Penhaven at play!

Reigny, Cher Province, FRANCE Well we've been here two weeks already! Really enjoying our time here. We've had a mixture of at home days, cycling, walking and driving to places of interest. Have visited two great gardens. Our favourite being a mediaeval inspired garden - Prieuré Notre-Dame d'Orsan. Got some great ideas for ways to organise vegetable gardens! They use traditional by hand methods and are aiming to be pesticide free. We also visited a beautiful mediaeval village Apremont-Sur-Allier and it's floral Park and castle. We enjoyed a 3 hour bike ride with our neighbour Corinne- no English but our phone app and gestures made it a very enjoyable ride around our area - gorgeous quite roads and farm scenery, small villages - which are usually just a cluster if 5-10 houses. Paul has had fun playing in the garden creating compost bins out of local bamboo and free pallets that I found locally. The house owners had given us a contact to buy pallets at a cost of 10 Euros

Where are we? We are living in the Cher Provence, in a small village called Reigny, which is 2 hours south of Paris - almost in the centre of France! Look for the blue dot on the maps! Touch on map to enlarge. We are living in a farmhouse built in 1795. In a small village with an unused church, small school (yet to learn if used now) and community hall, plus about 10 houses at the most and no English spoken and only half the houses lived in😆 No pub! The garden is permaculture style - so great learning for us, and produce to enjoy! The nearest small village is 5km away - Culan - for croissants and baguettes.😋 We can bike there, although it does have some up and down rolling hills, it's a lovely ride also! 

  Saint-Flour A small village with a population of 6,000, perched on a rocky overhang. This 1,000 year old town is nestled between Truyère gorges and the Mounts of Cantal and Margeride. We took a train here from Beziers - another scenic trip over mountain ranges, but the view of the village on arrival was the winner! We had to walk up there to our accommodation in the old quarters. Clermont-Ferrand We travelled to Clermont-Ferrand by train, nothing exciting.  Our time here was mainly spent organising a SIM card for the cell phone. It was easier to buy another card (another phone number to remember) than to top up the Vodafone card that we purchased in Portugal - I thought Vodafone would be good, but they're useless!! This caused/allowed us to once again walk around the place. Once again came across a great mural- look closely to see what is real and what is painted on! This one is much harder to decipher what is real and what is painted! Our accommodation here was entertaining! Had

 We really enjoyed Beziers. From the AirBnB owner meeting us at the train station with a big sign saying "Mary" (Marie) It was only a 15 minute walk but he was insistent he wished to pick us up! He spoke no English just French and Italian - but was a sweetie! Beziers has a population of 78,000  with 2600 years of history. It is located on the banks of the Orb River and the Canal du Midi, which is  240km long was constructed in the 17th century connecting the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. In Beziers you see a section with 9 locks, impressive! We walked our feet off! Visited another indoor market buying cheese and a baguette. Walked to the top of the cathedral for stunning views over the area. Enjoyed finding the numerous wall murals - so clever - the murals were on large flat parts of old buildings and the 3D effect made them look rea The murals were amazing - look closely at the photos. It was a cloudy day so I (Marie) have no shadow but see on the building there are shadow