Work begins on Bedrooms 4 & 5 and Bogdan is back

Talking of the new utility room ceiling, Bogdan our trusty builder is back at work for us. The plan was to get the rest of the roof finished off to make the house properly watertight before starting work on the next phase of bedrooms. This means we need a good weather window of around 5 days. Sadly so far this summer we have been hard pushed to make 3 days without rain. This means we are still waiting to get the roof done but as you can see from the picture, Bogdan has been busy stripping all the old walls and revealing fantastic woodwork and more lovely stone walls. He has managed to turn three small rooms into one enormous room which could almost be a small banqueting hall. He has also uncovered chimney breasts at either end of the ‘hall’ though, as everything has been removed downstairs, these will be strictly ornamental.

It has taken Bogdan 10 days of hard work to get everything stripped out and all the rubbish removed to the tip, and it was not the nicest job of work, but we are very pleased with the space we now have to work with. Now we have seen what the space looks like we have already changed our minds about a few things though the basic design remains the same. The idea is a nice large bedroom, basically covering two of the old rooms with a smaller room which has a joining door inside the big room. The smaller of the two rooms will be big enough to accommodate two single beds which will give us a family suite or, if the house were to change back from a B&B to a private house, we have a large master bedroom with dressing room and of course an en-suite luxury bathroom, which takes us nicely back to the utility room ceiling.

Above our old utility room is a small room that will become the bathroom to the family suite upstairs, however, we have to replace the floor joists of this room as the current ones are not strong enough to hold up a bathroom. So my race against time is to get the new utility room finished so that we can move everything out of the old utility room so that either I, or Bogdan, can replace the joists for the floor. Once that is done we can get Bogdan’s friend (I’m not sure if he is a friend or just a colleague) Frank to come and start work on the plumbing for the bathroom.

Watch this space for progress updates. I don't expect this phase to be finished much before October as it is such a big project, and we have to have a pause whilst the roof is replaced, I think you can see in one of the pictures the new wood of the part of the roof we had replaced last year, on the right, and to the left, the old wood that still needs to be replaced.

New utility room takes shape

Its been ages since I have had some free time to sit in front of the computer and type up a few words, however since this weekend I am not in France because I could not get a reasonably priced flight, I have some time to sit in front of the computer having just watched a disappointing Dutch display in the Euro 2008 championships, I guessed they peaked too soon.

When I have been in France I’ve been working hard on getting the new utility room ready for use. All the major infrastructure work is now complete and almost everything has been painted that needs painting. The floor is now finished and it has turned out pretty good considering it was my first effort at laying a floor, at least the lines are straight. I could have done better with the grouting which I rushed, but I will know that for next time, it almost takes longer to grout than to tile. So as you can see from the pictures we have bought some shelving to start putting things into the room. This weekend should have been plumbing weekend, but that will have to move next weekend. I have put in a large double door frame around all our boiler equipment and I just need to put the doors on, not a trivial task, but that will have to wait until the summer as the doors have to come from the UK as that is where the frame came from. It is strange but in France you cannot buy a separate frame and door, they always come as a set, and because I could not find a large double door set I brought one from the UK.

Once the plumbing is finished, hopefully next weekend, then we can move everything out of the old utility room ready for its ceiling to be removed.

1st Cherries from our tree

Not as many as last year, but that's normal we heard, but today we have picked our first ripe cherries. They are very juicy.

I heard it on the radio...

...that's a clue for a song....! Yes Franca here. This morning I heard a radio program, Dutch local radio station, where 4 members of the Guys 'n' Dolls were giving an interview. They are going to give a re-union concert in June in Amsterdam and we will go there! As you could call the studio, which I did, you could talk with them. Curious: then listen me talking to Julie, Dominic, Martine and Paul.

http://stream.rtvnh.nl/RadioArchief/2/200805191000.asf

stream nummer: 26:25

For the whole interview: it starts at: 06:49.

Enjoy!

