Oh Dear!

When we were at La Matha in November, we noticed that the hibernated pool had lost a lot of water.  The pool man, Monsieur Bouilhac of BLM Piscines had been advising us of a loss of water for the past couple of years, but each time he told us it was not serious and didn't necessarily need attention.

He has now investigated, and it seems there are a number of cracks in the concrete fabric of the pool, bad connections for the drainage plughole, and poor connections for the jets by the steps.  This will need a new lining, together with some work on the pipes.  Further investigation and subsequent estimate to follow next week, but this is definitely something we need to have sorted out!

We will update on how this progresses.....

Bookings for 2011

Well this is going well!  We have now booked all prime slots, and we now only have six free days between 4 June and 11 September.  Included in the 13 weeks are four weeks from previous visitors.  In fact, another previous guest tried to book 2 weeks just after a new enquiry had come in.

This really is encouraging for us, and hopefully shows the work that we are doing to the house is paying off.  Repeat bookings and word of mouth recommendations mean that we must be doing something right, and it's good to see that other people can relax and enjoy the house pool and garden just as we do.

Sporting Facilities

Paving the way for competitions in the summer, we have just bought an outdoor table tennis table.  Whilst we think this should fit in the boiler room/utility room with a bit of rejigging of things, we intend to put it out on the hard stand outside the bathroom for the summer.  The area there has more than enough space, and is flat; when swept should be great - certainly in the morning or early evening!

This will complement the boules and badminton sets we have provided in previous years.  There is also a darts board left by a visitor (although I don't really classify darts as a sport!).  Together with swimming, guests may be able to have a "Superstars" competition........

Bathroom Progress - Update

We have now received the quote from the builder, and have sent a cheque for the materials.  He now has two months to complete before I go out there.  Here's hoping  he does that!

Bathroom Progress

We have now sent detailed specifications of the master en-suite to our builder.  It will not have a bath any more, as, although there would be space for it, the room will seem more spacious without it.  In reality, few people would actually use the bath anyway, and if they did want a bath, there is always one downstairs.

We're hoping that the wall to the bedroom won't have to be moved by much, not that it would make much difference in the bedroom given its size.

We now await the quote and the builder starting work.  It's getting exciting!

Letting Websites

This year we are experimenting a bit.  When we started, we signed up to Holiday Lettings and Holiday Rentals.  That first year, all the bookings we took were from Holiday Lettings, and I think we only received one enquiry from Holiday Rentals.  I'm not sure really what caused this: was it the site or the advert in the site? As a result, and not knowing the underlying reason, we dropped Holiday Rentals and still managed to have a good set of bookings in 2009 and 2010, with our first bookings outside of July and August in 2010. 

Not wanting to leave it there, though, for 2011, we have signed up with Chez Nous, who claim to have a different demographic from the other letting websites, and a newer site called Pure Holiday Homes.  Both have nicely presented adverts etc, although there is a downside in that I will have to update three sets of availability calendars as well as recording details of the lettings here.

Has it paid off?  Early to say - we have five weeks next year booked already, but four of those are re-bookings from previous years.  The other week is from Chez Nous.  I am reasonably confident that week would have been booked from Holiday Lettings, and the true results will come if we manage to let more weeks away from the main season - for instance the "shoulder" months.

Interesting Places to Visit

Whilst we were down at the house this weekend, we went for a drive around lunchtime.  We had heard that there was a Christmas fair in a village Soussac, not far from Pellegrue.  We decided we would try going to Sauveterre de Guyenne for lunch, and then on to Soussac afterwards, going there cross country.  As it turned out, the fair at Soussac did not come to much - it might have been better later, but it looked as if we would have been the only visitors there, so we ducked that one!

Sauveterre has a charming square which is now a car park, but I imagine hosts a bustling market on Tuesdays.  Around the square are a number of shops, and we found a nice little restaurant for lunch - Les Arcades.  It was a bit basic, but the fixed price three course lunch with wine for €11.50 was not bad at all.

We then headed out on the road to Monségur, which we have been to before, and also has a charming square and nice cafés for lunch.  The map we were using had told us about a "village de charme" - Castelmoron d'Albret.  We parked up, and wandered around the village.  It had a feel just like villages in Provence - buildings and houses perched on the top of a hill, winding roads between the houses butting directly onto the roadway.  The buildings themselves were generally a bit run down, and a large number of them were for sale.  These would make ideal renovation projects if you wanted a village property.  There was a restaurant there - Chez Pierre, I think - which looked like a nice spot for lunch.  Next trip, I think!

The three locations - Sauveterre, Monségur with Castelmoron in between - make a nice little trip - perhaps on a Tuesday for the Sauveterre market or Friday for the Monségur one.