What's new
Keep up to date with news and pictures from Guebernez and the surrounding area with our regular blog. We also invite you to become our Facebook friend
View from new gite
February 21st 2012. Here's a photo of the view from the master bedroom of the new gite. More photos to come soon...
Smalltalk
January 29th 2012. Guebernez is featured in the latest issue of Smalltalk, a Yorkshire-based magazine for parents of babies, toddlers and young children. As a Mum, a travel journalist and a gite owner, I was asked to write about what to look out for when choosing a family-friendly holiday and to say why a gite holiday is the perfect choice.
Happy New Year
January 2nd 2012. Just before our New Year guests left to go back to the UK we got together for a group picture on the pool terrace. Happy New Year to all our past guests, and to all those who will be coming to Guebernez in 2012. We look forward to welcoming you.
Larmor Plage
January 2nd 2012. Warren took this photo of Freddie on Larmor Plage, just as the sun was setting. Thought it was worth sharing.
Merry Christmas
December 20th 2011. During a Christmas-themed party with some friends, we called in at the village bar and restaurant to say 'bonjour'. I'm the Elf with the blue hair and Warren is the reindeer in the middle. Merry Christmas to everyone who came to stay at Guebernez in 2011 and to all those of you who will be coming next year. We look forward to seeing you in 2012.
Movember
November 20th 2011. Our favourite bar, Aux Sabot Rouges, held a charity walk in aid of Movember, the month where men are encouraged to grow moustaches to raise awareness of prostate cancer. We all donned moustaches (girls too) and went for a wonderful 2-hour walk with a cider refreshment stop half way. The weather was perfect.
View from the lane
November 20th 2011. The maize has finally been cut and this is what Guebernez now looks like from the top of the lane. An artist friend of mine saw this photo on Facebook and has asked to paint it.
Restored fireplace
November 20th 2011. After days of painstaking work, our trusty builder has restored the beautiful fireplace to its former glory in the third gite.
The Times
November 14th 2011. Our gites were mentioned in a piece in the Times newspaper over the weekend. It was an article on 20 holidays you must book now, highlighting the high demand for family-friendly gites and ferry crossings in the peak summer season.
Autumn
November 6th 2011. Took this photo from the pool terrace. The warm early evening light really brings out the autumn colours.
Mushrooms
November 3rd 2011. On my way to the bakers this morning I spotted these beautiful mushrooms on the side of the road and just had to go back back later to get a picture.
Fireplace restoration
November 2nd 2011. Work continues on the renovation of our new gite and this week the construction team have been tackling the restoration of the fireplace. We're going to keep the old stone exposed to maintain its rustic charm.
Halloween Party at the Sabots Rouges
October 31st 2011. Our local bar, in Guemene sur Scorff, held a fantastic party on the night of Halloween. The bar was transformed into a spooky labyrinth with the help of dry ice and eerie decorations. Here's Monique handing out trick or treats to the little ones.
Happy Halloween
October 31st 2011. Warren made spicy pumpkin and squash soup, from our very own veg garden, then I made this. Happy Halloween!
Halloween Party
October 30th 2011. Our shady garden was the perfect spot for a little Halloween Party this weekend. Here is the fireplace decorated for the occasion.
The third gite
October 20th 2011. Work continues on the renovation. A team of builders have been digging up the floor and the roof is almost finished. Now all we need to do is think of a name for it. Any ideas?
The third gite
October 14th 2011. Work is well underway on the renovation of our third gite. Thanks to the sunshine, our roofer Patrick has been able to make speedy progress. More photos to follow soon....
Punch and Judy
August 20th 2011. A life-sized Punch and Judy show was performed at a Sunday fete by the local AIKB, which helps foreigners settle into France. Here are our friends Bob (Punch) and Carol (Joey the Clown).
Fancy dress
August 20th 2011. The fancy dress box at Guebernez has proved very popular. Here are Daisy, Maisie, Travis and Harry on the pool terrace. Daisy and Travis's Dad, Matt, did a great Youtube slide show of his stay with us. Thanks Matt.
Sunset
August 19th 2011. Sunset at Guebernez
Sabots Rouges
August 19th 2011. The fantastic band, Ave Kou San, were back at our local bar the Sabots Rouges in Guemene sur Scorff. As usual, they went down a storm (see the next picture).
Ave Kou San
August 19th 2011. They play 'groovy swing and ska' and always get everyone dancing. That's me in the middle!
Crabbing
August 16th 2011. We discovered a fantastic beach for crabbing at Le Pouldu Port. The rockpools were full of them.
Badminton
August 14th 2011. Friends came to stay and kindly bought us a badminton set for the gites. The kids love it. Thanks Diz and Sarah.
Salad
August 12th 2011. The vegetable patch is coming into its own and our guests have been enjoying their deliveries of chard, lettuce and courgettes. Here's a salad we prepared earlier...
Doelan
July 30th 2011. We discovered a fabulous restaurant at the lovely fishing village of Doelan. They often have live music on the terrace and the views are amazing. Definitely worth a visit.
Crocosmia
July 29th 2011. Thought these were worth a picture.
Petanque
July 27th 2011. The O'Donnell family came to stay and the kids loved playing petanque on our top lawn.
