The hardest job

I had expected that when we really started full on with the renovations we would find quite a few challenges and work could take longer than planned. However this has not been the case at all, very few difficulties and work is proceeding faster than expected. The one area that is proving very challenging

to say the least is the one thing that I thought would go smoothly - the gardens! Due to covid my arrival at the chateau was later than planned. Also the weather was apparently wet then warm in early spring. All of this has led to the gardens becoming very overgrown. The acres of lawns had become acres of hay. I contacted two local farmers to see if they would cut it and take it away, despite agreement in principle they never did. Then I tried to rent 

a machine to cut it all but it seems that the hire shops operate under the Fawlty towers principles! Countless promises to get machinery, to telephone or to email me all fail to happen. In the end I bought a couple of great machines in the UK to cut the hay and also the neighbour helped with his tractor. So finally all of the hay was cut but this was only the start of the solution. Next problem was how to get rid of all of the hay that then covered the grass. It is far too much for us to collect manually. So the solution seemed to be to hire a ride on mower with a grass collector. Said mower was duly hired and then after 20 minutes of use the drive belt broke! Now I am working on plan E or plan F - I have lost count!! So today I went over the main front lawn a couple of times with my ride on mower (it has no grass box) and this has cut the hay into smaller pieces. Stage two is now to buy another ride on mower with a grass collector. I had been looking on Ebay for a good priced "out front" ride on mower with a cutting width of 2 - 3 metres. These are all about £5000 and difficult to ship over here. They are even more expensive to buy secondhand here - if you can find them. So I think with two smaller ride on mowers I will get a cutting width of 2 metres and actually for a much cheaper cost than the out front mower. Only downside is it will take two people instead 

of one to cut the grass. Not a major problem and now we have found a very nice used mower about 90 minutes away. The plan is to buy this on Monday. In the meantime the lawns are finally starting to look good again. The lake is really looking wonderful these days. Mark has now started to repoint the stone walls that Michelle has been preparing and they are starting to look really good too.