Easter part 2....

On Easter Sunday, our first ’free’ day we had to drive to Bordeaux to pick up the Mazda which was sitting patiently waiting for me to collect it as I needed to take it back to the UK for MOT testing servicing etc, so that effectively took the morning out and in the afternoon we set a bonfire going to burn more of the refuse we can’t take to the dechetterie (the tip). As the clocks have gone forward we have entered the period when you are not supposed to have bonfires, for fear of setting light to the local crops fauna and flora, and this ban remains in place until October, though some folk just seem to ignore it. However we will stick to the rules and have no more fires until autumn is here.

So that was the Easter break and having driven down in my 4 year old Jaguar S type I now had to drive back to the UK in my 15 year old Mazda MX3. As usual it did me proud and did not miss a beat. Infact it did better than that because, it in effect, it drove from Bordeaux to Newcastle and back to Southend without a hint of complaint, what a great little car. However the moment of reckoning will come soon, as it goes in for its MOT, anything over a £400.00 bill and I am afraid it is curtains for the little feller, though I cannot see why it would fail at the moment. My big question is what should I do with it next. We really need a big Volvo, small MPV or Land Rover for the next year whilst we finish off the house. I’m not sure it is worth keeping as a classic car to start my collection, though other MX-3 owners may disagree. The paint work is in a poor state, so needs a full re-spray, the front bumper needs replacing as parts are being held on with gaffer tape (and this car is a Canadian import so parts are not easy to come by) and the seats need fixing as well as a few things in the boot, all before it could be used as a classic hire car, so I think either way pass or fail my little MX-3 is for the chop. It’s a big shame but practicality wins over sentiment.

A rare weekend for me in Southend, as the fares this weekend were expensive due to the Easter holidays just starting in the UK, and the fact that I finished work on Friday afternoon in Nottingham which meant I could not get to an airport in time to fly out.

I am flying to Angouleme, sorry Cognac-Angouleme airport on Thursday evening, apparently Ryanair would not fly there unless they could give it the name of a well known place, the real name of the airport is actually Brie Champniers or at least that is what the road signs say. This is either the inaugural flight to our ‘local airport’ or one of the first, so its a bit of a short week this week, though I am working from home on Friday. Franca will come and pick me up as it is only 25 minutes from home, although it is quiet late, we land at 10:00pm I think, and I fly back to London-Stansted on Sunday evening from La Rochelle.

Easter part 1.....

Well Easter came and went so fast it was almost a case of I blinked and nearly missed it. The weather was not great, lots of rain and snow for just about every part of France except the Charente. So what did we get up to, it started with Franca completing her assignment with the American film crew which went well and earned her/us a few hundred Euros. Franca said she will put the money towards a heavy duty Iron and Ironing board. Well I did my best to divert some of that money and we went to dinner on Friday night at Hotel Karina, I forgot it was Friday night and it was full of Brits on their fish and chip night, but hey ho. I did not really enjoy it, but Franca did and so did Fleur, I really just wanted to eat and sleep, but that’s because I have been travelling so much lately, not very friendly, but I guess we all have those moments.

Because Franca was out working I was house husband on Friday and spent most of the day taking Fleur to and from school and doing a lot of cleaning, but at the end of the day you still really can’t see what you have been cleaning. Still one day there will be no more building work and we can get rid of the ever present layer of dust that seems to pervade every corner of the house not matter how many times you vacuum, sweep and mop.

On Easter Saturday Fabiola & Patrick were coming to dinner, with Fabiola’s mother from Guatemala, so we made our version of the beouf bourguignon, which we are slowly perfecting. We have found a great cut of meat which is not too expensive and a set of ingredients and a method that gives us an excellent dish in 6 hours, or if left over night and reheated is even better. It is not a true bourguignon, but it is getting good reviews. Once we have got the recipe nailed down maybe I’ll publish it here. So the evening was a great success with 4 languages at least being spoken through out the evening.