Barbecue weather
July 13th 2011. Thanks to the glorious warm evenings, we shared a fun barbecue with our guests this week, along with a Treasure Hunt and games for the children. It was a great success and, weather dependent, will hopefully become a regular event.
Tour de France
July 5th 2011. The Tour de France went through the nearby village of Silfiac and, despite the rain, hundreds of people turned out at a special event to cheer on the racers. Local farmers laid on a splendid feast of barbecued sausages, steak and chicken, along with local cheeses, crepes and cider, while a band of Breton musicians and dancers kept us entertained while we waited for the bikes to arrive.
Parc Aquanature
July 3rd 2011. We've discovered a nearby nature park which is definitely worth a visit. A 20-minute drive from here, Parc Aquanature is an 80-hectare park with 140 deer and other wildlife. You can either take a tour in a 4x4 or drive yourself around in a golf trolley and there's also a children's playground, cafe, freshwater aquarium and many walking trails.
Welly Wanging
June 28th 2011. It was another beautiful summer evening so we decided to hold a Welly Wanging competition at Guebernez. Our guests, all the way from Miami, had not tried the sport before, but Oliva, 12, was the clear winner. Well done Olivia. We might even make it a weekly event?
In bloom
June 23rd 2011. The hydrangeas are in full bloom.
Caribbean? No, it's Brittany
June 3rd 2011. When we put this photo on Facebook recently, lots of our friends thought we'd jetted off to the Caribbean. In fact, it was taken at the far end of the beach at the Lac de Guerledan, a 30-minute drive from Guebernez - our own little slice of paradise.
First dip in the pool
May 20th 2011. Thanks to weeks of constant sunshine and the new solar domes, we took our first dip in the pool earlier than we'd expected. I'd say the water temperature was more Atlantic than Mediterranean, but once you're in, it's lovely.
Fest Noz, Ploerdut
May 27th 2011. Hundreds of people turned up for a night of Breton music and dancing the Fest Noz in our village hall. It's a hugely popular event and this was the first time we had been able to go along. It was fabulous - the atmosphere, the hypnotic music, the high energy dancing. Even Warren joined in. We can't wait for the next one.
St Nicolas des Eaux
May 29th 2011. Now that the pool and decking is done and the gites are open for business, we've had a bit more time to explore the local area. We went on a bike ride along the Nantes-Brest Canal from St Nicolas des Eaux (30 mins away) and passed this amazing church, cut in to the rock. Apparently, you can cycle all the way from here to Pontivy or to Hennebont the other way.
Lilies
May 27th 2011. Warren (photographer and gardener) decided the alum lilies were worth a photo of their own!
Shady garden
May 27th 2011. Our shady garden has really come into its own in the last few weeks, especially with our arum lilies in full bloom.
New pool
May 17th 2011. The pool and decking is now complete. The solar domes are being fitted later this week so, weather permitting, we should be taking our first dip in the next few weeks. Roll on the summer...
Games room
May 17th 2011. Our new games room is now up and running, with table tennis, pool, and WII. Warren's Mum had the great idea of putting a parachute across the ceiling of the barn and it works really well. We have a family of swallows living above it and you can hear them chirping away.
Almost there
March 24th 2011. The pool is starting to take shape. Just one thing missing now...
Pool testing
March 23rd 2011. Warren and Rob, the pool man, test out the pool for size!
Babyboltholes.co.uk
March 17th 2011. La Grande, our 3-bed gite, is currently 'bolthole of the week' on babyboltholes.co.uk. The website features a collection of special places which are 'as stylish as they are baby and toddler friendly'. Tatler magazine described the collection as 'Baby-friendly holidays for the boutique hotel generation'.
Olive magazine
March 16th 2011. Guebernez has been featured in the April issue of Olive, the BBC's good food magazine. The feature 'Eat like a local, France' tells readers how to make Jamie Oliver's authentic French recipes at home and recommends Guebernez as a place to stay in Brittany (see the review, right). We're also being featured in the April issue of Living Abroad magazine, out in a week or so.
Pool progress
March 16th 2011. The concrete foundations have been laid and next week the pool installation starts. We've had some lovely warm weather in the last few days, so it's been easy to imagine summer evenings relaxing by the pool and watching the sun set.
The pool
March 11th 2011. Work has started on the pool development. We've had a team of builders here this week laying the cement foundations. As you can see, the views are going to be amazing. The pool itself arrived yesterday - all in bits. Now we just need to work out how to put it together!
The barn
March 9th 2011. Patrick, our roofer, has been busy working on the restoration of the old barn. He is making the roof water tight and removing most of the ivy to protect the structure. We don't know the exact history of the barn, but the Deputy Mayor and an official from the local planning office told us it was possibly once a chapel. Due to the size and quality of the stone, they said that whatever it was, it was certainly built by someone with money.
Spring has arrived
March 8th 2011. We've had some glorious weather over the last week or so - blue skies and sunshine every day. The spring flowers have well and truly arrived. Not long till summer.
Living Abroad
February 28th 2011. We had a mini photo shoot here at the weekend. We're being featured in an article in the April issue of Living Abroad magazine and they asked for some recent photos of us around the house. I love this particular photo so we're now using it on the Overview section of this website.