Bingo!

Bingo, house, lotto, carte en pleine, mad waving and jumping up and down! Who's listening..........  We've won...................... Making yourself heard over a throng of locals in the village hall which is just a five minute stroll from our humble abode here at Le Farat on a Friday evening is not as easy as it sounds, and woe betide me if I get it wrong and call out if I have made a mistake with my translation of numbers from English into French!  (I still have a bit of a problem with the 70's and 90's but generally not too bad and actually bingo helps!)

This year we have been active at the local Lotto evenings to help with fund raising for local groups and associations.

Our first outing this year was to the primary school lotto evening at the end of November. Proceedings start late here, and as it was for the school, all kids were invited. To sit down for the first call at 9pm is not unusual and to find you are still there at 1am with kids falling asleep on the floor seems to be the rule rather than the exception!

There were hundreds of donations from local businesses and all packaged beautifully.  The school governors presided over the event, with the bingo calling at a reasonable pace on the stage and there were occasional issues with a squealing microphone, so concentration was a must if we were to stand a chance of a prize.

After a few "kigne" and "carte en plein" a break was hailed and a mad dash to the canteen window in the Salle des Fetes for pancakes, cakes and drinks ensued.  Suitably refreshed we continued.  After two games we won! First it was our daughter who was sitting with a friend, she won local fruit juice, an entrance to a local museum, a discount of a takeaway pizza and 6 glasses.  Then it was my husbands turn for a win, however, he was not concentrating and half asleep, so therefore missed calling at the right time and lost out! Then just as the penultimate game was drawing to a close, I won too!  Yippee!  Added to our haul was a t shirt, cap, more fruit juice, discount off a new tyre and discount at a local restaurant.  We were more than happy!

On a roll, we turned up the following week at the local "Chasse" fundraising lotto.  Unsurprisingly, the prizes were mostly meat based!  The same order of proceedings ensued and after 10 games I was resigning myself that our winning streak was over.  However, our daughter, who had abandoned us for the second time in two weeks at a social event to sit with friends came up trumps and presented me with a prize of half a venison and a shoulder of sanglier (wild boar)!

Although I was over the moon to have won something, I was a little perturbed to say the least, that I was going to have to skin and butcher the meat and was secretly hoping that if I had won anything at all it would be sausages!  On joining the queue to collect our prize I was relieved to see that all was pre-butchered and frozen and being handed out from two enormous shopping trolleys ready to take home.

Now what.................! do I make sausages, or something more exotic, and if so how should I cook it?? May be as burgers on our lovely BBQ!

I do not feel I can be cheeky and ask the hunt, as last time I saw them I had to rather forcefully ask them to kindly remove their many dogs from the front lawn as they were using it as a loo!

www.lefarat.com

First big change over day!

Well the season has now started for us in ernest. We had our first gite guests arrive last Saturday, family of 4 including a 3 month old baby a 2 year old plus an aupair.

As hoped the initial reaction was what I hoped for and they loved the gite and surroundings, which is a constant thrill to me. Everyone settled in well and all were soon in the holiday mood lounging by the pool.

The weather unfortunately, has not been the best, we have had a few days of sun and a few days of cloud, but still nice an warm. After advising on nice places to visit, booking restaurants and being a taxi service on occasions the week drew to a close. The family moved out............in to our B&B for an extra night, they just couldn't bring themselves to leave! It was a squeeze with the au pair as well and we finally decided it would be more comfortable for the au pair to go in our spare room in the main house.

New guests arrived in the gite just 3 hours later. Fortunately, the cleaning had been done and beds made but I was in the middle of cleaning the BBQ and had to shake hands with mucky greasy fingers looking like something the cat dragged in, sooo didn't want to look like that!

Still, all the hard work is worth the initial ooohs and arrrhs, which is what it is all about - makeing sure that our guests are happy and pleased with their holiday accommodation.

Now the beds are stripped and everyone is settled and happy, I am off to start the washing and ironing.