Franca

Work in progress

Well here it is a picture of my work in progress, the new utility room at Au Bellefleur, my little project for our B&B and this one is all my own work, it looks pretty impressive on the photo, even though I say so my self, almost like a real builder has done some work. There is still a lot of rubbing down to get a good finish on the joints before the white paint can go on, so I shall be rubbing down and refilling all the white bits on Saturday, its the bit that Franca hates because the fine dust gets everywhere. Then may be on Sunday I can do some painting. Once the walls and ceiling are white I am going to tile the floor, which will be another first for me, I've tiled walls before but never floors, a little job for the bank holiday weekend.

Sunburn buiding the play house

Despite working inside most of this weekend I have still managed to get a touch of sunburn, building a play house for my daughter, at least starting to build it. It was handy because it is made of boarding that has to come out of our old scullery, so as they say, waste not, want not. As soon as the sides were up and my first attempt at a roof was on she was inside trying to play. Sunday was a lovely sunny day and amazingly warm hence an hour and half without my shirt on and I got burnt, and before you ask, no it was not the mid day sun; Saturday would have been just as good if the sun had managed to burn off the cloud, but it was still warm even without the sun.

Franca has had a break of a few days without guests, so she had a chance to get her breath back before the next ‘invasion’ which started last night. It is always good to be able to greet guests sitting outside in the sun with glass of something nice and chilled, looking as if we had been sat there all day, little do they know......

On the building front it was one of those weekends where you cannot really see much evidence for the amount of work done, it was a taping and jointing weekend which means filling the gaps between the plasterboards installed last weekend and blanking off the screw heads. We are getting closer to the point where we can paint everything white as a base coat, and then it will be time to lay the floor. I am still running behind schedule, as I was hoping to lay the floor over the late May bank holiday, which I can and probably still will do, but it would be good if all the messy work was finished first, which is highly unlikely to happen as next weekend is a short weekend for me as I switch from Bordeaux flights to La Rochelle flights for a couple of weeks, which means flying back to the UK on a Sunday evening instead of Monday morning.

So much to my daughters chagrin I will have to put in a full days work on Saturday to try and get as much rubbing down done as possible and may be some painting too, otherwise I will try to encourage Franca to pick up the roller during the week, but that depends how many guests we have,....... so much to do and so little time to do it.

I’m not sure if this is my final weekend using Bordeaux before the summer or not, the reason for the switch of airports is the cost of the bank holiday flights, but I hope to be able to use Bordeaux until I can find a Monday morning flight back to the UK via either Ryanair or Easyjet for the summer. The Bordeaux flights get very expensive in the summer months on BA. The tourist season has definitely kicked off in France now, there are a lot more foreign cars on the road, which is good for our business. Today is a holiday in France, infact May is a month of holidays for the French, they claim to keep religion in its own little ring fenced area, but if there is a chance of a religious holiday the French take it, and why not. So this weekend started on Thursday last week, and, although Friday was a normal working day, most French took the day off to make a nice long weekend which also includes today (Monday), which for obvious reasons in France has been branded a Red Day on the roads and public transport as all the French return home from their long weekend, not a day to be out and about after mid-day. On my drive to the airport this morning everything was very quiet but come mid-day it will be wall to wall traffic jams.

Busy change over weekend....

Another busy weekend has past, and this weekend was our first changeover weekend, one set of happy guests headed for northern France and another lot arrived from Holland. We successfully got everything thing ready for the two rooms they booked, plus an extra room for a one night stop over during the week, so we are properly full for the first time, or will be on Tuesday, at least the three rooms we have finished are full. So on the B&B front things are going well and we are allegedly fully booked next week as well.

The trouble with paying guests is that it plays havoc with the building work, so although it is vitally important that we get as many guests as possible it does slow down our potential to get more guests in. We have also discovered it is a bit of a juggling act to try to get the building work done and provide good quality food, at least in form of a 4 course meal. A few mishaps means if folks are paying for meals I will have to pay more attention to the food and even less to the building.

