La Citadelle
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News: 12-August-2003 |
Only half a dozen days with rain over the past four and a half months, and afternoon temperatures in the upper 30s (95-100 degrees Fahrenheit) for the past two weeks. The pool has been a lifesaver for our guests.
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News: 27-April-2003 |
Spring at La Citadelle. Weather has been dry, sunny, and warm through March, and now we are in April it is still gloriously sunny.
Early April was cool, but the temperature has risen to 75 degrees, and even the water in the pool is over 70. Our first guests have been here this week for Easter, and have been swimming almost every day.
We are booked solidly from the start of June through to the end of August, and still we are getting enquiries for August! We shall open booking for 2004 early in August, and half of that month will almost certainly be booked immediately. It only takes a handfull of bookings to book La Citadelle up for the summer, so the early-birds will be the only ones to get the bookings, unless some people can arrange their holidays for May or September, which are usually as good as the summer months anyway.
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News: 10-Aug-2002 |
Since our repairs were scheduled for June, we had to turn away all booking requests until the start of July. This gave us time to do more decorating and updating in the farmhouse, and allowed us to take the time to install a large swimming pool. This has come as an exciting "extra" to this summer's guests, but they still spend even more time in the lake. It is interesting that all this year's parties have included from three to eight enthusiastic fishermen (and women); while almost anyone can catch dozens of small fish, the large carp are challenging and need good equipment, skill, and patience!
Now that we have both retired, we can spend all the time we want here, and can look after our guests and the property ourselves. We are changing our main advertisers for 2002, no longer Chez Nous but now Bonnes Vacances.
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The Big Freeze |
News: 5-Feb-2002 |
We had to rush down to La Citadelle at the start of January to deal with the damage caused by unprecedented temperatures down to minus 20! The outcome of this is that we cannot let La Citadelle until the end of June this year, when the repairs will be completed. The upside was that we had lovely clear blue skies while we were there clearing up, and I was able to take photos of the lake frozen solid - watch this space.
Although mid-summer weeks are booked early, we still have availability in the autumn.
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News: 30-Sep-2001 |
We went out to La Citadelle in mid-May and have only recently returned. Apologies to those who had problems with our web site not displaying some pictures - technical problems with incompatibilities between Windows and Unix files names. I hope that they are all fixed now. We have also switched to a host site without pop-up adverts - people were complaining. To speed up the new pages, I am putting most of the photos in as thumbnails which you can click on to enlarge - try it on the picture above!
We spent a much of this summer as tourists, and I took around 270 photos; nearly 100 of these are good enough to put on our site here, so watch out for them from now on. We didn't quite finish the interior of the Owl Barn, but there isn't much left now. We even had time to do a fair amount of landscaping - planting trees (including American Red Oaks which were turning gorgeous colours by the time we left), demolishing the concrete pillars in front of the Owl Barn, and preparing a big terrace outside the guest wing; this is on the north side but, since the sun is almost overhead for so much of the time, it has little shade so we plan to have a pergola with vines growing over it.
We shall be back in France for a short while this autumn, and have now started taking bookings for summer 2001. The latest enquiry is for three weeks in July/August, so the school holidays will be booked up quickly again. However, as usual we found that the weather during late May and June was often on the 80s with 15 hours of sun a day, so if you can holiday off-peak, you can save quite a lot of money. September has hot, sunny days but cool nights and mornings, but La Citadelle's farm house has central heating throughout, so they are no problem.
News: 17-Apr-2001
The summer holidays are booked up now, although the autumn is still available. François has started work on re-roofing the salle de pompe, the old outhouse which will be our laundry and utility room this year, and that should be complete in a couple of weeks.
We shall have plenty of time to carry out the seasonal housekeeping necessary to freshen the farmhouse up so that it is at its best for our guests in the summer.
Matthew stayed at la Citadelle with a friend a month or so ago, and reported that all was well, although Malcolm keeps an eye on it anyway. He has given the grass its first cut of the year now, so we hope that it will not be looking too bad by the time we get there. Last year ,pressure of work made him run late, and by the time we arrived in May, it looked like hay-making time.
We don't have a fixed telephone line at La Citadelle yet, and have depended up until now on our UK mobile phone, but this year we must get a line installed. Until we do we won't be able to update these pages or even pick up email this summer. So if you want to contact us early on in the summer, either call on +44 7980 611 204, or write to:
Eric and Jane Finlayson
La Citadelle
24610 St Méard-de-Gurçon
FRANCE
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News: 23-Jan-2001 |
Bookings for 2001 are going well; all the high season is booked except for the last two weeks of August. We are not currently planning to let June (except to friends and family) because my work means that we may not be as organised as usual until July. This could change as my work plans change.
We have no bookings for September yet. We spent August and September at La Citadelle last year, and then went back at the end of October and beginning of November. August was hot, with a couple of thunderstorms overnight. Some mornings started misty; these were the scorchers, by the time the mist had burned off. The fishermen among our guests were catching fish up to about 8 lb, but proved unable to land any of the biggest ones.
September was warm, and I was went on swimming in the lake most days. Early morning was cool and that’s when I did most of my landscaping work around the Owl Barn. Evenings were either slightly misty and warm, or diamond-clear and cool by 10 o’clock. I have never seen the arch of the Milky Way shining as brightly across the sky.
Even by early November few of the trees had started to lose their leaves except the catalpas (Indian bean trees). The trees we planted at the end of the summer seemed to be establishing themselves nicely. By then the weather had turned – some days warm and sunny, and others cool with light rain. Morning and evening we were glad of the central heating in the farm-house.
Our plans are to spend all of the summer at La Citadelle, so we will be looking after our own guests this year. This should leave Malcolm and Sue to concentrate on their bike hire and to letting their own property at La Font du Parc nearby; this will mean that they will have to move out to their other house near Mussidan for the summer.
The Owl Barn is becoming our summer home, when the farm-house is let and, because of the climate here, doesn’t need heating. I still have some work to do to finish it – mainly putting the panels and glass block walls around the showers, and putting partition walls around the bathroom in our bedroom on the mezzanine floor of the barn. François needs to repair and reroof a large stone outhouse attached to the barn, so that we can use it as a utility room; I’ve already had the electricity, water, and drainage installed.
Apart from that, I hope to have some real impact on the landscaping by tackling the half acre of 15 inch-thick concrete beyond the barns – a challenge!
