OK! after this entry, we have caught up on the past news

The renovation of the garage was a massive job for Peter, and as usual he handled it skillfully and masterfully. Check out the old beams! It was going to be the games room, however seeing as now, there will not be a café/bar, we will use it for storage until we renovate it into a self-contained cottage on one level. We held many a party in there, and the grounds last Summer. We had French tradespeople do the tiles on the roof. Pete completed everything else, with me as ''lackey'' of course! Some days it was 45degrees inside. The sun does not go down until around 10pm in Summer, so long days and many cold beers were consumed.

Renovation of the yard begins.

Down by the river's edge. What a day! The rose wine here is fabulous. I must own shares by now. Have I mentioned the
cheeses and chocolates? Oh, to live for!!!
Wish you were here?

And.....just when we thought it was all finished...we discovered we had no storm water drainage. We found this out due to a huge deluge of rain, which rushed through the yard and into the garage, heading towards the door to the lower level of the house. The French neighbours learnt some new English words and phrases that day#@#*!! Once again polished Pete and lackey Donna to the rescue. Look how straight that drain is..and Pete did that with a shovel! Of course, we donned ourselfs with our ''dry as a bone'' coats while it was raining. We were just missing the horses.......and........that is another story!

à bientôt

Peter et Donna

This is the life!

This is Dorén, our pet swan (le cygne). Formally Doris, until we discovered she was a he! He comes with a whistle and a waddle for his food. As we speak, Dorén has flown South for the Winter. We hope he comes back as we miss him. He became part of our family and the children in the area just adored him.

Missing you Dorén xo

An extremely hot summer's day. I am sure I heard the phrase, "Crazy Aussies", coming from our neighbour, Jean-Michel. Yes! we are, and proud of it!!

We had so many people from the surrounding villages come to look at the glorious transformation of the garden and the river bank, that we decided to allow Kaycee's Bistro Bus to set up their mobile café/restaurant on wheels, into our property one evening. We had 140 people sitting in our garden enjoying the fabulous food, friendships and views. We were run off our feet, to say the least! We had to keep borrowing chairs and tables off our neighbours to accommodate for the constant flow of traffic. It was a night to remember...... particularly for Kaycee's. I believe we got to bed at 3am.

Now...if you preferred these little beauties, you would have to cook them yourself. Yum! Yum!

Friends of Gourgé.
Celebrating Bastille Day with Karim and Mike. Fabulous food and a magnificient display of fireworks and entertainment at Airvault.

Our favourite pastime with Di and David, drinking French wine. I believe we have finally mastered the art!

The end result! There is nothing better than home grown vegetables, fruits and herbs. We had sufficient to feed the neighbours and the endless stream of visitors that came to be witness to our transformations...and of course our Aussie gardening skills, coupled with the advice of the odd French person or 10!

à bientôt

Peter et Donna

Un automne à Gourgé

September 2009 gave us a much cooler month, after experiencing a very hot summer. We were only in Gourgé until September 16, as we left for Aussie land on the 17th September. Our first family members came for a short visit, our daughter Angela her husband Anthony and our grandson Jacob. While the family were here we gave Pete his very first French fête pour son anniversaire (Birthday Party), which was a combination of French food, cheeses, delicacies, chocolates, wines and beers with of course an Aussie BBQ thrown in for good measure!! A fabulous time was had by all the French, English, Scottish and Aussies that attended. It was so funny to listen and observe the antics of people when conversing, particularly when they could only speak a small amount of French or English. I am convinced that Charades was invented by someone in a similar situation!!

What do you think of my home grown tomatoes? My tomato relish was the best ever, using these flavoursome little beauties!

à bientôt

Peter and Donna

Time flies!!

OK, so it has been almost 10 months since I put finger to keyboard. YES Di, I can hear you from here……
So much has happened in this time. I think I will work backwards and fill you in very briefly on our adventures…with photos of course!

We arrived back in France on Dec 12, 2009 after spending 3 months in Australia with our wonderful family. Another grandchild was born, Joel Sebastian (that makes 3 grandsons) and our eldest daughter, Britt was married.