Cleaning and preparing the rooms took priority, and we also had to move ourselves downstairs to the ground floor bedroom since we are letting all three finished bedrooms. We are starting to get a bit quicker at sorting out the rooms, though Franca appears to have a much faster routine then me. She has got breakfast down to a tee, and I certainly have not at the moment.

The weather was glorious over the weekend and for the first time we were able to eat outside, it was shorts & tee shirts all weekend barring a little bit of rain on Sunday morning.

So the building work took a bit of a back seat though I did do some more work but I need to order some more bits before I can make much more progress. I also need to switch off the water, which is a bit difficult with guests in the house. So hopefully Franca will be able to order me the bits I need to carry on time permitting.

As the coming weekend is a UK bank holiday weekend I will be driving down with loads of stuff bought from B&Q, because the exchange rate is poor at the moment it is much cheaper to buy things in the UK, so the car will be full of floor tiles glue, tools, Franca’s birthday present and various other bits & pieces, to make the most of the trip. Hopefully my ‘new’ (13 year old) car will make it without a problem.

Busy birthday time

I’m playing catch up again, it has been a couple of weeks since I wrote anything, and quite a few things have happened along the way.

I am having to work for my living in both the UK and France, my UK job, which pays the bills for the French dream, is starting to get very busy as several projects I am working on are contriving to go live around the same time later this year. I am also racing against time to finished the new scullery at least enough so that we can move everything out of the old scullery so it can have its ceiling replaced, which is the floor of the bathroom for the final room up stairs. I was going to get the builders to finish the floor for me but the exchange rate between the £ and € is so bad at the moment we need to do all we can to save money on the build. Hence I am going to bring the tiles from the UK and then lay them myself, which is going to be a challenge because the room is quiet large and not very even. I am also going to have to turn my hand to French plumbing, I never realised there were so many different sized pipes in France, starting at 8mm or 10mm for sink taps and toilets, going incrementally up to 22mm for supply lines, each size has a specific job! I am starting to get to grips with French electric now so rewiring is not too much of a problem any more.

Whilst I’ve been busy doing all this Fleur has learnt to ride her bike on two wheels so now she is whizzing round the garden like the next Victoria Pendleton. Franca’s mother arrived about 10 days ago to celebrate Franca’s birthday, which we did at the Chateau restaurant in Cognac. The meal was lovely, and the dinning formal, which made it a bit difficult for Fleur who cannot sit still for 5 minutes let alone 3 hours. We enjoyed the meal, but it is definitely a special occasions restaurant, and next time we will leave Fleur with a baby sitter, I think Fleur will enjoy playing with a friend much more than us telling her to stop doing this & that every five mins. Franca got lots of presents from Fleur (well three) which she had chosen all by her self, that is the first time she has done that, thanks to a bit help from Franca’s mum, the presents were ‘just what she wanted’. It is a bit strange celebrating birthdays at the moment, it seems a bit unreal in the race to get the B&B finished.

In amongst all of this guests and bookings are appearing thick and fast at the moment, and we have our first wedding couple spending their wedding night in our B&B! since they are French it could prove an interesting weekend as they have a few traditions such as waking the happy couple in the middle of the night! We are busy now all the way until May, then we will have a small break whilst the rest of our roof is repaired, then its back to bookings again, so considering we have not done anything in the way of promotion things are going well. We are even getting in to the swing of cooking a 4 course meal without starting at 9:00 am, as long as all the prep work is done in advance, but hopefully that can be done sitting outside in the sun from now on.

The weather has not been that great over the last couple of weeks with loads of rain and not much in the way of sunny intervals, though when the sun does come out it gets warm very quickly now. The weather at least helps us get on with the indoor activities without looking out of the window longingly every five minutes.

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.

Notre rêve for 5 minutes of fame...

This is the article that has given us, well Franca mostly, our 5 minutes of fame.