Beaulieu

By train:

For St Prix, aim for Lapalisse. There are no more trains to Lapalisse. So if you're coming by train, you'll have to arrive at Vichy, St Germain des fossés or Roanne station. I'll come and pick you up.

By car:

St Prix is on the old route of the N7; just before Lapalisse if you're coming from Roanne, just after if you're coming from Moulins; with your back to the church porch, turn right, cross the road and go up towards Beaulieu. Meander uphill for 2 kms. The house is on your right, after the school bus stop.

In a former horticultural farm, vegetable garden, orchard, chicken coop, tunnel for vegetable seedlings for friends and family, workshop to create ... Plenty of room!

A project to restore the bread oven ....

2 spare rooms, shared sanitary facilities.

The energy

Heating is by wood. The wood comes from pruning or felling carried out by former landscape gardening colleagues.

Hot water is produced by an "intelligent" water heater.

In winter, I cook on the stove, which is equipped with an oven.

In summer, alas, I use gas.

The water

Water from the Beaulieu spring comes in through the mains. The henhouse is fed by rainwater. The garden is fed by a well.

The house is partly insulated with rockwool cladding. The double-glazed windows are recent.

Waste management

Organic waste is recycled via compost or even directly by the chickens. In winter, I even cook the peelings for them, since it doesn't cost anything. Recyclable plastic and paper waste is put in the yellow bin, which is collected every three weeks . I often rework wood waste, to reuse it or burn it in the stove . Incinerables are collected every week. I often take advantage of young people's visits to the waste-disposal center to teach them about selective sorting.

In a quiet hamlet 3 km from Lapalisse, 30 from Vichy, 40 from Roanne. The Bourbonnais bocage, with its beef cows. A little further afield, the Bourbonnais mountains and forests, full of mushrooms in autumn.

Lapalisse alone offers many attractions: its market, where there are many producers, its media library, which offers activities and many readings and films for young and old alike, its swimming pool, in which some have learned to swim ....