Unfortunately we lost our battle with the French Consulate in Australia, trying to get the business visa for the café/bar. This was our third attempt and now our final. I wish we could tell you “why”, however we do not know ourselves. They are not obliged to inform you. Very sad, however true. We are most disappointed for this region, whom were very excited about the prospect of having the resurgence of the café/bar. So…..

What are we going to do with this amazing pre-napoleon property now?
Keep renovating and offer holiday accommodation. It is the perfect setting for couples, families, walking and cycling groups. Right on the river, boules court, half basketball court, BBQ facilities, fabulous hosts (that would be us!) etc, etc. Spread the word….

Talk about a transition of weather when we arrived back from Australia! It was so hot and humid in Aussie land, and we arrived back in Gourgé it was -9 degrees and snowing. There is something magical about the watching the first snowflakes fall. We just adore sitting by our antique fireplace, wine in hand looking out the window, and being a spectator to the virgin white look of the countryside. Such peace and serenity…..

Christmas Day was quiet without any of our family. They are all in Aussie land this year, and we are here! We went to Noël and Susanne’s, our Dutch friends and experienced our first Christmas lunch cooked on a “hot stone’’. Great concept for a dinner party! On my list for Santa this year…

à bientôt
Peter et Donna

Back on the blog finally!

The past 2 weeks have been very busy tracing family ancestry, cooking new and exciting dishes in the kitchen, meeting more new friends (whom I am sure come for the cooking!), tasting wine from diverse regions, talking to many of our wonderful Australian family and friends, and enjoying the sunshine and the beauty which Spring brings to France.
No wonder we are behind updating our blog…..

OK! Firstly thank you for the gifts that we have received in the past 2 weeks. The look on our faces when we received Twisties and Aussie chips was priceless. Sorry, you missed it! If you think we passed these on, well………
Thanks to Pat and Wally who graciously sent 2 parcels. Merci beaucoup!

Today we had a Paella lunch, cooked by an English/South African gentleman called Mike and we shared this occasion with our Moroccan friend Karim! The picture says it all! Mike lives across the road from us.

If you enjoy and Oyster or 2, they are sold outside the church here every Sunday and they are so fresh. Shucking is an art, and finally we have mastered how it is done, thanks to our Moroccan friend. You can buy a dozen, based on the size from 3 to 5 Euros.

We had the opportunity to visit a vineyard about 1 hour North of here that produces wine, which does not have preservatives, and is delicious. We travelled there with our very dear friends Noël and Suzanne whose primary language is Dutch. So.... here we are at the Vineyard, Noël is speaking to the owner in French, talking to his wife in Dutch and translating to us in English some of the French we could not quite pick up. A remarkable man! We felt like we were at a Tennis Match and we were the BALLS! After an hour of wine tasting we walked away, (OK!OK!, so we wobbled away), with 30 litres of wine. Well!, we have to taste the wine before we introduce it into the bar..
We also visited their Dutch friends who have a holiday house in that area. Interesting time, whilst we listened to Dutch, conversed in French and English and wandered around their property in Baugé.

We now also offer a babysitting service for dogs. Babysat Virgule the Dutch dog, who responds to Dutch, French and English. Even the dogs are multi-lingual!

No news on our ‘working permi’ as yet. However we are still confident it will happen.

Classic quotes of the past weeks:
Ö Pete, would you like a strawberry in you wine love? “Why? do I have an apple in my beer?”
Ö Our dear elderly friend David had to go for a medical and a psych test. The Doctor asked him, “what day is it today, David?” David looked bewildered and replied, “how the hell would I know?” That’s life in Gourgé, and you don’t have to be elderly!!
Ö We received an email from our very pregnant daughter who lives in London. She is a Speech Pathologist who specializes in working with very young children. This is one of her wonderful stories. “So many funny moments with the children as I am getting bigger, and they all start remembering about the baby when they see me. Even some of the little 2-3yr olds see me and say "Angie…baby" pointing at my belly! So sweet…. I am yet to convince a few of them that I can't 'open' my belly to show them the baby and that I didn’t swallow the baby.... hehehe. They all now have to see my actual stomach and feel it, or put their heads up to my skin...it's so funny to watch their faces. Only a couple have asked how it comes out...hmmm how to explain that to some language disordered children!!”

