Back at La Rochelle airport again, after a tiring weekend, but we managed to get almost everything done that we needed to. Jean Luc should be busy putting down the new wooden floor in the 1st bedroom as I write. This of course means that Peter and Jean-Luc were not in Sigogne on Friday doing the floor. Peter is still in hospital under going more tests, he is not a well man at the moment and we wish him all the best for a quick recovery, we miss you, and not just for the work you do for us.
Mean while back at the coal face Franca made a good start at getting the final base coats of paint on and I finished off all the top coats in the first en-suite so that Jean-Luc has a clear run at the flooring, so we are almost down to creating a snagging list and working our way through it. Peter was not completely finished when he was taken ill, so on the top of the list is finish off installing the shower. The new floor will be completed just in time for the arrival of the bed, which will be delivered and ‘installed’ tomorrow then it should start to look more like a bedroom and less like a building site.
Fleur’s school had a fete on Saturday afternoon and Franca volunteered to help, she got the job of looking after Fleur’s favourite game, catch the ducks, so with mother-in-law looking after Fleur at the Fete when Franca was busy it gave me time to press on with the decorating, so I got a lot done, it looks pretty good even though I say so my self. New pictures appearing soon…
A pallet appeared on the door step on Friday packed full of towels bedding tablecloths and other linen for the B&B from a good friend of Franca’s who works in the business. We should give Anja and the company she works for Blycolin in the Netherlands big thank you for putting this together for us, mind you I’m not entirely sure what we are going to do with 105 face flannels in a B&B that will max out at around 14 guests, we won’t run out in a hurry. Anyway thanks Anja (and Mich) for arranging this for us, we are very grateful.
This is Fleurs last full week of school before September, it seems strange that she has already managed to complete one term of school in France, so Franca has to steal herself for the summer holidays and keeping Fleur entertained until the 4th of September. Fleur is also going on her first school trip this week, something else Franca is going along to, I’m not sure if this in case the teachers do not understand Fleur, or Franca is a willing victim/pressed volunteer.
Christian and Martine, friends/colleagues of Peter, came over on Saturday to deliver the quote for the roof and explain what they are going to do, which basically entails taking the tiles off one by one checking if they ‘ring’ or not, those that ring can stay the rest are scrap being replaced by new ones. They also have to remove all the wood supporting the tiles and starting again. Despite Peter being laid up at the moment Christian thinks it will still only take 2 weeks but I think I am going to add a rather large fudge factor and it will take just over 3 weeks, weather permitting, so now I just have to find €15,000.00, any one want to by a 4 year old Jaguar S-Type..... That money was our swimming pool fund, so I am going to have to think of some creative ways to earn enough money to get a pool installed next year.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Time for a picture
Just to show you that progress at Au Bellefleur is happening, this is our 95% complete en-suite bathroom, I've just got to try and finish the ceiling this weekend, and Peter has to finish the shower and put the door on next week, he is laying the bedroom floor tomorrow, hopefully.
A tad optimistic
I believe that the headline on our website (aubellefleur.com) ‘Opening Late Summer 2007’ may be a tad optimistic now judging by the progress we have made so far. Here we are almost at the end of June and the 1st en-suite is only just approaching completion. We now have the spectre of the roof reinforcement programme which, although the builders say will only take two weeks, in reality I think it will take longer by the time it is really finished.
The big question is now will we be ready by Christmas, I fear not, taking a realistic view, but we should be ready for the spring of 2008. We are still waiting for the planning permission to be approved for the new Velux windows, so after a swift start we are being sucked into French way of getting things done, which as usual is not the quickest in the world, so I think the new headline will read 'Opening Early 2008'.
But hey… lets do things the French way, sit back have another glass of wine and enjoy the summer, well at least Franca can do it the French way, I have to carry on working in London (I guess thats the British way) to bring in the money until we can start trading. Will Mr Sarkozy make a difference or will he get sucked back into the French way of doing things, ask me this time next year and I might be able to tell you, and we might be running our B&B by then.
