Thursday 10 December 2009

Our Well

People who were reading back in September 2007 may remember when we found our well.

It was sitting under a large, ugly concrete slab at the back of the house, but in my mind I already had plans for it - one day we would have a classic Tourangelle well. Unfortunately, its position directly in front of a window precluded anything too fancy, but as part of the garden works we had Alex build a well wall around it. He used traditional materials: the tuffeau (limestone) came from the old chimney which was demolished in 2007, and the mortar is chaux, the traditional lime mortar.

The plan is to fill this with flowerpots, and put in a submersible pump so we can water the garden even when there are water restrictions. We had water restrictions this year, which weren't widely publicised but prohibited the use of town water for watering gardens.

We are entering a really busy time of year and may not always be able to write an entry every day, but much like what happened in May, we will continue to post something new every day.

Simon

5 comments:

Paulita said...

Cute well. It is really busy because of the holidays or is there some other French gardening/home repair rush going on? Curious readers want to know!

Jean said...

He's good with walls, is Alex. Very smart.

Simon said...

Paulita. We could tell you but then we'd have to.....well - you know the drill :)

Anonymous said...

Any plans to get rid of the bricks around the window and replace with tuffeau?

Don't want you sitting back and getting bored ;-)

Simon said...

The bricks are all part of the building's character - they are witnesses to years of misuse and a reminder to all that follow us that sometimes mistakes get made, even with the best intentions in mind.

Plus, of course,we like sitting back :)

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