Jusqui’à la semaine prochaine
Peter and Donna

An eventful week (Une semaine riche en événements)

Thank you to all our wonderful family and friends who 'rose to the occasion', answering our pleas for help, by sending Australian items to us in France. Let me explain......

There have been many people in this village and surrounding villages who have given us so much support and help over the past months, in an endeavour to get this café/bar opened. Included in this long list are Mayors, Solicitors, Directors, Teachers and people of diverse Nationalities. All giving of their time and energy, and not asking for anything in return. Our small way of saying 'merci beaucoup' is to give something from our wonderful country. In a nutshell, we are having problems with the French Consulate in Australia acquiring our working card, which allows us to run a business here in France. The French here are doing everything they possibly can within their jurisdiction to help us 'fight the good fight'. Too long a story to go into now....... Anyway, we are very thankful for these gifts, and for them to keep coming, as there are many people to thank:) We are in the paper again, in regards to this issue! Attached is the copy.

Besides the endless meetings we have had in the past weeks, we have managed to fit in our scheduled French lesson, speak with most of the family in Australia and the UK, work in the garden, as Spring is upon us, drink coupious amounts of French wine, come to the rescue of a mature age gentlemen who fell off his horse. OK! this one I will explain.

The horse was spooked by a dog and reared, hence his rider fell to the ground. All we saw was this horse galloping across the Roman Bridge without a rider. So, as you do, we ran around the back of our house to find this man lying on the ground in the middle of the road. Panic kicked in when I realised that I might have to ring the ambulance and try and explain to them in French, what the problem was and where we were. OK! OK! think Donna...Right, I knew what to do! Banging furiously on the window of our next door neighbour Jean-Michel, and yelling come here!, come here!, was the better option (in French of course).Anyway, I then decided to go chase the horse. What I was going to do when I found him, was not in my train of thinking at that stage. YES! I can ride a horse. It is getting on the horse that I have a problem with! Anyway...Jean-Michele came to the rescue and the gentlemen was able to get in his car (thank goodness, he was not injured too much) and they went off to find the horse. My sister thought it was hillarious that all I could say to Pete was 'I will get the horse, you save the man!', considering the horse was not in sight? Well!, the man was worried about his horse!

We also managed to have our first Bar-B-Que (pictures attached), which was a classic, I made strawberry and walnut muffins and took them around the neighbourhood, Pete put his welding gear on and fixed the neighbours gate and bell, plus we met another Aussie who is here for 12 months.

Jusqu'à la semaine prochaine....(Until next week)

Peter and Donna

(double click on the photos to enlarge them, and then click the left arrow at the top of the page to go back to the blog)

A week of eating, drinking, some renovations and rendez-vous

This week we sent off a request to the German Embassy in Bordeaux to get recognition for Pete's German ancestry. In the past weeks we have discovered that Pete's Grandmother was French/German and Pete's Great Grandparents were French! We knew his Dad and Grandfather were German, however we did not have any information past that...It has been a very emotional time, and it certainly explains Pete's love and passion for France.

We have finally finished cementing the bar floor. Now to lay the tiles. OK! things go slow over here:)

It seems that this week was the week for being invited to dinner and lunch. Wow! so much fabulous food, wine and amazing company...An author (on her 3rd book), a retired lawyer/art critic, an ex diplomat who has given us so much support, a business developer, an engineer who has lent us most of his household tools, and a very multi-talented gentleman whose degree is in tourism and his expertise is in renovating old buildings. They are also bi-lingual. Way to go!!! We feel very blessed:)

We also managed to fit in more meetings with very influential people in the community to explain our plans for the café/bar, and a French lesson with our very patient and wonderful French teacher, Elisabeth.

Back in Aussie land, my sister was very pro-active this week and called me every day, ahh!

Our youngest son even broke his hectic life style to call us this week:)

We went for a brief walk this afternoon and these are the photos taken just up the road looking back on our property. Double click the photos to view in a larger screen, and then left arrow back at the top of the page.

Au revoir from Gourgé, France