March in France

Snowdrops by the river Sioule

Although our French 'chateau' is almost 700 miles south of Preston, it is fairly high up there, and spring is only a little earlier than in North Wales.  We had a lovely spread of snowdrops in the woods by the River Sioule and the Wood Anemones, Anemone nemorosa, looked lovely.  Pulmonaria longifolia, Narrow-leaved Lungwort, was abundant in the garden, as elsewhere in woods and hedgebanks, but this time we only saw a couple of plants of the attractive Bird-in-a-bush, Corydalis solida, which was abundant here last year.

Euphorbia amygdaloides 

The lovely damson-coloured leaf-rosettes of Euphorbia amygdaloides, Wood Spurge, were already showing above the leaf-litter and there were dramatic spikes of Helleborus foetidus dotted through the woods








It was a hard-working stay this time.  We still have cement mixers in the garden but the end is in sight of applying the enduit, the vernacular rendering that protects the soft local limestone used for building. And we finished the holiday by laying around fifty paving slabs each with an estimated weight of 17 kg, to make a dry walkway from the campervan to the house.

Our  smart new gates adorn John's finished wall

laying several hundred kg of slabs!