Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Timeline: mid Avril 2014: Spring has sprung in the village and as thoughts turn to the warmer days and evenings, we have a really good reason of a birthday to help exploit the good seasonal weather and spend as much time as possible outdoors. By happy coincidence, a few people are dropping by, some of them aware that I’m determined to forget any alleged significant age as soon as possible and just share some fun, frivolity and happiness.

First to arrive were Brian and Phil, en route to the south of France, Phil, after just an overnight stop, but Brian staying to fix my VW pick up truck. The cunning plan was to do most of the work before joining Phil in the south to fix more cars and a power boat, returning here a few days later, eat some cake, then take the truck back to the UK and sell it.

Popping in for lunch

The truck was duly fixed, despite some futile resistance to remain in France and we even had time to take a day off and visit a couple of airfields and the wonderful Angers aircraft museum, as Brian is a born again pilot and plans to visit again with his plane. We observed this privately owned jet fighter land at a tiny air strip near Saumur, taxi in, the pilot hop out to attend to this very exclusive big boy’s toy, while his co-pilot carefully stepping out of the cockpit in matching navy blue flight suit and high heeled boots, brush her hair and set off hand in hand for lunch. Now that really was French chic and with no shabbiness in sight! 

The bride arrived and inspected the hundred potted garden plants which turned up just days previously, with a load of furniture and belongings from the UK followed on Saturday by Carolyn and Martin with the precious cargo of the birthday cake and then my chums Colin and Nicky gurgled up in their TR6 on their way back from their holiday home in the Dordogne. We were also joined for the weekend by locals Kev, Rae, their small people, Paul, Sarah, Dan, Glynn and Leslie and enjoyed the first barbeque of the summer.

One of Colin's many cars and it's for sale

Bernie, Pearl, Martin and Vicky completed the party animals a few days later from Normandie and we settled into a few relaxed and happy sunny days of easy conviviality with an abundance of music and laughter and some of the local produce of the many vignerons.

Vicky thinking something delicious

 

Three gunslingers recently arrived in town

College friends

Breaking bread

BBQ

Cheers m'dears

We Taureans are know to ‘enjoy a selection of cakes for tea’ and amazingly most people had baked cakes, as well as the bride organising a rather racy birthday cake with a pair of my cars on it! We therefore had a splendid selection of home crafted cakes arrive in both quality and quantity which were a perfect accompaniment to the many gallons of tea and bottles of fizz we dispatched. Caketastic! I finally finished the last piece a week after everyone had departed to their various homes.

We all had a fabulous few days and I am truly warmed by the depth of friendship which sustains us through this wonderful journey.

Coming soon: is he kitchen almost finished? Will we ever have a staircase, oh and the magic of fire!!!

A bientôt,

LC

''Beep''

''Beep''

I lied about the trains, sorry!

The Boys Done Good !

Timeline: 6 Avril 2014: Almost fully recovered from the fall, I'm now working on three fronts, proving that blokes really can multi-task, as we re-lay the barn drain following too many large delivery lorries giving it a dip in the middle, continue fitting the barn kitchen and putting new external lime render on the Maison du Vigneron, which is already looking splendid only four days from starting to put scaffold up.

Getting back last night from a trip to my UK dentist, it was a joy to find the building devoid of the old and wearing the new base coat of lime render, with the site utility suite now wearing a finished top coat of render and a smiley face is watching over the courtyard!

I strongly suspect that the new render, which will eventually extend down the length of the outbuilding’s tired lower stonework, will quickly make the rest of the un-restored buildings look even shabbier, but hopefully retain some chic as well!

Yep, drains up again!

I’d made a reservation to hire a mini digger, as even the thought of exposing a short length of buried drain by hand mad my back ache. Unfortunately, the digger’s trailer had an agricultural pin and eye hitch which our tow vehicle couldn’t handle and so the next weekend saw me wielding pick axe and shovel and with Dan’s strong back joining in the next week, we found and fixed the problem the and now plan putting in some flower beds over the drain to keep traffic off and break up the sea of gravel.  

