I'm Moving to the Dordogne

This house is sold. It was listed at $334,000 Canadian dollars! It’s in the Dordogne where Bruno lives. Look at it. Look at how gorgeous all the rooms are. Loot at the pool, the stream. Oh, how I wish I could have bought it and lived the rest of my life there! But I’m house-bound on Gabriola (which is not at all a bad thing). I can’t move to Europe, but it’s a nice dream to have.

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With Sheba out of order, we didn’t walk yesterday. But she came with me to do all my errands at the post office, the hardware store, the pet store and the grocery store. And then we came home so that I could do more yard work, but after just over an hour of working, I stopped to do some reading. I spent all day Thursday without Bruno, so I wanted some Bruno time.

After reading a couple of chapters, I got back to work and it was very, very satisfying. The bulk of my time was spent cleaning up under the giant Ferns beside the entrance to my backyard. I was thrilled to see how great it looked when I was done (See below).

I’m feeling very, very good about my island life at P.P. It’s wonderful to feel so at peace with the world. I see a neighbour every now and then, just in passing. And in such casual circumstances, I am fluent with them, so I live symptom free on my days alone. I love that. And I’m very excited about fetching my mail next week when my Commissario Brunetti books start arriving—all thirty of them. 

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Today will be another day of yard work. I’m hooked on it, and it feels very good to be outdoors all day and gently working on the yard. It’s cloudy and windy, but not too windy. And there’s plenty of blue sky. It’s an ideal day to get lots of work done. I’ll finish up with the Ferns and then do some pruning of the Ocean Spray that’s become overgrown.

Before: Two years of dead fronds encased the ground below
the Ferns at the entrance to the backyard.

After: I cleaned up all the dead fronds yesterday. Better, eh!

These are my Chernoble Blueberries. They are enormous!

This is Creeping Thyme that self-seeded and looks great on
my courtyard of paving stones.

This is some kind of Mint. It self-seeded in a few spots in
the courtyard. It perfumes the air.

This garden is really thriving right on top of the root system
 of the huge Fir tree it surrounds.

You can see little shrubs I've planted around the walkway that
will grow and fill in the yard with colour.

You can see how I've scattered shrubs in this little plot of lawn
where my three Apple trees are growing.

This garden is thriving and needs pruning. I plan to get to the
pruning done over the coming week.

The gardens around the deck are thriving too. My house is hard
to see now that there's so much greenery.

The pergola is becoming covered in climbing Rose and 
Hydrangea and it's looking mature now.

This is one lawn that I let grow for the Bees. 

The Ivy I planted is giving my shed a nice floral
and aged look that I like.