Yes, believe it or not, Superman chose Sigogne as his chose vantage point for the Tour de France, he has a rather fetching hat which I can't remember seeing in any of his films.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Superman
Yes, believe it or not, Superman chose Sigogne as his chose vantage point for the Tour de France, he has a rather fetching hat which I can't remember seeing in any of his films.
Family Pietersen
Drinks and bouillabaise with the Pietersen family from NL. Caroline and Alfons and their 3 children, Caspar, Lotte and Pepijn. The sun came out at the end of the day, and we had a great evening after a day at le Tour de France.
New window
Specially from the UK, new glass for the window....ofcourse for bedroom 1!. Working together with Gerard.
'I love the sound of breaking glass'.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Le Tour and a marathon
It is Monday morning so it must be
This was the weekend that the Tour de France passed through Sigogne, so needless to say we had to be there at the roadside to cheer on the cyclists. The village put on a good show with the usual beer tents and barbecue in full swing for the whole day and the atmosphere was friendly. I must admit Le Tour is not the greatest spectator sport in the world, you see each cyclist whiz by your chosen vantage point in the blink of an eye, then you have to wait one and a half minutes to see the next one whiz by, and this went on all day as the 141 cyclists left in Le Tour all took their turn over the 55km time trial from Cognac to Angouleme. It was a showery day so some cyclists that caught a shower whilst on the course were at an obvious disadvantage, especially through Sigogne as there were two large drain covers right on the apex of a sharp corner which they had to slow down for. But all in all it was a good day. There were a surprising number of Dutch and German and even Australian people around and one Dutch family from Nieuwerkerk on holiday near Barbezieux Alfonse, Caroline and their three children came back to our house for an aperitif and toilet stop. As everyone arrived back, the sun came out, and so did the drinks, so they stayed a little longer, and we had a lovely end to the day, swapping stories and chatting, since everyone was enjoying themselves we got some bouillabaisse soup on the go because no one had really eaten all day, so that kept everyone going.
So you are all dying to know how it went with ‘ma petite voiture’, well it could not have gone better, more by luck than judgement I seem to have picked a very good little car, it is also a very fast car so it kept up with everything on the road, and passed quite a lot as well. I left South East London at 12:00 having visited Sainsburys to stock up on food, and finally arrived in Sigogne at 10:00pm local time (9:00am UK time), in all I was on the road for 10 hours, and I could not have done it much faster in my Jaguar.
Where does my sun burnt neck fit into all this, well Sunday was a work day, though most people in our household slept until around 11:00. One of the things I brought over in the car was 20 pieces of glass to replace all the old glass in the window in room 1. Little did I know what I had let us in for, we think that the old putty (if it was putty) had been there for so long it had almost turn into a rock, it was certainly rock hard and took hours to get off the 20 little frames in the two windows. The sun was not really shining indeed it was raining from time to time, with just the odd glimpse of the sun, but some how we got sun burnt, or wind burnt maybe. Having started work at
So who was the ‘we’ in the glazing marathon, Gerard who is a Dutch friend of a friend recently mailed us and asked if we needed any help on the house in exchange for some food and lodgings, this was too good an opportunity for us to let go, so Gerard arrived shortly before me on Friday evening for two weeks, so after a leisure day on Saturday to recover from the drive from Holland, ands to watch Le Tour we got stuck into the windows on Sunday, and it was just well Gerard was helping otherwise only one window would have been finished by 8:30, as we just managed one window each and we were not slacking.
Whilst I am sitting at the airport Gerard is getting ready to start the mammoth task of painting the outside of the house, which was to be my task for the three weeks of my August ‘holiday’. I shall still be doing some painting, after all Gerard is on holiday so I can't expect him to work everyday. Hopefully the roof will be finished so I will be tidying up the back of the house which to be honest looks awful at the moment, so we will be doing our bit to make the village look a little bit nicer.