Never ending Ikea boxes

Meanwhile, the barn kitchen was neatly stacked out with over a hundred Ikea boxes. I’ve quickly became impressed with the pictorial instructions and the quality of the Swedish designed product and many kitchen units and a week later, I still had over a hundred Ikea boxes!

Progress is good though, we just designed ourselves a large kitchen!

I’m hoping for the VW truck to be fixed soon, so will have the opportunity to restore the old ‘hanger’, or open sided barn for dedicated gite guest parking.

More soon, a bientôt,

LC

Is It A Bird, Is It A Plane . . . No?

Timeline: 12 February 2014: There's never a good time to fall off a ladder, so if you absolutely must, best let the time choose you and so the ladder chucked me off last Thursday morning and I landed two and a half metres below on my arse, then spent most of the rest of the day in Saumur hospital. Thankfully nothing was broken, but I've a huge bruised lump on my padded landing area and fortunately only one broken ceramic floor tile! Yes, the floor tiles have been laid!

As I lay on the floor, feeling more hopeless than helpless with my right ankle locked in the rungs of an ancient and very heavy ladder, in shock and failing to understand what had just happened, I do recall saying something remarkably stupid like, ‘No, I don’t need you to call an ambulance, I’m just winded’ and then faster than I thought possible, an emergency ‘first responder’ arrived, as his full time job had placed him right outside our gates emptying the contents of the bin into the refuse truck, his part time job being a fireman with paramedic training. The ride to hospital was frustrating not so much from discomfort of uneven road surfaces playing percussion with my back, but by the ambulance crew not allowing me to doze! By the time my hospital processing begun however, I was pretty much zoned out with pain and shock to appreciate three women taking all my clothes off! Two hours and six X-rays later, the doctor broke the news that no bones were broken, but I’d have to stay off work for four days and even gave me a medical certificate (I must give it to the bride) and a prescription for some rather effective pain relief.

So, back at the barn, the kitchen has progressed rapidly and is looking good. All the tiles laid, I set about finding a complimentary coloured grout. Realising I’d need to do some test pieces under the kitchen units, I set off to buy small bags of likely candidates for kitchens with large format tiles. The colour choice was staggering: black, white, grey, chocolate brown and the ivory we realised was the only sensible choice. Against the nobbly cream tiles, however, the grout looked bright yellow, but it needed to dry out and would lighten in colour. Two days later showed no change, hmm, not sure about this. The next day wasn’t much better, but after another two days I went out and got enough to do the whole kitchen, as it the colour match is just right. Note to self: wide tile gaps filled 10mm deep with wet grout takes a full 5 days to fully dry out!  

The under floor heating incidentally, is working wonderfully and I’m looking forward to padding downstairs in my bare feet next winter and enjoying a big slice of the day in the kitchen.

Meanwhile upstairs, half of the chestnut strip parquet floor has been laid and I’m looking to complete the remainder when I return from my rest trip to the UK next week, so for now its au revoir et a bientôt from me,

LC

Happy New Year

Timeline: Christmas Eve 2013, Hampshire, England: The man flu I got when last in the UK in November, returned the day after I got back and I was in bed feeling only as bad as sick men can, when the door bell got me up to croak a greeting to Sylvia from next door, who was asking if we also had problems with our drains. Just what I need thought I, but rather than wait for the bride to get back, I realised that she wouldn’t really be thrilled with the prospect of looking into manholes, so at death’s door and sporting a dressing gown and slippers, I was lifting manhole covers on the rear terrace on a dark drizzly evening with a torch clenched between my teeth to confirm that, blissfully unaware ten minutes before, we had a drain problem!

Now the only person I was actually looking forward to seeing more than Santa that evening was the ‘Drain Doctor’, but his first words brought no cheer to myself, the bride, or our two sets of neighbours. ‘You didn’t say you was on a shared sewer’ said the doc, ‘Yes I did’ said Dave, ‘I told your office it was shared with three houses when I called you out’ he confirmed. ‘Well we don’t do shared sewers, so you should’ve called the Water Board’ replied the doc. ‘This is getting silly’ someone said, ’so why don’t you just give it a try and we’ll get you a cuppa’ A clever ploy to which he replied, ‘Have you got any mince pies?’ We had him and the bride made the tea and gave the doc some of my mince pies! Fortunately the great big squelchy noisy whirly sucky thing on wheels did the trick and we could all uncross our legs and enjoy Christmas with not having to go the pub to use the toilet.