The big question is now will we be ready by Christmas, I fear not, taking a realistic view, but we should be ready for the spring of 2008. We are still waiting for the planning permission to be approved for the new Velux windows, so after a swift start we are being sucked into French way of getting things done, which as usual is not the quickest in the world, so I think the new headline will read 'Opening Early 2008'.
But hey… lets do things the French way, sit back have another glass of wine and enjoy the summer, well at least Franca can do it the French way, I have to carry on working in London (I guess thats the British way) to bring in the money until we can start trading. Will Mr Sarkozy make a difference or will he get sucked back into the French way of doing things, ask me this time next year and I might be able to tell you, and we might be running our B&B by then.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
A bit more play than work this weekend
Its time for my usual Monday morning blog update, it seems to come around faster and faster, and this time I’m sitting at La Rochelle airport, yes I remembered not to go to Bordeaux Airport this morning, I’m waiting for the Irish cattle truck to arrive, and just to get me in the mood for the UK its raining.
It was a strange weekend weather wise, we had arranged to make lunch for some other Dutch friends who live near by (near by being a relative term, as they are half an hour away from us) on Saturday and the tables were all set up outside for a nice al fresco lunch, then it started to rain so everything was moved inside, then just as Reinold and Karin arrived the sun came out and it quickly turned into a baking hot afternoon, so in the end lunch was al fresco but all the food was laid out in the dinning room, c’est la vie. On Sunday it poured with rain all day, Franca, Fleur and her mum, yes Franca’s mum is back with us for a couple of weeks, tried to go to the traditional brocante in one of the neighbouring villages but they arrived back home again quite quickly and they were soaked through.
On a totally different subject, we have been having an ongoing problem with our 1970’s bathroom, every time we have a bath or shower the scullery floor fills with water, and we could not find a leak anywhere. Over the last week it has got worse and now it seems that everything that goes down the waste pipe appears in the scullery. So it was time for super hero Builder Peter to investigate, we had not asked him before because we thought that by the end of June we would not need that bathroom any more, but it looks like it may have to remain in use until the end of the year. After a couple of hours of searching Peter said he had no choice but to start taking up the floor in the scullery. Luckily in the first hole he found the source of the problem. The pipe was broken and ‘someone’ had attempted to repair the pipe with a plastic bag! the bag had sunk into the pipe and blocked it. Peter has made a more effective temporary repair by gluing another pipe over the existing one, which should keep us going until the end of the year, but we are not going to fill the hole in just yet.
Saturday was a busy day, not only did Karin and Reinold come over for lunch , Fleur had a birthday party to go to at three o’clock given by one of her class mates from school whom Fleur says is her best friend in France. Fleur survived until 5:00pm without Franca being there, then we got the phone call that she wanted her mummy, not bad for a little girl that cannot speak French yet. We (Fleur and I) then went to the football field to watch the local 7 a side tournament, and it was good fun though the standard was not that high. Franca came to get us at 7:30 because we had been there without food or drink for nearly 3 hours, I am happy to report we did not need hospital treatment as a result :-)
As you may have guessed from all this leisure activity I did not do any work on the house on Saturday, which I paid for on Sunday. I had to do lots of filling and jointing of plaster board before I could start the painting, and the filler just would not dry. So I am now a weekend behind schedule. In theory the floor is being laid on Friday and the painting should have been completed, I will have to be very careful when painting from now on. Things are taking shape now though not as quickly as we would like, the new en-suite bathroom is almost finished, the storage cupboards in the bedroom are fully installed, and the new bed is arriving next Monday then I think we are just about finished, ready to move on to phase 1a, the roof which has jumped up the priority queue. Although I think the snagging work will take a two three days work from the builder and 2 or three weekends from me.
