Gites Du Marigné new website

Well here we are, next year we will celebrate 10 years of our beautiful gites being open.we have been here now for over 11 years,how time flies when you are having fun!!!.

Any guests new or returning guests,that have been coming to stay and have seen many changes over the years,we will be including a bottle of bubbly in your welcome hamper to help us celebrate our success here in La Belle France.

Our new website is now live created. and designed by our good friend Nikki Frankum,we thank her very much and hope together we can spread the word of Holidays in this beautiful sunflower region of France .

Beautiful flowers from the Garden

I did promise i would make an effort to update the blog more often,so here i am.The rain has of course given us an advantage of making all the plants grow and show their beauty off to their best.I have included some pictures on this post that i think you will all like.The grass is still green and looking good,but growing like mad!!! All the rain is saving me watering the veg plot,which we have reduced this year as we are so busy and you really do need the time to make it worth your while.As summer progresses i will take some more pictures of various plants,we also have some new chickens coming next week,so i will do a blog on the new arrivals!! anyway enjoy the pictures and will update soon.

Time Flies

Well where does the time go,i know i should have been updating more often,but so many jobs to do and not much time.
We still continue to make changes here,so that all our regular visitors can see new things happening.we have now finnished all the borders and new paths.we finnished this last winter,just as well as the temperatures of this winter of -19c would not have made those jobs easy!! Winter time is also time to repaint and make good and change some pictures in the Gites.The Chickens have continued to lay very well in the winter,so friends have been given boxes of eggs and we have eaten more then normal!!!
Time now dispite the continuing rain and not very good temperatures,to get the veg patch ready and fill the pots ready for the summer plants.The pool has been filled and all the maintenance work has been finnished we just wait for some sunshine.

Anyway some beautiful pictures of late summer from last year to make us all feel better and roll on summer!!!

Coco Le Chat Noir

Coco has been wanting to appear on the blog for a long time,so here goes!.she is about 14 now and completley stone deaf.we have managed to work out a kind of sign language,to ask her to sit on laps,and when dinner is ready!.Her deafness has not seemed to stop her catching the odd field mouse,as i am sure the lack of hearing has probably made her other senses more acute.
Our guests are amazed that she is so settled with all our chickens.her favourite passtime on a lovely sunny day is to go into the chicken orchard and lay by their house and watch their antics.
she is very popular with our guests and some of our regulars delight in bringing her little gifts and leaving her messages in our visitors books!
The picture i have used here is my favourite of her on the kitchen windowsil,looking elegant,she probably could have been a model for an animal calender.
 We are all now looking forward to the weather getting warmer and the evenings getting lighter,and she will no doubt be looking forward to all the fuss our visitors make of her.

She has been known and we have pictorial evidence of her spending the evening with two of our guests on the sofa drapped around Kevin's neck watching the TV.She must be the only cat who has 4 homes to choose from!!I hope you enjoy her picture and our next blog will show updates on all our hard work done in the gardens and grounds for the forthcoming season.

Starting the New Year at Gites du Marigné 2011

we have lots of maintenance to do over the winter.the moles have made a mess of all our gravel paths,so drastic action is needed!! out with the ciment mixer and digging some deep trenches.
we are laying new decked patios for La Petite Maison and around the beautiful swimming pool.
We have membraned most of the beds and gravelled them to stop the weeds and then planted feature plants.
it is very important for us to keep things fresh and looking good with so many visitors.
Already bookings are going very well for this year with lots of enquiries,so hopefully it will not be the depression year forcast by all the financial pundits!

anyway back to work.will post some updated pictures in the next post.

Chez Hiboux the renovated Barn

Chez Hiboux is our latest project.we completed this barn in June 2010.the first guests arrived four days after it was completed.it was not only a labour of love,but very hard work,This has for the moment completed our Gite complex,giving us 3 Gites to rent on a yearly basis.