It was very cold and frosty every single morning with rain most of the time, but I revelled in the company of the bride and our pussy cats and we enjoyed seeing a number of really good friends.

Timeline: January 2014, Le Clos de la Rose, France: By contrast, the Loire valley and our lovely village is blessed with no frost, little rain, some sun, blue skies and a high of 22 deg in the sun outside the door today, as Koko the plaster’s dog sunbathes on the doormat.

This first week of work has everyone fully energised after the holiday and we’ve made a great start to the year. The electrician completed all first fix items between Christmas and the New Year, so started on the upstairs second fix and has all light fittings and the two ceiling fans in the living room and library fitted. We still need to buy the bathroom lights and all switches, sockets, etc. The bathroom is practically complete with just the heated towel rail and bath panel cladding to finish. 

Meanwhile the plasterboard between the ceiling beams is complete and the plastering has begun with the back kitchen wall and the first ceiling panels completed in a single day.

Timeline: 20 January 2014: Today was as busy as usual, but was notable for being one of those days where things looked to advance remarkably. I spent two days last week scraping and rubbing at the stone walls getting ready for pointing, which was all wrapped up today with sections of internal lime rendering and careful, yet efficient work by Kev and Dan had us all smiling as we swept up and realised that the room was now looking rather splendid. 

Finishing touches

I’ll clear the room tomorrow, after a little final plastering, as the tiller is coming the next day to start the floor. I’m also looking forward to a local artisan coming to carefully take site dimensions before starting to make the staircases and balustrades in spider resisting chestnut, which should be ready to install in March.

A bientôt,

LC

IKEA Bad Timing

Timeline, December 2013: I had set myself the task of getting to grips with three important elements on the barn before returning to spend our last Christmas in the UK. The plan was to have the kitchen, installation of wood burning stove and the staircases on order, but France was in no hurry to rush into these things. The kitchen had been progressing through our in-house design processes, while the wood burning stove company decided they simply didn’t want to come out and play, even after we visited their offices to arrange a site visit. This left a minor success in having received two indicative prices and drawings for the staircases, so there was at least hope of getting one, or possible two out of three targets into play. 

After much looking at websites, brochures, showrooms and other peoples kitchens, we finally decided on IKEA for ours and after using their rather nifty internet design tool, followed by much discussion and revision, the bride et moi finally sat down together with a laptop just before Christmas to order our kitchen on-line.

Calling up the website, we were met with the proud announcement that IKEA were pleased to announce their first all new kitchen design for decades, together with the discontinuation of the kitchen we were just about to order. Customers are still able to buy the discontinued line and still have the benefit of the 25 year warranty. Yeah right, so what happens if we want to change something round in a year or two? Or how about actually getting every piece of a new kitchen from a discontinued range where the units will be in the winter sale to get rid of them! Hmmm and to cap it all, the new range is not compatible with the old one and cannot even be seen on the web until February and even later in store. Brilliant! All that time wasted and a delay in being able to poach some eggs. Cheers IKEA, the new one better be exceedingly fab and groovy and have the same feel and finish we were after!

Actually, I found the new Metod range brochure on-line on IKEA’s Egyptian website and while still short on detail, there is still hope, so, we’re looking forward to the new IKEA kitchen range launch over here and getting stuck back in.

A bientôt,

LC

Technology du Vin

Timeline: Saturday 3 November 2013: La maman de Marcel passed from this life a couple of months ago and my friend, saddened enough by this event, has been sifting through the lifetime of memories and emotions in the household, as he and his wife make preparations to sell the old house and move on with life to the more happy times ahead.