It was a strange weekend weather wise, we had arranged to make lunch for some other Dutch friends who live near by (near by being a relative term, as they are half an hour away from us) on Saturday and the tables were all set up outside for a nice al fresco lunch, then it started to rain so everything was moved inside, then just as Reinold and Karin arrived the sun came out and it quickly turned into a baking hot afternoon, so in the end lunch was al fresco but all the food was laid out in the dinning room, c’est la vie. On Sunday it poured with rain all day, Franca, Fleur and her mum, yes Franca’s mum is back with us for a couple of weeks, tried to go to the traditional brocante in one of the neighbouring villages but they arrived back home again quite quickly and they were soaked through.
On a totally different subject, we have been having an ongoing problem with our 1970’s bathroom, every time we have a bath or shower the scullery floor fills with water, and we could not find a leak anywhere. Over the last week it has got worse and now it seems that everything that goes down the waste pipe appears in the scullery. So it was time for super hero Builder Peter to investigate, we had not asked him before because we thought that by the end of June we would not need that bathroom any more, but it looks like it may have to remain in use until the end of the year. After a couple of hours of searching Peter said he had no choice but to start taking up the floor in the scullery. Luckily in the first hole he found the source of the problem. The pipe was broken and ‘someone’ had attempted to repair the pipe with a plastic bag! the bag had sunk into the pipe and blocked it. Peter has made a more effective temporary repair by gluing another pipe over the existing one, which should keep us going until the end of the year, but we are not going to fill the hole in just yet.
Saturday was a busy day, not only did Karin and Reinold come over for lunch , Fleur had a birthday party to go to at three o’clock given by one of her class mates from school whom Fleur says is her best friend in France. Fleur survived until 5:00pm without Franca being there, then we got the phone call that she wanted her mummy, not bad for a little girl that cannot speak French yet. We (Fleur and I) then went to the football field to watch the local 7 a side tournament, and it was good fun though the standard was not that high. Franca came to get us at 7:30 because we had been there without food or drink for nearly 3 hours, I am happy to report we did not need hospital treatment as a result :-)
As you may have guessed from all this leisure activity I did not do any work on the house on Saturday, which I paid for on Sunday. I had to do lots of filling and jointing of plaster board before I could start the painting, and the filler just would not dry. So I am now a weekend behind schedule. In theory the floor is being laid on Friday and the painting should have been completed, I will have to be very careful when painting from now on. Things are taking shape now though not as quickly as we would like, the new en-suite bathroom is almost finished, the storage cupboards in the bedroom are fully installed, and the new bed is arriving next Monday then I think we are just about finished, ready to move on to phase 1a, the roof which has jumped up the priority queue. Although I think the snagging work will take a two three days work from the builder and 2 or three weekends from me.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Just another weekend in Sigogne
Another Monday morning and I’m back at Bordeaux Airport waiting for the flight back to London. This is my last time via Bordeaux for a while as BA’s prices seem to rocket in the summer months, luckily Ryanair’s summer timetable kicks in this week and they have a Monday morning flight from La Rochelle, so it looks like I shall be joining the merry band of Stansted to La Rochelle commuters for the summer.
Well we had an interesting weekend, as we normally do, Joy and her son Hugo, who were neighbours of ours in London, came over for the weekend to check us out, and great fun it was too. Friday night Joy’s chauffeur and his friend along with Joy and Hugo all stayed for what we call our Friday night dinner, which generally consists of something easy to make and can be started and restarted depending who is hungry when, or when I (and other weekend guests) finally arrive. It’s a time for sitting round the table with a beer or a glass of wine and catching up on news from the past week and planning for the weekend ahead.
Planning for the weekend normally means what work I am going to do for the builder, and if we are going to fit in any visits to markets or other events in the area. This market visiting is, we are discovering, essential, as it is an integral part of the rural French network, at least in our area and is one of the main ways people meet. There is a fête, bricolage, or some other event almost every weekend, and, in the case of this weekend, it was a ‘fête nocturne’ in one of the neighbouring villages. For us, up to now, going to these events normally consists of arriving, coming across Peter our friendly builder, and then spending the rest of the event in a convenient alcoholic establishment. So, much as I enjoy Peter’s company, it was nice to find out that he was not coming until later and we could have a good look around the fête itself.
