In case you’d not noticed, I enjoy writing. I find the intellectual challenge of finding new things to say about life at Les Terraces, and in Sainte-Foy-La-Grande in a manner that people will find interesting to be a satisfying one. It makes me think more about the region, what’s important about it, what draws us to it, its history and people. Whether I have managed to succeed in doing so is an entirely different matter. If the blog subscriptions are anything to go by I’ve failed dismally …. after 4 years of blogging we’ve only 6 subscribers and, as one of those is me to check that everything’s working properly, it means that there are only 5. That’s pretty pathetic and depressing, don’t you agree?
So, last night I shared my desolation with my friends on my personal facebook page. I awakened this morning feeling really embarrassed for having been so self-pitying and resolved to remove the post without further ado. However, I was delighted to find a very helpful response from one friend, while two others let me know that there were some technical difficulties with that element of the blog page – something I didn’t know.
It has taken me quite some time to resolve the problems, all down to my being ridiculously cheap and trying to be our in-house webmaster, as opposed to paying a pro for help, but I believe that I’ve finally done it.
So many thanks go to Giles, Mapi, Robyn and the rest of my friends for their help and support. Perhaps, now that the subscription services are fixed we’ll attract a few new readers. Maybe not. Should I add a subscriptions counter, or is that just an ego-booster? Please let me know what you think – we’d really appreciate your thoughts.
See you soon (I hope).
Alex.
Hi Alex,
I enjoy reading your blog and have done so for some time. We have recently moved from Beziers in the South to Bergerac. Your blog has been very helpful, fun to read, so please keep it up.
Best wishes,
Sandra
Dear Sandra –
Thank you very much indeed for your kind words and encouragement. We looked at houses in your area several years ago, but Les Terraces proved to be the house for us. We’ll be home in a couple of months … perhaps we could exchange stories and information face-to-face?
Best wishes
Alex
Hi Alex, We have enjoyed reading your updates and it gave us an insight into your part of the Dordogne. We have been looking to buy a house in the general region but preferably further east than Sainte-Foy-la-Grande. We’ve bought our house, further east than what we imagined in Carsac-Aillac. We’ve always read your blog with interest and found facinating the piece about the properties of chestnut wood and its ability to deter spiders, or was that a joke on unsuspecting Australians. Cheers Chris and Frank
Dear Frank,
The story of spiders and chestnut wood (conkers too) is no joke, and I really don’t think that Marc was pulling my leg either. I don’t know what the beams that make our house are made of, but it is very interesting that spiders don’t generally form their cobwebs on/from them. They prefer running their traps from painted surface to painted surface, for which I am most grateful, as the beams are buggers to clean!
Hope that you’re enjoying your region … I keep promising myself an out-of-season visit to Sarlat, as our drives through in en route home from Lascaux suggest that it is stunning, but very touristy.
Thank you for your support, and we’ll try to keep you interested in the blog.
Alex