We were in our kitchen sharing some local bubbles with Marcel and Brigitte when the bride and I were invited to visit the old house by the church which we reverently did. The house wore the patina of age graciously and we were soon discovering plenty of treasures holding an abundance of social and family history. Our friends insisted we were helping to clear the house and were pleased that numerous items were going to an appreciative new home, rather than to a house clearance company.

In consequence, we have wonderful top and bowler hats in their original purpose made boxes, both bearing matching maker’s names; kitchen balance scales with a set of brass weights; a bedroom nightstand wash set; a pair of forged iron fire dogs made by Marcel’s brother (now residing on the Maison d’Amis’s hearth, but not the brother!) and a multitude of wine glasses. We continued through the outbuildings finding other gems and came across a huge antique wine press of the type you used to see all over France many decades ago and whilst lusting over such an iconic piece of rural French heritage, we realised it really wouldn’t fit anywhere, unfortunately : (

A couple of weeks later, Marcel e-mails me asking me to bring two friends along to help with the delivery of the wine press. Well did you really think we could possibly pass up the opportunity to look after such a relic, particularly a fully serviceable example?

Despite Marcel’s tractor and trailer, it still took nine of us 30 minutes to extricate the remarkably heavy oak and iron contraption out of its old home and onto the trailer and after driving it the short distance to its new home, another 45 minutes getting it into one of the larger outbuildings, where its now feeling quite at home amongst a profusion of wine barrels.

Just thinking!

 

. . . and discussing

Bon installation!

The exercise particularly reminded me of the Year in Provence story from Peter Mayle when the delivery and positioning of a similarly large and heavy stone table was only affected by the equally robust application of French manpower. Much advice, heaving, lifting, pushing, pulling, levering and grunting ensued after which there was the traditional celebratory vin d’honneur to seal the deed.

A bientôt,

LC

Concrete Day

Timeline: Friday 11 October, 07h00: I couldn’t sleep. My back was telling me to get up, so I made coffee. The scalding liquid is getting the caffeine into my system, needed to get going with the day and I can feel the benefit straight away as my brain opens to the idea of conscious thought and hands control back to the day shift.

07h20 and I’m processing the tasks to be accomplished before lunch, as between 13h30 and 14h00, our biggest yet and certainly the heaviest truck is paying us a visit. So big and butch it is, that it will park outside of the gates in the road and deliver its slippery load via a big bore pump and 50 metres of hose. Yes, it’s Concrete Day!

Kevin and Daniel arrive and start clearing the ground floor of plasterboard stock, the staff canteen and the rubbish heap from the upstairs work and a bonfire is soon reducing the rubbish in the rear garden. An hour is sufficient for clearance and someone remarks how big the room is again. Well, we aim to entertain many people, so just as well!

Service pipes and cables are arranged and secured to be concreted in optimum positions and I lay a cable duct to the kitchen island unit and anchor it down with concrete paving stones.

Preparation complete, the men go back to plastering upstairs and I to acid cleaning the bathroom floor in Le Grenier and at 12h40, the little concrete pump truck turns and sets up outside the barn, rapidly told to get back on the road outside, as I’m not risking 15 tonnes of big concrete truck slowly trundling over the cellars!

With all hands to the pump, repositioning is rapidly executed and the pipeline snakes along the courtyard and through the kitchen doors and as I go and help Paul the electrician with a tall radiator in Le Grenier, the big boy truck rocks up and miraculously doesn’t block the road, which would have caused great consternation with the large tractor/tailor units trundling about the village with the fruit of the grape harvest, still in full swing. 

 

 

The rest of the operation went as smooth as silk and the plant delivered a steady viscous stream of fibre reinforced self levelling concrete directly to where it was needed. It hardly required any assistance to steer it into place and just 20 minute after the start button was pressed on the remote control channel zapper, our carefully measured 15cm of slab was in place and with a perfectly smooth top surface, ready to receive damp proof membrane, insulation, screed, heating element and tile in due course.

All that remained to do was a clean-up, pay the big truck man and since we couldn't walk on the liquid slab to get upstairs until Monday, adjourn to the village bar for some well earned refreshment!

A bientôt,

LC

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