It is now only 2 weeks to go until my August ‘holiday’, and next weekend we will get our first official Bed and Breakfast guests who are driving down from
A little foot note for Stellios at Easyjet, last weeks flight took off late but the chaps on the flight deck made up most of the time on the way back to Gatwick, only to loose it all again because we could not get off the plane for 10 mins because of tunnel congestion, (you can’t mix inbound and out bound passengers), in the end we had to be bus’d to the immigration hall. So nice try Easyjet, we almost had an on time journey. To be fair it looks like most of the problems stem from the fact that Gatwick airport appears to be struggling to cope with the throughput of flights it is currently handling.
This will be my last Easyjet flight for a while, I am on Ryanair next week because I booked the flights months ago when I did not know about the Easyjet service. After that I will be using the services of a cross channel provider as I will be driving down for my three week sojourn in Sigogne, but I have not booked anything yet so its going to be expensive. I don’t know if I will be flying Easyjet again this summer, because I don’t know when their trial summer service finishes.
Well I just saw the plane circling round so its on time or even early so that’s enough waffling from me for now, time to get in the Speedy Booking queue to get my front seat on the plane...
Friday, July 27, 2007
High Society- a new roof for our B&B
As you can see the guys are getting stuck in to the roof repairs, and because of the wierd weather we are having this year they are doing it in sections. This is the first section, with two Velux windows being installed on this section, for what we are calling the emergency bedroom, and what will probably be our summer bedroom when the B&B is in full swing. This is almost the end of week one so I think the 2 weeks to complete the job estimate is looking a tad on the optimistic side. So fr the weather has been on our side, but it will be interesting to see what happens when we reach the traditionally wet Monday (traditional for this summer).
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
The B&B is sort of open for business….
Another glorious weekend weather wise, thats 2 in a row, were getting spoilt, and another very wet drive to the airport this morning. It seems to be the current cycle that the first couple of days of each week are wet then the weather improves towards the weekend, and then breaks down on Sunday night or Monday morning.
This weekend we had more visitors, friends Jos and Marian, with Bart and Marco from The Netherlands, they were stopping off on their way to a holiday in the Pyrenees. They arrived on Friday evening about an hour before me, due to the fact that my flight was delayed for 2 hours, because I was supposed to be there before them.
Jean-Luc has installed a new door for room 1 which means we could be sort of be open for business but only on an adhoc basis because of the amount of building work still going on. We might be able to take a bit of overflow from our friendly neighbour who is already operating a B&B, but it is encouraging that we could now offer accommodation to someone if they asked.
Back to the weekend though, I had not planned too much work for this weekend, because its not very friendly with visitors staying to then spend the whole weekend working, but in the end it worked out very well because Jos helped me out by finishing off all the painting in the toilet and the bathroom whilst I did all sorts of little jobs in the bedroom, so in the end we got a lot done and the only major thing left to finish now is the windows, I have 20 pieces of glass to replace, which I shall bring from England because I have not seen a glass merchant in the area yet, I don’t even know what the French equivalent of a glass merchant is…
Fleur had a great time playing with Bart and Marco as they are all around the same age, Bart and Marco just enjoyed the space to run around in, and the adults were able to sit around and relax, chat and enjoy the weather, the food and the wine. It was a good test for us as well as it was the first time that we have had 2 guest rooms occupied, so we could make sure that we had enough of everything to cope, the only thing we were a bit short of was bathrooms, but that is going to take a while to sort out. Also we are starting to get used to having people walking around the house, this does take a bit of getting used to. We are tuned in to listen for Fleur’s footsteps at night when she needs to go to the toilet or get a drink, or just needs comforting, but of course with another family of 4 in the house there were a lot more footsteps during the night.
But, it was a pleasure to have them, and gives us an idea of the good side of running a B&B as everything went smoothly, as indeed it should for most of the time. Not everything went entirely smoothly, Fleur wanted a fire on Saturday night so Jos and I were busy chopping wood when my thumb collided rather dramatically with a hammer, and although my thumb is only bruised my body decided to go into a little bit of shock for half an hour or so, so I had to go and lay down for an hour before I felt normal again, but apart from a rather painful bruise no harm done and we still had our fire in the brazier (Austin, I finally remembered what it is called).
Sunday after Jos, Marion and family headed for the hills so to speak, I had a go at sculpting a small feature to tidy up the old doorway to room 1, which after 3 hours work did not look too bad, for a first attempt. Then Fleur pleaded to go to Hotel Karina, and to be honest she did not have to plead too much, so after phoning to check they were serving food to non guests we headed over to Nikki and Austin for what turned out to be a nice roast dinner.
So here I am back at the airport in the pouring rain and I am waiting for the Easyjet flight back to London Gatwick. Last week being the first day of the service there were only 30 passengers on the flight, however I can see that this week there are quite a few more, so there will be a bigger scramble for seats this week. Easyjet have not had a good track record so far, 2 flights and 2 delays, however since the weather is the main cause I shall persevere with them and see how it goes.
On Friday I shall be bringing the little Mazda down to Sigogne, so I shall be flying though the channel tunnel for a change, I hope the little car will make the trip without too much incident. If all goes well I’ll be arriving sometime between 9:00 and 10:00pm on Friday night, having left the office at 11:00 am, have no fear you will hear all about it in next weeks episode.
This weekend we had more visitors, friends Jos and Marian, with Bart and Marco from The Netherlands, they were stopping off on their way to a holiday in the Pyrenees. They arrived on Friday evening about an hour before me, due to the fact that my flight was delayed for 2 hours, because I was supposed to be there before them.
Jean-Luc has installed a new door for room 1 which means we could be sort of be open for business but only on an adhoc basis because of the amount of building work still going on. We might be able to take a bit of overflow from our friendly neighbour who is already operating a B&B, but it is encouraging that we could now offer accommodation to someone if they asked.
Back to the weekend though, I had not planned too much work for this weekend, because its not very friendly with visitors staying to then spend the whole weekend working, but in the end it worked out very well because Jos helped me out by finishing off all the painting in the toilet and the bathroom whilst I did all sorts of little jobs in the bedroom, so in the end we got a lot done and the only major thing left to finish now is the windows, I have 20 pieces of glass to replace, which I shall bring from England because I have not seen a glass merchant in the area yet, I don’t even know what the French equivalent of a glass merchant is…
Fleur had a great time playing with Bart and Marco as they are all around the same age, Bart and Marco just enjoyed the space to run around in, and the adults were able to sit around and relax, chat and enjoy the weather, the food and the wine. It was a good test for us as well as it was the first time that we have had 2 guest rooms occupied, so we could make sure that we had enough of everything to cope, the only thing we were a bit short of was bathrooms, but that is going to take a while to sort out. Also we are starting to get used to having people walking around the house, this does take a bit of getting used to. We are tuned in to listen for Fleur’s footsteps at night when she needs to go to the toilet or get a drink, or just needs comforting, but of course with another family of 4 in the house there were a lot more footsteps during the night.
But, it was a pleasure to have them, and gives us an idea of the good side of running a B&B as everything went smoothly, as indeed it should for most of the time. Not everything went entirely smoothly, Fleur wanted a fire on Saturday night so Jos and I were busy chopping wood when my thumb collided rather dramatically with a hammer, and although my thumb is only bruised my body decided to go into a little bit of shock for half an hour or so, so I had to go and lay down for an hour before I felt normal again, but apart from a rather painful bruise no harm done and we still had our fire in the brazier (Austin, I finally remembered what it is called).
Sunday after Jos, Marion and family headed for the hills so to speak, I had a go at sculpting a small feature to tidy up the old doorway to room 1, which after 3 hours work did not look too bad, for a first attempt. Then Fleur pleaded to go to Hotel Karina, and to be honest she did not have to plead too much, so after phoning to check they were serving food to non guests we headed over to Nikki and Austin for what turned out to be a nice roast dinner.
So here I am back at the airport in the pouring rain and I am waiting for the Easyjet flight back to London Gatwick. Last week being the first day of the service there were only 30 passengers on the flight, however I can see that this week there are quite a few more, so there will be a bigger scramble for seats this week. Easyjet have not had a good track record so far, 2 flights and 2 delays, however since the weather is the main cause I shall persevere with them and see how it goes.
On Friday I shall be bringing the little Mazda down to Sigogne, so I shall be flying though the channel tunnel for a change, I hope the little car will make the trip without too much incident. If all goes well I’ll be arriving sometime between 9:00 and 10:00pm on Friday night, having left the office at 11:00 am, have no fear you will hear all about it in next weeks episode.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Ma petite voiture
.
I hit another target this week, finally I have bought a car to drive to and from the airports in France. It’s a British registered left hand drive Mazda MX-3, its 15 years old but hopefully it will do the job for a year or so, and by March 2008 it will have paid for itself. It is currently in the garage undergoing a full service before I attempt the long drive to Sigogne, without air conditioning, but what do you expect for just over a £1000.00. The important thing is, it has a big engine so I should be able to overtake a few things en-route, so with no apologies to Hertz and Avis, next week is the last time I shall be hiring a car for a while, unless I have to do some strange airport combinations in the Autumn as the airlines change their timetables for the winter. This car was first registered in Alberta, Canada, so you could say it speaks french with a north American accent, although Alberta is not a French speaking area all the documentation is in French and English. So this little car has been around a bit, built in Asia, imported into Canada, then imported into the UK and now heading off for a spell in France.
I hit another target this week, finally I have bought a car to drive to and from the airports in France. It’s a British registered left hand drive Mazda MX-3, its 15 years old but hopefully it will do the job for a year or so, and by March 2008 it will have paid for itself. It is currently in the garage undergoing a full service before I attempt the long drive to Sigogne, without air conditioning, but what do you expect for just over a £1000.00. The important thing is, it has a big engine so I should be able to overtake a few things en-route, so with no apologies to Hertz and Avis, next week is the last time I shall be hiring a car for a while, unless I have to do some strange airport combinations in the Autumn as the airlines change their timetables for the winter. This car was first registered in Alberta, Canada, so you could say it speaks french with a north American accent, although Alberta is not a French speaking area all the documentation is in French and English. So this little car has been around a bit, built in Asia, imported into Canada, then imported into the UK and now heading off for a spell in France.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Prunes
Loads and loads of plums picked from our trees ready to be turned into jam (yes, Franca did it!).We even have 2 varieties of jam, normal plum jam and plum jam with Pineau ... one of the local drinks, the less famous cousin of Cognac.
Good for detoxing weekends too!
Horsepower 2
Yes, more horsepower, or is it girl power,
Fleur's first ride on a pony and I suspect it is not the last.
La Fete de la Sigogne et 14 Julliet
This weekend was a big festival weekend not only because it was the 14th July (Bastille Day, just in case your history is failing you), it was also the the weekend of the fete in Sigogne, and surprise surprise this was very good and a bit different to the usual fete that we visit around the area. This was called La Fete de Battage, a sort of harvest festival with demonstrations of old farming methods. To begin the day there was a tractor parade of some 30 machines of varying ages and most people driving them were in turn of the century clothing, the last century that is…
There was a special open air mass to bless the harvest from the land, in our case that was wheat, sunflowers, animals, some vegetables and of course grapes. Then in the afternoon there was a demonstration of farming the old fashioned way with horses pulling early mechanised harvesting equipment, old tractors pulling even older wooden carts laden with wheat. The carts would have been pulled by horses or bulls originally, but it was 35 degrees so the tractors did it. The wheat was then loaded by hand, or should I say pitch fork, into a threshing machine powered by a steam engine which delivered the power to the thresher via massive leather belts. The thresher separated the grains from the chaff, and bailed the left over hay and bagged the grain for the mill. We also had a baker on site baking bread in a very old portable steel plate oven, so the only thing missing from the whole process from field to table was the mill to grind the grain into flour. It was very interesting, especially for a machine geek like me, and it was more or less all done by the village folk of Sigogne and the surrounding area.
We told Fleur there will be ponies at the fete as well and after initially deciding she wanted to ride one on the way to the fete she announced that she had changed her mind and didn’t want to ride one after all. Well when we saw the ponies, which were from the local stables, amazingly enough Fleur changed her mind again and wanted to ride one. This is a first because up to now she has been afraid of horses, ponies and donkeys. So, another breakthrough for a little girl of four and a half… she liked it so much that she wanted another go, but sadly because of the heat the ponies had gone back to their stables, but we know their address so perhaps Fleur can go with Franca for some riding lessons, if she wants…
Saturday night was the celebration of the 14th of July and thanks to my travelling partners Sue and Chad on the Friday evening Ryanair commuter flight we were in Jarnac at 11:00pm to watch the firework display along with thousands and thousands of others, I had no idea so many people lived in the local area. The firework display was good though not on a par with the 5th of November Blackheath displays we have seen before, but then Jarnac’s budget was no doubt not on the same scale. That said it was a very good 15 minute display and Fleur is no longer afraid of fireworks, so she enjoyed herself and she was fast asleep in the car on the way back home. It was amusing to see the procession of cars heading back to Sigogne after the display, I don’t think I have seen so many cars on the road to Sigogne at the same time before.
The weather the whole weekend was fantastic both days were over 30 degrees the whole time, though true to form I am sitting at a wet La Rochelle airport this morning, no time to visit a store today as I am trying out the Easyjet flight to London Gatwick, which goes earlier than the Ryanair flight. It has got off to an inauspicious start as I could not use the web checkin facilites which meant getting to the airport extra early, hence no store visit, I can hear the disappointment, to check in the old fashioned way. I hope it works for the flight on Friday or I have a problem because I do not have time to get to Gatwick 2 hours before the flight, well Stellios lets see what happens…
There was a special open air mass to bless the harvest from the land, in our case that was wheat, sunflowers, animals, some vegetables and of course grapes. Then in the afternoon there was a demonstration of farming the old fashioned way with horses pulling early mechanised harvesting equipment, old tractors pulling even older wooden carts laden with wheat. The carts would have been pulled by horses or bulls originally, but it was 35 degrees so the tractors did it. The wheat was then loaded by hand, or should I say pitch fork, into a threshing machine powered by a steam engine which delivered the power to the thresher via massive leather belts. The thresher separated the grains from the chaff, and bailed the left over hay and bagged the grain for the mill. We also had a baker on site baking bread in a very old portable steel plate oven, so the only thing missing from the whole process from field to table was the mill to grind the grain into flour. It was very interesting, especially for a machine geek like me, and it was more or less all done by the village folk of Sigogne and the surrounding area.
We told Fleur there will be ponies at the fete as well and after initially deciding she wanted to ride one on the way to the fete she announced that she had changed her mind and didn’t want to ride one after all. Well when we saw the ponies, which were from the local stables, amazingly enough Fleur changed her mind again and wanted to ride one. This is a first because up to now she has been afraid of horses, ponies and donkeys. So, another breakthrough for a little girl of four and a half… she liked it so much that she wanted another go, but sadly because of the heat the ponies had gone back to their stables, but we know their address so perhaps Fleur can go with Franca for some riding lessons, if she wants…
Saturday night was the celebration of the 14th of July and thanks to my travelling partners Sue and Chad on the Friday evening Ryanair commuter flight we were in Jarnac at 11:00pm to watch the firework display along with thousands and thousands of others, I had no idea so many people lived in the local area. The firework display was good though not on a par with the 5th of November Blackheath displays we have seen before, but then Jarnac’s budget was no doubt not on the same scale. That said it was a very good 15 minute display and Fleur is no longer afraid of fireworks, so she enjoyed herself and she was fast asleep in the car on the way back home. It was amusing to see the procession of cars heading back to Sigogne after the display, I don’t think I have seen so many cars on the road to Sigogne at the same time before.
The weather the whole weekend was fantastic both days were over 30 degrees the whole time, though true to form I am sitting at a wet La Rochelle airport this morning, no time to visit a store today as I am trying out the Easyjet flight to London Gatwick, which goes earlier than the Ryanair flight. It has got off to an inauspicious start as I could not use the web checkin facilites which meant getting to the airport extra early, hence no store visit, I can hear the disappointment, to check in the old fashioned way. I hope it works for the flight on Friday or I have a problem because I do not have time to get to Gatwick 2 hours before the flight, well Stellios lets see what happens…
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Lightning nevers strikes twice - I beg to differ....
Well folks not in the same place so far, however on my way to my parents house in Southend where I stay whilst working in the UK, the train on which I was traveling had to make an emergency stop because a signal was stuck by lightning turning it red, so its been a couple of stormy days, luckily after everything was reset we were able to complete our journey through a spectacular thunderstorm. News from France is that half our street are still without internet connections and our neighbour and fellow B&B owner Jean-Luc went to petition the Marie and hopefully something will happen within 24 hours...
Monday, July 09, 2007
‘orror des orages or storm damage (I can't get the title in the normal place....)
We are temporarily without internet in Sigogne due to a heavy storm (orage) on Saturday night, which tripped all out all the electrical supplies to the house. I still do not know if we were hit directly by the lightening or the electrical supply pylon outside got hit. The flash of light lit up the whole area as if it was day, and crack of thunder was the loudest I have ever heard, then there was a little fizz that came just after which was apparently the result of a strike. At the time I did not realise that we had lost all the power and we went back to bed oblivious to the problem. I discovered it later in the morning when I went to make a cup of tea. Luckily Christian, our electrician, had just installed a new breaker to protect the incoming power to the house and that had tripped, however not before the computers, internet modem and the washing machine had all had their fuses blown. So I sat with my tea on Sunday morning replacing fuses in plugs and then trying to get things to work again. Most things are sorted out now but it looks like we have lost our newest monitor which refuses to come back to life, the Orange modem is looking decidedly unhappy and our printer is refusing to print, but we are all OK so that’s the main thing. We have never been hit by lightening before to be honest I don’t think we will ever know if it was the house or the pylon that got hit, but apparently its not that uncommon here, so I will be rushing out to buy some power filters for the computer equipment before anything else gets zapped!
Work wise I finished off installing the shower this weekend which took a lot longer than I thought, and I have learned a thing or two (as this is the first time I have installed a shower) along the way, which is just as well as there are 5 more to install!
I’m sure you have all been waiting to hear about this week’s store report, well it was only a flying visit to Castorama with nothing special to report except they appear to be cheaper than Leroy Merlin. I then had to wiz off to the airport to stand in the check in queue, no internet, no online check in. I also discovered that the flight time had been changed from 11:25 to 11:10, though that did not make any difference to the arrival time in the UK. I think the change of time caught quiet a few people out, but in the end it did not matter as the plane arrived late from the UK, so we took off at the normal time.
