Today started off slow as the volunteers took their time to wake up and wonder about at LG.

After lunch, Marlou and Paul were off to see a football match between Brossac and Chevanceauxm playing for the Centre-Ouest cup of France. Although it was a rainy day, both Paul and Marlou came back to La Giraudiere visibly happy after watching Brossac power through and win the game 3-1!

To celebrate the win, Marlou and Marisela baked a chocolate cake while Paul headed off to meet our new arrival at La Giraudiere.

Denise arrived just in time for dinner so we headed off to our local restaurant Le Saint Bernard to meet Jean-Michel and Indira and have some delicious pizza!

Welcome Denise!

Busy volunteers week in France

What a busy week it has been at La Giraudiere! The old house’s garden has been planted, the shutters painted and ready, and the emails are up to date.Time to relax and enjoy the weekend!

Gayle and Derrick are off for the weekend to Brossac, so at the moment there are only four of us and Paul are at the lovely LG. Emily, who has been doing a stellar job on blog up to the moment, is leaving today to spend a week in Paris before se goes home to England. We will all miss her at LG and decided to say goodbye properly by taking a day trip to lovely Angouleme. While there, Paul, Marisela and Marlou stocked up on materials needed for the new bathroom project Marlou will be working on next week, and Emily and Emilie wandered about at the local CarreFourm buying last minute French goodies for her trip.

Before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye to Emily and to pick up our new volunteer Jim, at the train station.  It’s his second time at La Giraudiere, so welcome back Jim!

So today is the last working day for John and Mark and as you’ve seen from the past two blog posts, they’ve both done brilliant jobs on their projects here at LG. Emilie wandered off into the streets of Brossac this morning to interview some of our local shops and businesses for updated info on our updated Brossac site. Seeing as the weather was beautiful, Paul made the most of it by cutting the grass.

After lunch was our French lesson. We thought we’d be seeing Alison again so were surprised to see Lyn turn up. It was nice having Alison teach us these past two weeks but at the same time it was great to see Lyn again. She’d just come back from travelling around Canada with some other Brossac locals so our theme today was the differences between the French and English speaking parts in Canada and it was very interesting for us all.

After the French lesson, John, Marlou and Emilie headed off to the lake while Emily prepared a traditional English dinner – cottage pie! Evening entertainment was provided by Mark and his trombone. Three weeks he’s been here and no-one has heard him play but for his final evening he gave us some samples of what he’s been practicing and it sounded great! As it is his John last evening, we of course headed down to Saint Bernard’s for a drink and to see if any locals were in for them to say goodbye to. It was a lovely warm evening so we sat outside on the terrace discussing horoscopes and pheasant plucking before we headed back to LG to get some kip.

So the second project finished today is John’s one. He has been working in the garden next to the old house, getting rid of any junk or wood there and digging up the soil to get it all ready for his grass seeds. Today is the day where it all got completed and he with the help of Marlou completed the last task which was that of sowing seeds! John’s had some helpers along the way but he did most of it on his own so well done to him!

Here are some before and after photos:

Before

John and Marlou sowing seeds

Paul's DIY scarecrow!