My main building task over the Easter break was to get as much of the new scullery walled and ceilinged if there is such a word, but I guess I was over ambitious in my expectations and I have not got that much done. One complete new wall out of 6 sections that need doing, and one half complete, though that was the trickiest bit so hopefully I should be able to get section 2 finished when I go back and maybe make a start on section 3. Half the ceiling is up but still needs to be finished though I am running out of plaster board, and with the weather the way it is at the moment I can’t get any more delivered because we can’t leave it outside. Another bridge to cross a bit later…

Its nearly Easter

A strange weekend it started with arriving to an empty house as Franca & Fleur had gone off to see some friends to arrange logistics for next week when Franca has to chaperone an American film crew around the Charente for 3 days. So Fleur will be dropped on Wednesday at 7:15 am with Fabiola and Patrick then Franca picks up the Americans at 8:00 for a full days filming.

So when I arrived I ate something, then got a call asking me to go to Fabiola & Patrick’s for something to eat!! It is always very nice and friendly there and into the bargain we may have found a reasonable house wine for Au Bellefleur made by Patrick’s cousin near Neuvicq, we will go and investigate in the near future.

On the work front I started to put up the ceiling in our new scullery, ceilings are always difficult, but luckily I did not have much insulation so I only managed 3 pieces of plasterboard before I ran out of insulation. I also tried to sort out some of the electrics in the scullery. I sorted out the lighting circuits though I still need to install another switch near the garage door to make it properly complete. I only blew the main switch once in the process, though I still don’t know why it blew. In the process of sorting out the electrics I discovered a problem with a number of cable joints which all needed to be remade, however I appear to have cut off two sockets in the living room in the process of fixing everything else. So I will have to finish that off when I get back next week. If Franca gets time amongst her chaperoning duties she will order the bits I need to carry on working, and if not it will be a gardening weekend amongst other things.

Next week is Easter so I am driving down to Sigogne with the Jaguar and it will stay in France for a few weeks whilst I take the Mazda back to the UK to see if it will pass another MOT without too much investment. Since it only cost me £1200.00 in thew first place if it is going to cost more that £500.00 to get through the MOT then it will not really be worth it. I had to put some oil in it last week, and that is the first thing I have done to it in nearly a year of ownership. Fingers crossed it will be fine but it will be nice to get my lights sorted and strangely enough I would like to get the cigarette lighter working again, then I can plug in my Sat Nav! I have 5 days in France over Easter for a much needed break from travelling.

The weather is back to what we would expect to be normal for the time of year, lots of wind and rain, though not too cold at the moment, but not as great as the unusually warm weather we got in February, the shorts and tee shirts are back in the cupboard for the moment.

Happy Easter everyone…..

this St Patricks Day - stay safe

An extra entry as I am sat at another airport waiting for a flight. This time I am waiting at Shannon airport in South West Ireland waiting to fly back to the UK. I have been working at my ‘during the week job’, the one that pays for the French building work. I have been visiting our Irish software supplier. This will be my 4^th flight this week, with Wednesday being the only day I have not been flying somewhere, such is the way of our modern life style, I must have a pretty big carbon footprint this week. I do have an offset this week, 4 trees have been delivered to Aubellefleur which will need planting out this weekend, thought I think something is going to have to make way for our mini orchard, otherwise our garden will be all trees and no open space.

It seems strange to me that here in south west Ireland the locals that live west of Limerick seems to talk with an American twang in their voice, not sure if that is the influence of Shannon airport, which is crawling with Americans arriving for St Patrick’s day weekend, or if this is where the original Irish American accent originated, my Irish history is pretty poor so I have no idea.

St Patrick’s day is of course a huge celebration in Ireland but what surprised me is the powerful messages being put out on the radio, that by Tuesday after the celebrations are over there are likely to be in the region of 20 people who will have died, mostly through drink driving related deaths over this one weekend, quite scary and the authorities are quite open about it, though it seems they are struggling to reduce it, so if your Irish stay safe this weekend, and enjoy…

It is strange that we British just cannot celebrate St Georges day in the same way as the other countries in the United Kingdom & Ireland do, and probably most other countries in the world, who have a national day. There seems to be something inherently bad about the English celebrating anything apart from the odd Jubilee.

Time to wander up to the gate and see if we are going to on one of Ryanair’s 90% of on time flights…

Back to work again...

With my cold now out of the way it was back to work this weekend, the first task was to make some sign boards to go on the wall outside, for our final bit of compliance with the local tourist board regulations, and to make it easier for our guests to find us. It took more effort to drill the holes in the gate post than to make the signs themselves. Getting electricity 60m up the garden from the house entailed joining three extension leads together ands then making sure the joints did not pull apart. But in the end we got the signs in place, so another step forward.