This weekend was the first very hot weekend of the year, the whole day had been over 30 degrees and strangely enough I was not feeling much like a beer or a glass of wine, but I certainly was not complaining about the weather, but I must say my cold iced tea tasted great! I was wondering why the village elders had decided to make this an evening event, but with 30 degrees plus during the day it suddenly makes perfect sense. This fête had all the usual things for the children including fairground merry-go-round, Fleur’s favourite game, catch the ducks, and a few others. There were a number of stalls we had seen before (you tend to meet same stall holders as well as the same customers at each fête) but there were a few we had not seen before which makes it a bit more interesting. We managed to pick up some decent Champagne for just over 13€, and some yummy pastries to eat some time later. They also had a restaurant tent, along with a handily placed stall selling red and white wine by the bottle for about 3€, the food was basic but nice, the point being, in this case, not gourmet style food, but being together as a community. Fleur and Hugo got to play on the merry-go-round and I think that Fleur has now got most of the prizes on offer at the catch the ducks game! Just after 9:00pm Fleur and Hugo were getting tired so it was time to head home to put them to bed, just as we were driving out of the village we got a call from Peter and Diane to say they had arrived, oh well we will just have to make up for lost drinking next time…. I’m sure it won’t be that long.
So a brief word about construction work this weekend, it was basically to finish off the ceiling in the master bedroom, which I must say, now it has had its undercoat looks pretty good, so well done Peter & Jean-Luc it is really good. Hopefully they were impressed with my finishing off, which consisted of rubbing down the jointing of the plaster board, filling any little holes and putting on the base coat of emulsion, this will then show up what needs to be filled next weekend before the top coat is applied. Peter thinks I should finish it with a paint that has some fine grit in it, to cover up the imperfections of the plasterbaord jointing, but I think, with a bit more work, we can use a standard matt or satin emulsion after the final filling and finishing of the joints in the plasterboard, I’ll reserve judgement until I check it again next weekend.
Sunday was more overcast than Saturday but it still reached 30 degrees so who’s complaining, not me. We decided to take Joy & Hugo to Jarnac to test the boat trip that runs from under the main bridge in the centre of town, which turned out to be a 1 hour gentle chug down to Bourg en Charente and back, with a live commentary from the captain of the boat, in French only, but that was a good test of my French. The trip was nice and relaxing but sadly as we were heading back to the car Fleur made one of here many bids for freedom and as Franca grabbed her to stop her running across a road Franca fell over and hurt her knee quiet badly, so she is going to test drive the local doctor later today, its nothing serious but its best to get it checked out, we can’t afford for her to be laid up with complications as a result of something so silly. In a way its good that we are not going to the doctor for the first time when Fleur has something wrong with her, at least we can find out now what the doctor is like and if we want to go somewhere else or not.
Well the flight has been called so it’s au revoir Bordeaux until after the summer, and hello to the Ryanair cattle trucks, it must be the modern equivalent of the charabang (sorry about the spelling), that’s the price we pay (or don’t) for living in France and working in London.
A little post script to the knee incident, the doctor thought Franca may have fractured her knee so it was off to the hospital in Cognac for more a extensive check up and X-rays, luckily it was not broken, but there was rather a lot of water on the knee which was making it uncomfortable for Franca. Luckily Joy was still around so she was able to drive Franca to the hospital and back again. The doctor also insisted on a tetanus injection, so she has to go back again today, plenty of rest for a few days and things should be on the mend, luckily Franca's mother arrives in a day or so which will be a big help. The good news is the doctor is great and the hospital was equally good, but lets hope we do not need them for quite a while though. I have not got our medical cover in place yet so we had to pay for everything despite having our E101 cards, so now I have to get on to the British Dept of Work and Pensions to get a E106 form to cover us whilst we are sorting out our proper cover in France. The joys of working in the UK and living in France.
