a few minutes and Elizabeth landed safely at about 16:30 UK time. I look forward to her return in just over a week along with my Mum and son Stephen who are visiting for a while. Still more work for the old dog.... to make sure the place stays spick and span for their arrival. No rest for me then!!!

A little self indulgence.

It was going to be a post about something completely different today, however this afternoon I got some more fabulous photographs of the Hoopoe. It is now becoming a regular feeder on our grass but it is very very timid. The previous shots I took through the window, these and many others today were outside from the patio. Perhaps it is getting more used to me being around.  I hope you enjoy them. (Click the pictures to enlarge)

Oh he's there with the camera I better look my best!!

How am I looking?

This is my best side

Perhaps a little angled

The light is better here

Really I need to get on with my food!!

Our Grape Vines - update

Back in February we wrote about pruning our eating grape vines. Well the vines have sprung into life....

However this has left us with another problem. There are an awful lot of flowers on each vine and I feel some should be removed.

 

Various sites on the internet (USA sites) appear to be saying prune back to one flower per stem and those stems with no flowers prune back to the first leaf.

We need some help here !!! Do we prune OR do we wait and see what happens.  My view is to prune but Elizabeth favours the 'wait-and-see' approach.

Has anyone any advice to offer us please.....

How the English cope with the heat...

When it's as hot as this extreme measures are called for....

No Rain though!!!

Colin carried on gardening under a hastily erected gazebo..

whilst Elizabeth typed up the butterfly survey data under the shade of the willow..

Life can be so hard at times!!

One born every minute...

We are enjoying the sight of the many baby birds which are now fledged and greedily feeding in the garden.

The bluetits are some of the greediest (and noisiest!) with their poor parents looking more and more bedraggled as each day passes.

The evening before they fledged the parent birds were virtually having to push the babies back into the safety of their 'hole-in-the-wall' nest.

 

A baby blackbird puffing up its feathers.

This one is 'trying it on' but dad's having none of it!

 Two baby goldfinch learning to preen in the top of the willow tree!

 The baby dunnock is just a ball of fluff! No photos yet unfortunately!

The Drought - another view.

This morning our friend Susan posted a blog about how severe the lack of rain has become. Details Here.

This is our first year in France so we had noted the limited amount of rain (being from North West England you could not fail to notice) but were not aware of the extent of the actual drought. We took some photographs on Sunday of the fields and pathways on our walk around Le Louroux, showing just how dry things are.

 

 

Despite this the rape seed crops give the appearance of doing well. The crop below was just about 6 feet (1.85 mtrs) tall.

From our point of view, both our wells are still producing good supplies of water so we have been able to keep our potager and new areas of grass fully watered. How long this will continue we do not know. The weather forecast for Richelieu is showing rain for Tuesday 24th of May as the only rain in the next two weeks. However it has shown days of rain in the past and we have not seen a drop!!!

We really could do with some now. Send some down from Lancashire I am sure they have some to spare!

Le Louroux (43.2kms from Braye)

Yesterday, being my birthday, we did one of our favourite walks around the l'etang at Le Louroux. The walk itself is just over 5kms and you can be sure to see a multitude of wildlife and flora. It takes you along the banks of the lake, along country roads through open countryside and through mixed woodland.

The local monks constructed the dam (below) in the middle ages so they could raise carp and provide a water reserve for a mill. Today it's biodiversity is managed by the Conseil General of Indre-et-Loire.

 
There is a very good bird watching hide built over the water where you are able to observe some of the water birds many of which are shown on the walls of the hide.

Our most surprising sighting was that of a large Coypu, we have seen small ones several times before in other locations and they are quite cute but the one shown below could not be described that way!! The are considered a pest as they do considerable damage to banks and flora.

There is also the usual!! French facilities.....

The walk is to be recommended..