I have started again with building work and I have started to create the new laundry/scullery room by demolishing a wall to create one room from two existing old rooms at the back of the house joining onto the garage. We now have a nice large space to work with, and having fixed in place one of the two beams allegedly put in place by our builders to strengthen the floor of Nature we can continue with putting up the walls and the ceiling over the coming weeks. This has ended up as my project whilst the builders get on with the rest of the house. So far I have built a supporting wall, or rather finished off a supporting wall, put some dividing doors between the garage and the laundry room and made a small start on the walling. Over the coming weeks I have to insulate the ceiling and then plasterboard it over, put up the framework for the walls, insulate them and then install the plasterboard walls. I am considering if I will lay the tiled floor or if I should get the builders to do it for me. I will also have to sort out the water and electrics, which could also prove a challenge. In the end it will come down to seeing how far I get before the room is required, time being the oldest enemy here.

Our builder Bogdan (fine French name) came over this weekend to look again at the work we require doing in the next phase, and I still think he is only just starting to understand what we want in the next phase. The replacement of the roof is just the start, since we are going to create one room with an en-suite bathroom and annexe room from the existing from the existing 4 rooms. This entails the demolition of several internal walls, the replacement of the floor/ceiling joists over the kitchen and then the construction of new walls, a high ceiling following lines of the roof inside the house, a new bathroom and a new landing area on the first floor. This is just for starters, because have to make sure we can keep the money flowing to pay for it all. All this will start in May and hopefully be more or less complete by the end of July.

We have more guests this weekend, and we had a couple of problems with the menu as our butcher had run out of tournedos streaks, almost unheard of in France I would have thought, and the supermarket had also run out of lemons, another strange one but I guess it happens. Otherwise things went well and the guests seemed to like everything we served them and everything was convivial around the table. As soon as the Laundry room is working we will have to get the second dishwasher in, as one dishwasher cannot cope with the output from a 4 course meal!

What a waste of a weekend

I guess it had to come to an end, the run of fantastic sunny weekends is over, this weekend was cool and cloudy, and I spent almost all of it in bed fighting a cold. It came on during Friday morning in the office and by the time I got to Sigogne the fever had arrived and condemned me to a weekend in bed. So the weekend was not so great for anyone in our family. Fleur is not quite old enough understand what being ill means so she didn’t know why I didn’t want to play very much and kept falling asleep during the day.

Back to Bordeaux airport this morning, and amazingly there were none of the usual traffic jams on the way into Bordeaux so instead of arriving at my usual 9:00am I got here at 8:00am, so plenty of time to write my blog. I am going to be powered by Lemsip today, because as a freelance contractor, unless I am missing both my arms and legs, I turn up for work otherwise I don’t get paid, luckily the fever has gone and I am just left with the cold. March this year has the added pressure of being the month with Easter in it, so I will loose a week’s work to statutory holidays and a couple of extra days off so that I can stay in France for a week. Being as Easter is so early this year Fleur does not have school holidays around Easter apart from the bank holidays, her spring holiday is in April, so she will be at school whilst I am in France.

We appear to have picked up a couple of extra bookings this week which is always welcome, and we were checked out on Sunday night by the family of some French guests who are going to stay with us in July this year. This is going to present a challenge for us, the bookings we have mean that we now have a window of approximately 12 weeks to get the roof fixed and the major works to the 4^th room complete before we start accepting guests in July. We will talk with our builder either this coming weekend or the weekend after to see if it is possible and more importantly how much it is going to cost. The exchange rate is not doing us any favours at the moment, the pound is at it lowest level against the Euro for some years, meaning that we are getting on average 2000 less Euros for every £10000.00 than we were last year. £10000.00 used to equate to just under €15000.00 but now it is down to €13000.00, quite a big change.

Franca came up with the highlight of the weekend, she has got herself a job working for an American TV company that is making a programme similar to a place in the sun. The job is as a Production Assistant, but appears to be a local fix it person, but it is all good experience and since it pays real money we are not going to turn it down, though there appear to be some details that need to be worked out. It is all being done in conjunction with our Estate Agent Matthew who seems to be quite good at getting TV companies over to France to film in the Charente. I’m sure it will be good fun and it is handy that I am in France when they are over so I will act as child minder to Fleur whilst Franca goes to work! If we can get a bit of publicity in there for Au Bellefleur then that will be a nice bonus.