It is really Spring now here in Chabanol. The garden has finally woken up & looks lovely with all its violets, primroses & daffs in full bloom. Miraculously too, some of the shrubs & plants that I thought had bitten the dust after the nasty cold weather we had in February, have begun to show signs of life too..although not all of them are out of the woods yet so to speak! The big privet bush which conveniently gives a lot of privacy to the gite terrace has a few buds on it thank goodness as I was very worried about its survival. It would have been a real pain to dig out had it died & also getting something to replace it would also have been problematic, both for size & financial reasons! Le radin (as I now fondly refer to my rather “tight-fisted” husband) would have been hard pressed to part with sufficient cash for a suitable replacement! Spring is always a lovely time of the year here in the Auvergne. The birdsong is really wonderful at the moment, the woodpeckers are drumming like mad & Geoff heard his first cuckoo the other day on one of his walks with the dog. All the insects & lizards are waking up & we have had butterflies & lots of bees visiting the flowers. The fruit trees are just coming into blossom too & they look really beautiful. The weather just now is lovely too – bright sunny days - although it still gets cool at night when the sun goes down. We have had quite a few lunches in the garden already & have taken the plunge & re-instated the garden furniture as we felt the need for the parasol the other day. This normally brings about a drastic change in the weather, but so far so good! It is really nice to have daylight in the house too after having the shutters closed for such a long time to help keep out the cold. Our bedroom has 3 windows (it’s the lightest room in the house) & waking up to these bright sunny mornings, with the dawn chorus blasting away is wonderful. It really lifts the spirits big time! Unfortunately spring is also the time for the dreaded “spring cleaning” – something I’m not so enthusiastic about! I have started to wash the gite bedding but can’t say I have been overly keen to get the gite opened up & cleaned as we have had a very dull month business wise with no B&B visitors & very few enquiries for either B&B or the gite. Although this, for us is normally a quiet time – our clients are mainly French remember & the French don’t really start booking their summer holidays until the Easter ones are finished – I still get very anxious until I get the first gite booking. I’m pleased to say that in the last few days we have had a few enquiries (thank goodness!) but I’ve still not got that elusive “first one” yet! Every year I say I will not worry but every year I do! Lots of our friends here keep telling me that a lot of this seemingly reluctance to commit to spending any money is due to the impending presidential election here in France. Apparently people always get nervous when they think there will be a change in government & keep their cash very much to themselves! Personally, I am getting very fed up with the election campaigning & can’t wait for it all to be over! Politics in France is even duller than in the UK (honestly!) & as we are not allowed to vote in the presidential elections because we are not French citizens, none of it has much interest for us any way. It is a bit galling though that we pay out taxes here & the state is quite happy to accept them, but we can not have any say in the matter! Although having said that the whole voting system here is such a complicated affair I’m not sure I would want to be part of it. A lot of people have told us they deliberately return blank voting slips as they don’t like any of the candidates! Its certainly different anyway! Although my business has been in a bit of the doldrums this month, Geoff’s is really booming - which is just as well as otherwise we’d be bankrupt! He has started giving lessons to another couple of new students this month & best news of all, has finally (after several years of trying)managed to get a contract out of one of the biggest businesses in Issoire to do some English lessons for someone who works there. Then, as with all things like that, he was contacted by another person in the same company who also wants lessons. That contract is now in the pipeline & hopefully will go through too. Youpi as we say here! All this was counteracted a bit by the arrival of a very large demand for his contribution to the French retirement scheme – twice as big as last years. I keep wondering if we will ever make any money here...or if we will ever be able to retire! We have started to get out & about a bit again this month again & have had a couple of nice meals with friends. I also spent a “riveting” morning at the AGM of the local branch of our bank (Geoff was conveniently working that morning) in order to partake in the free lunch they always provide afterwards at one of the more prestigious restaurants in the village! Geoff managed to sneak into the meeting with 15 mins to go so he, too, got to go for lunch! Pah! We went up to the village lotto the other Sunday although we didn’t stay long! I still have a bit of difficulty with numbers in French, especially when you get to “quatre-vingt quelquechose” & so am not keen to show myself up publically by having to think before committing myself! I am also in awe of all those folk who sit with 20 or so cards in front of them playing them all at the same time! We bought some cards & left them for one of these talented ladies to play for us. Needless to say we haven’t had a visit from the organisers with our prizes as yet! One last little story from the homestead. As some of you will know I have been trying to persuade Geoff to let me have a couple of chickens for a while now. I thought things were really moving forward when he cleared a bit of land behind one of the outhouses & started to cut scraps of wood etc to make the henhouse. Unfortunately the assembly of the said henhouse did not go exactly to plan when we tried to put it up the other day & the bits ended up being taken to the local tip! Not saying a word other then that I am now trying to find a cheap ready made henhouse! Watch this space…