The weather was amazing, it was in the high 20's all week, culminating with 33 degrees on Saturday. We alternated days out with days at home and the we played in the pool everyday. We have an inflatable pool chair and borrowed 2 more and had a great time tipping each other off the chairs and into the pool.
This a picture of the 4 of them outside the Chateau in Rochechouart - Tamsin, Jennifer, Mum and Dad.
One of the day trips was to La Vallée des Singes (Valley of the Monkeys). It is a monkey park where all the monkey except the gorillas, chimps and a couple of others are totally free to run around you. There are no wire enclosures and you can be as close as you want to the monkeys. You are asked not to touch or feed them, but the 'keepers' have feeding times that you can watch. A truly wonderful place, I can thoroughly recommend it.
There was also a mini farm at the Vallée des Singes, where there were baby goats, small pigs, geese and lots of very fluffy Silkie chickens. Tamsin and Jennifer fell in love with the chickens, and I fell in love with a baby goat and a white goose. OH was hoping that I wasn;t going to try and persuade him to have some goats in the garden! Later that night the girls were on the phone to their mum, telling her about their day, and she came up with the idea of them adopting a chicken each. They buy it and we keep it here and look after it, sending them photos and updates. This was a brill idea, as they wanted cute fluffy chickens and so did I!
So, Friday off we went to Les Herolles market. Little warning here DO NOT GO DURING THE SUMMER HOLIDAYS. It was heaving like you wouldn't believe. It took 30 mins of queuing just to get close enough to park, and you had to walk round like sardines. It didn't help that it was 30 degrees.
We went to the chicken bit first where Jenny saw 2 white Silkies. These are small bantams that are very fluffy (think feather duster) with fluffy white feet and little turquoise cheeks. Well, that was it, they were purchased and now Jenny was the proud owner of 2 chickens. We continued wandering and there was a really lovely selection of very pretty chickens and ducks. Tamsin saw 2 Pekingese bantams, which are small chicken, very dark brown almost black feathers and very feathery feet. She decided to buy these. So now we have 4 little chooks. They are very young, around 6 weeks old we think, so wont be laying eggs for ages.
The girls have named them all, but OH has ammende
d a couple of the names. Jenny called hers Flora and Fizz. OH changed Flora to Facewash as he said that she looks like of those shower puff things that you wash yourself with in the shower. Tamsin called her Pixie and Marigold, but he suggested Little Git instead of Marigold, as she decided to escape from her run, and led us all a merry dance around the back of the shed. This called for a re-think in chicken run security. Both these pictures were taken by Jenny.They have all settled in well. They sleep in a cat box during the night in the chicken shed. They are so small that the bigger chickens would squash them! They all go into their cat box as good as gold as it starts getting dark. The other animals haven't really paid much attention to them. Misty has gone into theire run and wash more interested in the cat box than the chicks. She always comes down with me in the morning when I go to let them all out, feed and water them.
Another reason I was so pleased to see the family was that they arrive the day after the Olympics finished. I was glued to the Games for the entire 2 weeks (with the exception of a couple of sports). Team GB did brilliantly and we shouted ourselves hoarse. I cried every time we one a gold, at all our medal ceremonies and at all the re-runs shown later - sad cow! When they ended I thought I would have withdrawal symptoms, but the arrival of our family was well timed.
A lovely goose picture taken by Jenny on her last day here:
