I am back at Bordeaux airport for the first time since the Christmas and New Year break, I always drive down when I am staying a bit longer than a week, because the car is full of all those things that are cheaper in the UK such as paint and glass, and the odd Christmas present.
Christmas seemed to flash by, as does time in general, but it was a good if busy break. The weather is very wintery now so the first thing we bought when I got down to Sigogne was a wood burning stove to go initially in the ‘Bistro’ or dinning room. Once I had installed it I had to start chopping wood for the fire, luckily we have a ready supply of raw material at the moment, our old roof which is piled behind the house so we are working our way through the rather large pile, though not everything is suitable for the wood burner, the unsiutable stuff will be used to power bonfires to burn the garden waste built up over the summer before the fire ban comes in in March. Bonfires are not allowed between April and October, in case they spark forest fires...
Christmas itself was a quiet affair, if Christmas with an excited 5 year old can be described as quiet. We did not do the full French Christmas which would have entailed eating Christmas dinner after midnight mass, it was easier to do it on Christmas day itself ala UK tradition. We ate venison in place of turkey and very nice it was too, Fleur had lots of presents to open, in fact a few too many if the truth be told, but she enjoyed herself, though wether all the presents get played with I am not too sure, she has her favourites, Bingo, Kerplunk and all the drawing things she received, we will see what happens with the rest.
New Year was celebrated French style with and 8 course meal which we ate with our French friends Fabiola and Patrick with their son and Patrick's mother, as well as Franca’s mother. There are no fireworks to mark the passing into a new year, and no big count downs on the TV so it was left to ourselves to count in the new year give or take 5 minutes. Franca’s mum had brought sparklers from Holland, where the spend six million Euros on fireworks for new year, and so we went into the garden and let the children play with them, but otherwise it was very quiet outside. Despite loads of prep time, infact too much, we managed to mess up the main course by cooking the roast pork much too soon so by the time it reached the table it was over cooked, something to remember for next time. The problem was the meal was so relaxed it took much longer to get through each course than I though so I started cooking the pork much too early.
Over the festivities we had in the back of our minds that we had guests arriving on the 4th of January for the weekend, so we had a lot of work to do to finally get the rooms ready for them. Even Port Bonheur, the first room we finished needed a lot of cleaning & tidying because that has been our bedroom for three months, and the second room Nature had to be finished off. So we created a snagging list and off we went to work and apart from a few false starts getting hold of a door for Nature everything was ready by 2:00pm on the day of the guests arrival.
Whilst preparation work for the guests was going on we were also progressing with room 3 and because the 26th of December is a normal working day in France I had to paint the bathroom ceiling on Christmas day so that the plumber could install the shower on the 26th, but such is life in France, Christmas and even New Year are not as important as Bastille Day or the local Fete, which takes a bit of getting used to, but is a refreshing change.
We should be on the final week of room 3, though I suspect it may slip into next week before the builder is finished. We spent this weekend getting the new wooden floor unpacking it and stacking it in the room to acclimatise, and doing my least favourite job, cleaning the stone wall with bleach and a washing up brush. The finished result is great as the stones get their rich natural colour back which really gives the room an atmosphere, but I end up smelling of bleach for 3 days and very sore hands. The builder now has the job of tidying and pointing the wall, as well as laying the new floor and finishing off a few bits of plastering, before handing over to us for the final finishing touches, such as painting and dressing the room.
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