Happy days indeed.

Update on our progress

Feeling guilty, for those of you that are following our progress, I apologise for not keeping you up to date!

We have been busy with yet more guests and I am so pleased that our business has gone well in this our first year. I must thank Nick for all his hard work in making the gite so fantastic and all his hard work has paid off. All who see the Maison Du Soleil think it is georgious.

Nick has lost so much weight in the process that some of the family and friends that have visited hardly recognise him!

I must admit I am getting twitchy about bookings for next year now as our last guests for this year come next week and then it is all quiet. Lets hope that the tweeting, blogging and the marketing activities I have been doing over the past few months pay off, if not, we are sunk!

I know I must be positive and all the comments we have had from our guests in this our first year have been so good but as the bookings calendar looks a bit bare at the moment I suppose it is normal to panic a bit and I am sure that most people have not even started thinking about next years holiday yet!

Currently we have an American child here with us from Denver Colorado on a school exchange, things seem to be going well, but he is so quiet it is hard to really be sure he is happy. Being his first time away from home it is understandable that he is a bit homesick but lets hope he comes out of his shell a bit over the next 10 days or so.

Fully equipped games room at Le Farat

We have been working hard all summer here at Le Farat and all our guests have been so complimentary about the house, gite and the B&B room. So clearly the hard work has been paying off. We asked each of our guests what they thought of their stay on departure and what we could do to improve thier experience, all without fail said they love it, which is great but a couple said that it would just be perfect if there was a bit more to do for the teenagers..........so we have done just that and added a fully equipped games room in one of the large converted barns opposite the swimming pool, which has an impressive vaulted ceiling with open beams.

It now contains a full size table tennis table, a 5ft air hockey table, a professional table football and a dart board, a seating area at one end, and to add to the experience, a drinks (beer) fridge!!

Why not spend Christmas here this year....I will provide a Christmas hamper and a decorated tree, all you have to do is book the gite for the week!

More wine tasting - regular occurance now!

We have had a steady stream of visitors, in this our first year of running our holiday gite business, and each time someone visits we are recommending a trip out to Saint Sardos and to Donzac to the cave of Cotes du Brulhois. Not that we are encouraging people to increase their alcohol consumption of course............but a lovely way to spend a sunny afternoon in France.

Last Friday...yes you've guessed it we went back again! This time the people at Saint Sardos recognised me!! and invited us into the bottling plant to watch my favourite Gilles du Morban being bottled. Our guests purchased a number of cases after a condsiderable time testing different wines and as a thank you we were given a discount and a free bottle of wine!

Leaving Saint Sardos behind we drove the short 25 minutes back towards Auvillar and on into Dune and Donzac to find the wine cave. The lady there, who was supporting a neck brace (we didnt dare ask!) offered a number of white, rose and red wines to taste. Again, already feeling more than a bit relaxed from the previous tasting, our guests purchased yet more red and rose wine! Good job they were driving their own car home!

Later that evening, we discussed our afternoon over a BBQ and a few bottles of the said wine by the pool and went to bed happy and relaxed.

So at Le Farat, we have now decided to offer a wine tasting trip once a week to our guests, with me driving so that everyone can partake in a tipple or two and not have to worry.

Who's going to be next to experience what Le Farat has to offer?

Gite modernisation update

The gite is now nearing completion and we have done alot in the last 6 weeks to get to this stage. When we started, to be fair most of the major work had been done and to a good standard, but we needed to install a kitchen, change a window to a door, lay new floor and add a terrace, change the electrics, and add all the furniture and appliances, not easy when all the walls are made of stone and very uneven.

After the initial hicup of not getting the kitchen when we were supposed to and putting the job back 2 weeks, we are now back on track and it looks fab, I am quite jealous of the kitchen and no doubt when it is not rented out I will be in there using the facilities!

I know I am biased, but I can honestly say when it is finished for our first guests to arrive on 24th july, I would like to stay myself. I feel like I need a holiday too!