Well we had an interesting weekend, as we normally do, Joy and her son Hugo, who were neighbours of ours in London, came over for the weekend to check us out, and great fun it was too. Friday night Joy’s chauffeur and his friend along with Joy and Hugo all stayed for what we call our Friday night dinner, which generally consists of something easy to make and can be started and restarted depending who is hungry when, or when I (and other weekend guests) finally arrive. It’s a time for sitting round the table with a beer or a glass of wine and catching up on news from the past week and planning for the weekend ahead.
Planning for the weekend normally means what work I am going to do for the builder, and if we are going to fit in any visits to markets or other events in the area. This market visiting is, we are discovering, essential, as it is an integral part of the rural French network, at least in our area and is one of the main ways people meet. There is a fête, bricolage, or some other event almost every weekend, and, in the case of this weekend, it was a ‘fête nocturne’ in one of the neighbouring villages. For us, up to now, going to these events normally consists of arriving, coming across Peter our friendly builder, and then spending the rest of the event in a convenient alcoholic establishment. So, much as I enjoy Peter’s company, it was nice to find out that he was not coming until later and we could have a good look around the fête itself.
This weekend was the first very hot weekend of the year, the whole day had been over 30 degrees and strangely enough I was not feeling much like a beer or a glass of wine, but I certainly was not complaining about the weather, but I must say my cold iced tea tasted great! I was wondering why the village elders had decided to make this an evening event, but with 30 degrees plus during the day it suddenly makes perfect sense. This fête had all the usual things for the children including fairground merry-go-round, Fleur’s favourite game, catch the ducks, and a few others. There were a number of stalls we had seen before (you tend to meet same stall holders as well as the same customers at each fête) but there were a few we had not seen before which makes it a bit more interesting. We managed to pick up some decent Champagne for just over 13€, and some yummy pastries to eat some time later. They also had a restaurant tent, along with a handily placed stall selling red and white wine by the bottle for about 3€, the food was basic but nice, the point being, in this case, not gourmet style food, but being together as a community. Fleur and Hugo got to play on the merry-go-round and I think that Fleur has now got most of the prizes on offer at the catch the ducks game! Just after 9:00pm Fleur and Hugo were getting tired so it was time to head home to put them to bed, just as we were driving out of the village we got a call from Peter and Diane to say they had arrived, oh well we will just have to make up for lost drinking next time…. I’m sure it won’t be that long.
So a brief word about construction work this weekend, it was basically to finish off the ceiling in the master bedroom, which I must say, now it has had its undercoat looks pretty good, so well done Peter & Jean-Luc it is really good. Hopefully they were impressed with my finishing off, which consisted of rubbing down the jointing of the plaster board, filling any little holes and putting on the base coat of emulsion, this will then show up what needs to be filled next weekend before the top coat is applied. Peter thinks I should finish it with a paint that has some fine grit in it, to cover up the imperfections of the plasterbaord jointing, but I think, with a bit more work, we can use a standard matt or satin emulsion after the final filling and finishing of the joints in the plasterboard, I’ll reserve judgement until I check it again next weekend.
Sunday was more overcast than Saturday but it still reached 30 degrees so who’s complaining, not me. We decided to take Joy & Hugo to Jarnac to test the boat trip that runs from under the main bridge in the centre of town, which turned out to be a 1 hour gentle chug down to Bourg en Charente and back, with a live commentary from the captain of the boat, in French only, but that was a good test of my French. The trip was nice and relaxing but sadly as we were heading back to the car Fleur made one of here many bids for freedom and as Franca grabbed her to stop her running across a road Franca fell over and hurt her knee quiet badly, so she is going to test drive the local doctor later today, its nothing serious but its best to get it checked out, we can’t afford for her to be laid up with complications as a result of something so silly. In a way its good that we are not going to the doctor for the first time when Fleur has something wrong with her, at least we can find out now what the doctor is like and if we want to go somewhere else or not.
