Well where to start with this blog, I guess the beginning. I drove the Jaguar back to the UK on Monday ready for it to go in for its MOT and then had a manic week getting the BMW fit for the drive down to Sigogne on Friday. I had to get new front brake discs and pads plus front shock absorbers from Kwik Fit as well as a service from BMW to keep the full BMW service history going. I also need 2 new tyres but they weren’t in stock so had to drive to France on the old ones which only just legal. I was also buying building materials to take back to Sigogne, but in the end I did not get as much as I wanted, the car was half empty. So on Friday morning I was up bright and early at 4:30am to head down to Dover to catch the ferry over to Calais then the drive down to Sigogne. I have to say the BMW, it’s a 1996 BMW 518 touring never put a foot wrong, easily keeping up with its younger counter parts, despite having a reputation for being under powered, obviously it does not go a fast as my Jaguar, but they both cruise at 130kph with no problems, the BMW just takes a little longer to get there.
So I arrived in Sigogne just in time to surprise Fleur and pick her up from school, so she was a happy bunny for a while until the excitement of having papa around and tiredness caught up with each other and then it was time to calm her down stories and sleep, just another Friday night at Au Bellefleur.
Franca was also a happy bunny because amongst the cargo brought from London was an Indian take away from Franca’s favourite Indian restaurant, it not only survived the journey but tasted great as the empty plates attested, and the good bit was there was enough left over for Saturday too.
During the week in London I did my good Samaritan turn and put up a new fluorescent light in a neighbours kitchen, and having almost no tools in London I was looking for the easiest and quickest way to put up the light without heavy duty tools. I chose to use metal screw in rawl plugs however I had not bargained on how tough 1930’s lathes were (I find they usually disintegrate on impact), and I pulled a muscle in my right shoulder forcing these plug in, even with a pilot hole, but in the end the light was installed and they were happy, I even got a tip of 2 cans of Old Speckled Hen mmmmm very nice they were too.
I am not sure if I have already mentioned this, apologies if I have, but having had the summer away from building work, not only has my girth expanded a notch on my belt but last weekend being the first weekend I had taken on any serious building work since July, my muscles were aching like nothing on earth, having cut and laid 12 sheets of 22mm flooring. Now this weekend I have the added disability of being unable to raise my left arm above my shoulder, things are not going entirely to script at the moment. So Saturday morning I tidied the garage, to get myself moving again, which also meant Fleur could help which she likes to do these days. Then it was time to start tackling the planning of the two new bathrooms I am working on. Planning is hard work because neither of us are very good at visualising the finished article from an empty space so a certain amount of building was done in the form of putting up the frame of a wall to give us the size of the room and putting a shower tray and toilet into the bathroom for scale which we just happened to have laying around, as you do. So the wall moved 3 times, and that was before Franca saw it, but luckily it was OK for her. The upstairs bathroom is not as big as I had imagined it to be so there is not really enough room for a bath so it is now going to be a luxury shower room upstairs and a proper bathroom for the room downstairs. Both have to be built together for the services like water and waste to be run correctly, though each will have its own hot water supply. Sunday was more of the same though to preserve my muscles so they are usable over the coming weeks I stopped at lunch time, much to Fleur’s delight.
The weather I hear you ask… it was absolutely fantastic, summer has finally arrived, well it feels like that, though by UK standards the summer was great, but looking at the grape harvest going on all around us most of the grapes were still quite small and very very bitter in taste…
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