We are temporarily without internet in Sigogne due to a heavy storm (orage) on Saturday night, which tripped all out all the electrical supplies to the house. I still do not know if we were hit directly by the lightening or the electrical supply pylon outside got hit. The flash of light lit up the whole area as if it was day, and crack of thunder was the loudest I have ever heard, then there was a little fizz that came just after which was apparently the result of a strike. At the time I did not realise that we had lost all the power and we went back to bed oblivious to the problem. I discovered it later in the morning when I went to make a cup of tea. Luckily Christian, our electrician, had just installed a new breaker to protect the incoming power to the house and that had tripped, however not before the computers, internet modem and the washing machine had all had their fuses blown. So I sat with my tea on Sunday morning replacing fuses in plugs and then trying to get things to work again. Most things are sorted out now but it looks like we have lost our newest monitor which refuses to come back to life, the Orange modem is looking decidedly unhappy and our printer is refusing to print, but we are all OK so that’s the main thing. We have never been hit by lightening before to be honest I don’t think we will ever know if it was the house or the pylon that got hit, but apparently its not that uncommon here, so I will be rushing out to buy some power filters for the computer equipment before anything else gets zapped!
Work wise I finished off installing the shower this weekend which took a lot longer than I thought, and I have learned a thing or two (as this is the first time I have installed a shower) along the way, which is just as well as there are 5 more to install!
I’m sure you have all been waiting to hear about this week’s store report, well it was only a flying visit to Castorama with nothing special to report except they appear to be cheaper than Leroy Merlin. I then had to wiz off to the airport to stand in the check in queue, no internet, no online check in. I also discovered that the flight time had been changed from 11:25 to 11:10, though that did not make any difference to the arrival time in the UK. I think the change of time caught quiet a few people out, but in the end it did not matter as the plane arrived late from the UK, so we took off at the normal time.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Tour de inspection
This weekend sees the start of the Tour de France ironically in London, and even more ironically the competitors will cycle past Darren’s office in London and then 3 weeks later, after cycling through the Alps and Pyrenees they will cycle through Sigogne almost passing Au Bellefleur, on their way back up to Paris for the finish, sadly since the roof will be off the house we will not be able to run a special cycling weekend which was our idea, well maybe next time….
I think I'll stick to the plane or the train for getting from London to Sigogne, well there is good news regarding our builder Peter, he is out of hospital, though still going back for very regular checks. Peter is coming round to take a look at our handi work, sort of quality control, to see what we have been doing since he has been away, there is quite a difference from when he left so I hope he likes what he sees, you never know I might get a job on his team, but I'm not sure he will be paying London rates, and of course I can't take the credit for all the lovely woodwork, that's down to Jean-Luc.
I think I'll stick to the plane or the train for getting from London to Sigogne, well there is good news regarding our builder Peter, he is out of hospital, though still going back for very regular checks. Peter is coming round to take a look at our handi work, sort of quality control, to see what we have been doing since he has been away, there is quite a difference from when he left so I hope he likes what he sees, you never know I might get a job on his team, but I'm not sure he will be paying London rates, and of course I can't take the credit for all the lovely woodwork, that's down to Jean-Luc.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
The grand reveal...
It was a strange weekend this time, great weather on Saturday and dire weather on Sunday making us all feel rather lethargic.
Arriving on Friday evening I had the great reveal of the new wooden flooring and the new bed that arrived for Room 1 (we must come up with some decent room names), which both look fab-a-roony (as a certain Tweeny would say), well when you have small children strange words start cropping up in your vocabulary. Finally the first en-suite starts to look more like a bedroom and less like a building site. Jean -Luc our carpenter who laid the floor also had a second bite of the cherry, when he remade our built in cupboard doors and they now look fab-a..... and he put architrave around the doors and windows and in doing so knocked a few jobs off the snagging list for me. Merci Jean-Luc
On Saturday we went to Reinold and Karin for lunch and the weather was great, as was the food and the company. Fleur took her swimming things because Karin and Reinold have a pool but she only wanted to sit on the edge and splash with her feet, even though Reinold dived in to tempt her into the pool, but it did not work, I think she just wanted to play with the water. Karin made a really nice duck fillet with a great sauce, the trouble is she cannot re create it because it was one of those sauces where you put in a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
The news on Peter is that he is starting to walk again after his now 'confirmed' stroke, and he will be allowed home on Monday (today) to carry on recovering. I think Franca is going to pop along on Thursday to see how he is doing, and Fleur has made Peter a card, it was two days in the making so I hope he likes it.
