La Citadelle
Yahoo/Geocities has changed its GuestBook implementation, and this is now far less useful than it used to be because it truncates messages severely, so I have started this notepad to give you items of news about La Citadelle. use the contact form in the index to get in touch directly.
News: 8-May-2001
We are almost packed and will be off to La Citadelle soon. Malcolm swears that he has the lawns in excellent condition, now the rains have stopped, and François has finished re-roofing our new utility room. Tomorrow I shall practice packing my car, to see how much I can fit in.
Note that now we are certain that we are off to France this month, we are able to release June for letting (we had blocked June out the availability table because we didn't know what our plans were). In June the temperatures are usually in the 80s, but not the searing temperatures we can get in high summer, and the rental prices are low.
Jane and I shall be looking out for our own guests this year, leaving Malcolm and Sue to get their own letting venture off the ground. They are a couple of miles from La Citadelle, have a converted barn which sleeps up to 8, and a band new pool. If you want to book somewhere at the last minute for July, call Malcolm and Sue Sanderson on 00 33 5 53 63 08 91. Malcolm rents out bicycles and tandems too, and delivers them right to our guests at La Citadelle. Our other change is that we are including towels as well this summer, to save on baggage for our guests.
I have been asked a couple of times how t get to us by air. The airport is Bordeaux (Merignac), via London or Paris. All the international car hire companies operate out of the airport, and it is about an hour's drive away.
Unless I get a phone line installed at La Citadelle, this may be our last news here until the autumn.
News: 17-Apr-2001
The summer holidays are booked up now, although the early summer and autumn are still available. François has started work on re-roofing the salle de pompe, the old outhouse which will be our laundry and utility room this year, and that should be complete in a couple of weeks.
We shall have plenty of time to carry out the seasonal housekeeping necessary to freshen the farmhouse up so that it is at its best for our guests in the summer.
Matthew stayed at la Citadelle with a friend a month or so ago, and reported that all was well, although Malcolm keeps an eye on it anyway. He has given the grass its first cut of the year now, so we hope that it will not be looking too bad by the time we get there. Last year, pressure of work made him run late, and by the time we arrived in May, it looked like hay-making time.
We don't have a fixed telephone line at La Citadelle yet, and have depended up until now on our UK mobile phone, but this year we must get a line installed. Until we do we won't be able to update these pages or even pick up email this summer. So if you want to contact us early on in the summer, either call on +44 7980 611 204, or write to:
Eric and Jane Finlayson
La Citadelle
24610 St Méard-de-Gurçon
FRANCE
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News: 23-Jan-2001 |
Bookings for 2001 are going well; all the high season is booked except for the last two weeks of August. We are not currently planning to let June (except to friends and family) because my work means that we may not be as organised as usual until July. This could change as my work plans change.
We have no bookings for September yet. We spent August and September at La Citadelle last year, and then went back at the end of October and beginning of November. August was hot, with a couple of thunderstorms overnight. Some mornings started misty; these were the scorchers, by the time the mist had burned off. The fishermen among our guests were catching fish up to about 8 lb, but proved unable to land any of the biggest ones.
September was warm, and I went on swimming in the lake most days. Early morning was cool and that’s when I did most of my landscaping work around the Owl Barn. Evenings were either slightly misty and warm, or diamond-clear and cool by 10 o’clock. I have never seen the arch of the Milky Way shining as brightly across the sky.
Even by early November few of the trees had started to lose their leaves except the catalpas (Indian bean trees). The trees we planted at the end of the summer seemed to be establishing themselves nicely. By then the weather had turned – some days warm and sunny, and others cool with light rain. Morning and evening we were glad of the central heating in the farm-house.
Our plans are to spend all of the summer at La Citadelle, so we will be looking after our own guests this year. This should leave Malcolm and Sue to concentrate on their bike hire and to letting their own property at La Font du Parc nearby; this will mean that they will have to move out to their other house near Mussidan for the summer.
The Owl Barn is becoming our summer home, when the farm-house is let and, because of the climate here, doesn’t need heating. I still have some work to do to finish it – mainly putting the panels and glass block walls around the showers, and putting partition walls around the bathroom in our bedroom on the mezzanine floor of the barn. François needs to repair and re-roof a large stone outhouse attached to the barn, so that we can use it as a utility room; I’ve already had the electricity, water, and drainage installed.
Apart from that, I hope to have some real impact on the landscaping by tackling the half acre of 15 inch-thick concrete beyond the barns – a challenge!