Well the flight has been called so it’s au revoir Bordeaux until after the summer, and hello to the Ryanair cattle trucks, it must be the modern equivalent of the charabang (sorry about the spelling), that’s the price we pay (or don’t) for living in France and working in London.
A little post script to the knee incident, the doctor thought Franca may have fractured her knee so it was off to the hospital in Cognac for more a extensive check up and X-rays, luckily it was not broken, but there was rather a lot of water on the knee which was making it uncomfortable for Franca. Luckily Joy was still around so she was able to drive Franca to the hospital and back again. The doctor also insisted on a tetanus injection, so she has to go back again today, plenty of rest for a few days and things should be on the mend, luckily Franca's mother arrives in a day or so which will be a big help. The good news is the doctor is great and the hospital was equally good, but lets hope we do not need them for quite a while though. I have not got our medical cover in place yet so we had to pay for everything despite having our E101 cards, so now I have to get on to the British Dept of Work and Pensions to get a E106 form to cover us whilst we are sorting out our proper cover in France. The joys of working in the UK and living in France.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Fleur's new bed
Finally the day dawned when Fleur's new bed finally arrived to complete her new room! With her pink walls with fairies, she should sleep like a rose! This is her 4th bed in 4 years but hopefully this will last her a good few yearsMan at Work
During my recent 'week off' from paid work I was tasked with scrubbing the traditional stone wall my brother cleaned up a couple of weeks ago with a wire brush on an electric drill. It had to be scrubbed with a bleach mixture, so I now have some nice tie dyed style work clothing (very 1970's) and some very sore arms, oh and a pretty nice wall ready for repointing.
A wet week in the Charente
So another of my rare weeks resident in Sigogne has flown by and I am sitting at the airport again, (Poitiers this time) however, as you can see from the picture quite a bit of progress has been made to phase 1. The weather was awful but that has probably contributed to the amount of progress made this week. This might be the second sunniest region of France, but we do need some rain to make the grape vines grow, ands they are growing like crazy at the moment having had about 10 days of wet weather! Now its time for the sun to return, I hope.
This week my main aim was to freshen up the area that will become the guest lounge, which is code for de-browning it as all the decoration in the house is either brown or cream. I discovered that the skirting boards were only glued on so with a brisk tap of the hammer they all fell off, unfortunately leaving the glue on the wall, which meant 3 or 4 hours of removing the glue, but having done that though the walls look good and we do not really have to bother with skirting boards as the walls have a good finish all the way to the ground. So Saturday night we had a fire, or to be precise two, and burnt the lot, and just as well really as quite a few of them had woodworm in. So the guest lounge now has a nice Provençal blue wall and three white walls, just the chimney breast to plaster now Peter!
I was remarking to Mrs P as we were heading for the station in Angoulême that I have not seen many [French] people this week on account of working on the house the whole time. This was not very good for my fledgling French, but there is always next time. Why were we going to Angoulême? Well I had to catch the train to Poitiers and then taxi to the airport, to head back to Stansted on Sunday evening rather than my usual Monday morning trip back to the UK. For the regular reader, I did not do my usual car hire because it’s a waste of money to hire a car and have it sit in the drive all week. Poitiers is the nearest airport to Sigogne that has a railway station close to it, it costs about €7.00 or €8.00 for the journey in a taxi, or 30 minutes walk if you are my brother, then an €18.00 trip on the train to Angoulême, though if you do not get the TGV it takes an hour and a half, the TGV takes 45 mins, which for a longer stay is not too bad, not to be done for the usual weekend commute unless its an emergency.
Back to the building work, in the second half of the week I became the builders mate, and got a crash course in dry lining. What is dry lining I hear you cry, well its putting up a metal framework, insulating it and then attaching plasterboard, this then forms internal walls and ceilings, have a look at the photo and you should be able to see the framework exposed above the door (waiting for electrics) as well as lots of plasterboard ready for a plaster skim.
After a busy week of physical work I shall be heading for my desk in the office tomorrow morning to recover, having once again discovered and re-activated muscles I had forgotten about.
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