I finished off all the undercoating of the wood work and started to install the shower, however I couldn’t find the waste fittings, and then I destroyed my tile drill trying to fix the shower tray to the new tiled floor, so I did not progress very far with the shower, I’ll try again next weekend.
Otherwise it was a bit of a nothing weekend and once again I am standing at La Rochelle airport in the rain, the weather so far this year has been very poor according to the locals, so we wait to see some improvement now we are in a new month.
Continuing my tour of big shops on the way to the airport to kill time, I stopped off this week at Leroy Merlin a DIY store to beat all DIY stores, again so huge that you could buy a whole house if you wanted to, no boats for sale this week though. I did discover the French word for putty, which is handy since I need some to fix our windows, oh by the way if you are interested its mastic vitier, not something you will need in every day French conversation, but you never know. I will be back at Leroy Merlin to buy a few things en route home on Friday, if Hertz can get their act together so I can get out of the airport quickly. Otherwise it will have to wait until I have bought my own airport car, its got to be a cheaper option, as I have already handed over more than £2000.00 in car hire fees this year. It may not be too long in coming as I have my eye on a couple of left hand drive cars in the UK. By the way next weeks store is Castorama, I bet you can hardly wait….
Arriving on Friday evening I had the great reveal of the new wooden flooring and the new bed that arrived for Room 1 (we must come up with some decent room names), which both look fab-a-roony (as a certain Tweeny would say), well when you have small children strange words start cropping up in your vocabulary. Finally the first en-suite starts to look more like a bedroom and less like a building site. Jean -Luc our carpenter who laid the floor also had a second bite of the cherry, when he remade our built in cupboard doors and they now look fab-a..... and he put architrave around the doors and windows and in doing so knocked a few jobs off the snagging list for me. Merci Jean-Luc
On Saturday we went to Reinold and Karin for lunch and the weather was great, as was the food and the company. Fleur took her swimming things because Karin and Reinold have a pool but she only wanted to sit on the edge and splash with her feet, even though Reinold dived in to tempt her into the pool, but it did not work, I think she just wanted to play with the water. Karin made a really nice duck fillet with a great sauce, the trouble is she cannot re create it because it was one of those sauces where you put in a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
The news on Peter is that he is starting to walk again after his now 'confirmed' stroke, and he will be allowed home on Monday (today) to carry on recovering. I think Franca is going to pop along on Thursday to see how he is doing, and Fleur has made Peter a card, it was two days in the making so I hope he likes it.
I finished off all the undercoating of the wood work and started to install the shower, however I couldn’t find the waste fittings, and then I destroyed my tile drill trying to fix the shower tray to the new tiled floor, so I did not progress very far with the shower, I’ll try again next weekend.
Otherwise it was a bit of a nothing weekend and once again I am standing at La Rochelle airport in the rain, the weather so far this year has been very poor according to the locals, so we wait to see some improvement now we are in a new month.
Continuing my tour of big shops on the way to the airport to kill time, I stopped off this week at Leroy Merlin a DIY store to beat all DIY stores, again so huge that you could buy a whole house if you wanted to, no boats for sale this week though. I did discover the French word for putty, which is handy since I need some to fix our windows, oh by the way if you are interested its mastic vitier, not something you will need in every day French conversation, but you never know. I will be back at Leroy Merlin to buy a few things en route home on Friday, if Hertz can get their act together so I can get out of the airport quickly. Otherwise it will have to wait until I have bought my own airport car, its got to be a cheaper option, as I have already handed over more than £2000.00 in car hire fees this year. It may not be too long in coming as I have my eye on a couple of left hand drive cars in the UK. By the way next weeks store is Castorama, I bet you can hardly wait….
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