January 2018 and a reflection of another great year

2017 we enjoyed lots of visitors and saw lots of good friends.  Some have already asked or booked to come over again.

We have a number of bookings and have this year decided to use Gitelink, Chez Nous, Owners Direct, Google and our own website tarn-gites.com.  Good ideas moving forward are the very successful 'Honesty Bar' it's an honest bar, and 'Apéro evenings' where guests get to meet other guests and our family.  We normally provide seasonal food from the market and local wine.  This breaks the ice and a number of people have found the evening very useful to get most of of their holiday, by having all their questions answered either by us or other guests.

Fun on the deck

Fontaine le Puits

Lots of snow

At Christmas we went to the Alps skiing, met up with French friends, enjoyed a raclette and a few bottles of champagne.  The kids attended ski school, Evie passed her Premier Etoile (1st Star), Charlie his Troisième Etoile (3rd Star) and Tom took Etoile D'Or again (Gold star).  We were lucky to have winter tyres and snow chains as there was plenty of snow.

Our Christmas tree was huge, as it was one of the last three available on Christmas Eve. The highlights were an unplanned lunch at Le Lachenal, one of our favourite restaurants, skiing with the kids and the Xmas and New Year firework celebrations on the slopes.

Xmas celebrations on the slopes

We discussed plans for the next few years and decided to upgrade our ski house as a gite for the ski and hiking seasons.  There is even talk of a sauna!  Janine will create a web site to make booking and management easy.

The Grange New Year

Friends stayed in the Grange over New Year and celebrated in typical French style with Oysters and Champagne.

Clear blue skies allowed a meal outdoors, not bad for January!

It's cold today, but spring is pressing hard with catkins, violets and other spring flowers starting to appear...must get on with the gardening!

I have a number of jobs lined up which includes completing our chicken coop, dog compound and sun sail on the terrace.  Janine is attending an intensive TEFL English course in Toulouse.  We start getting the gites ready for the season around March.

I am looking forward to the summer, markets and good seasonal produce.  This year I hope to grow enough vegetables and fruit to allow us to cook a meal or two from the garden most weeks.  I am also looking forward to fresh eggs from our chickens.

Great view of the snow covered Pyrenees as I drove back from Réalmont market.

Roll on the warm weather!