Spring in pictures

This weekend was grand. The welcoming we got when entering the garden was just ... wauw... 

The pictures speak for themselves really, all sorts of flowers planted with love by skilled hands (thank you Michou!)  

The fruit trees are all in blossom. The "Reine Claude" plum tree gets the prize for most beautiful, but the flowers on the peach trees were breathtaking as well. 

And Madame Paris told us that we have an abricot tree in our fruit garden. She was cheerful as always, I traded her a jar of homemade rhubarb jam for 12 fresh eggs. She chatted away about the upcoming Brocantes, I can't wait to go treasure hunting again...

Furthermore we celebrated Lili's 7th birthday, had a barbecue in the garden with the kids and Glenis.

On the downside Louis was in bed all weekend with a bad flu... high fever and everything that goes with it, poor baby. He's better now, but not 100 procent.

I cleaned the house nicely because next weekend we (Glenis actually) have foreign guests staying, I hope they'll enjoy the house as much as we do.

Daffodils under a bright April sun 

Emil and MadeleinePicking flowers

Cherry tree

Reine Claude

Peach tree

La grange with her vines

And the tree house is still there

Relaxing after mowing the lawn

 The Rhubarbs

 Very warm

 Play play play... non stop :)

 bumble bee

Happy Birthday Lili!!

Thierry en Champagne

This weekend our champagne castle is inhabited :) However not by ourselves.
Thierry much to our pleasure decided to take his boys down there for some family time...
Michel promised Julien 50 euros for each mole he would catch... imagine he would catch 10 :)
That doesn't lie within the expectations... we just wish them a great time.

O Yes Nature is waking up from her winter sleep...

Our garden is a wonderful place, and we are not the only ones of that opinion. Our friends Mr and Mrs Mole along with probably about 100 cousins seem to be loving it as much as we do. What to do... killing them all seems pretty cruel to me (even though we probably would if they would show themselves) 

We have yet to see one, clever little bastards. 

 It was a sheer delight to see how nature is awakening, beautiful white and purple flowers all over; looks very promising as far as garden work is concerned, cant't wait to dig in again... although I must admit that Michel is the one taking on most of the garden work so far, he did a few hours this weekend as well, testing his new branch shredder, it worked really well, and he managed to work a huge pile of branches.

The fields have changed from brown into delightful green, I love green, so fresh

 And the little artists as always changing the whole house into their own private atelier :) They had a good weekend, playing outside and relaxing. Even the children enjoy getting away from the rush of everyday life.

Weekend

Dear diary :)

This weekend we drove down to champagne Friday afternoon, left Reet around 4, arrived at the house at 8.20.

Temperatures so much better than last time, enjoyable for the kids on the trampoline and the other kid on the "sit-on" until it broke down, leaving Michel in a poor state... he just had it fixed. We will need to have it mended before the grass really starts growing in a few months. 

Madame Paris supplied us with fresh eggs, she is recovering slowly from her operation last month, hope that she will be back to her old self by spring, so she can walk Dora up and down the road and bring the pony its daily dose of vegetables :)

All in all a perfect weekend, pure relaxation, great company, had the perfect lunch with our good friends before hitting the road again. 

Winter O Yes!

The winter season provides beautiful views and freezing cold nights!

Thing to do: sit at the fireplace with a glass of red wine and dream of spring and the buzzing bees :)

A little something to remind us of warmer days :)

Although we have had some beautiful snowy weather over Christmas I can't help dreaming of warmer days in Oyes-en-Paradis. 
Autumn in Oyes was gorgeous, we had great weekends with friends. 
Judith, Arne, Daniel and Linda came down in September. Jos, Sas and Maxime came in November, and Gunnar and Sigga gave us the pleasure of their company also in November.
André and Nadine passed by on their way back to Belgium, it was exciting to hear about their coming trip to New Zealand. 

Here are some random pictures of Oyes to cheer us up :)