Mum's OK

I was delighted to get a phone call about 7pm last night - from mum. I think she was feeling a little shaken, but was OK; as it's the second time in just over a month that she's had kidney stones, she's worried that it's going to keep happening. I hope she'll drink loads of water and cranberry juice (it might be the bladder infection that caused the stones), and goes to see Mr Johnson (her naturopath) when she gets home...

Fireplace 2

We started stripping the paint off the "new" fireplace. It's taking a lot more coats of nasty glop than I was expecting, but we are nearly there on most of it - just two flat sides on the two big uprights yet to be started; we didn't want to wedge these stones (100kg each?) upright in case they fell! There has been some crystallization, that worried me, but it seemed to brush off quite nicely with a wire brush, so I am keeping fingers crossed that I'm not doing any damage . There are still patches of nasty brown (and some black in places). We have been mixing lessive de soude and wallpaper paste, and painting it on, leaving it for half an hour (or so), before blasting it off with a pressure washer. Repeat as necessary!

I'm not sure if it is caustic soda or liquid washing soda (but I think that's just a dilute version of the same thing?) that we're using, but everyone has told us to wear gloves & be careful. We saw some (delightful, Kermit-coloured!) gloves in the supermarket that said suitable for bleach & "aggressive" products - that sounded just what we needed, so we bought a pair each.

David was doing the first coat while I planted an acer (palmatum dissectum, if you're interested) and some cyclamens (coum, I think, but they might be hederifolium), wearing shorts & a t-shirt. A bit later we decided that I should carry on as I was wearing gardening clothes (combat-style trousers, long-sleeved shirt & ancient cricket hat) and wellington boots (found a lovely lavender coloured pair; also have a pink pair with yellow & white daisies in the next size up for wearing over thick socks in winter - the neighbours think we're a bit weird anyway [all strangers are in rural parts of the world, I think?], so why not?). Coupled with the plastic safety glasses and the green (seriously green) rubber gloves, I felt I cut quite a dash!

I wished I'd asked David to take a picture - but as we still haven't finished, there's still time (as I don't have a mirror in France, I may not look as fetching as I'd imagined, so reserve the right to withhold any picture!!)


The man from Duchesne arrived to deliver our patio & gravel while I was cleaning of one of the layers of gunk/paint; I never think it does my image any harm when someone arrives and my husband is in the kitchen doing the washing-up and I'm in the barn using power tools!

Actually I'm not a complete cow!!

The last two photos show what a mixture of lessive de soude and wallpaper paste (and probably soot, nicotine, tar, distemper as well as paint) will do to your paintbrush if you are naïve enough not to wash your brushes out immediately after use!!

I ended up applying the stuff with a really heavy-duty scrubbing brush - added benefit of working it into the crevices!

What we did on our holidays!

We came back from a week in France on Saturday. We took some more plants (for the new bit of garden) and a lot of bulbs, so it was another round of gardening! If we didn't have to weed everywhere first, we would be less pushed for time. And equally, if we didn't have to plant anything, there'd be loads of time for leisurely weeding (very therapeutic when you don't have loads else to shoe-horn into a limited time)!

We planted over 800 bulbs, so we're keeping fingers crossed for a lovely display in spring. There are a few autumn flowering ones, but that's not likely to be much of a show. The hope is they will all naturalise and spread. We also had a delivery of gravel - hopefully that will keep the weeds down. We had gone to Bar-sur-Aube on Wednesday to see when our patio was likely to be available for delivery, and they had got it in stock and could deliver it on Friday! As they were coming to our place anyway, we asked if they could bring gravel as well, so by 4pm we were the proud possessors of 270cm of paving circle (in kit form, of course!) and 1m³ of gravel.

I don't think it will be enough, but we shall see how far it will go, and then will have a better idea of how much more is needed. It's quite interesting to have finally found gravel: being used to the English system (and no I'm not one of those people who thinks everything is done better in England!) of choosing what colour of gravel (green, purple, pink, black, white, brown, gold etc, etc), what shape (round, rounded flat, grit, chips), what size (5mm, 10mm, 15mm, 20mm, 25mm) and what material (granite, slate, pebbles, marble, glass!), I have found it frustrating going round garden centres and bricolage and builders' merchants not being able to find anything other than aggregate (rough stone chips mixed with sand). M. Lorin had left a pile of red grit (he said it was road grit), so I knew it must be possible to find that, but the thought of the garden looking liking a badly-laid road wasn't appealing! So when David found some flat rounded gravel at Duchesne, I was delighted. They look like mini dunkers!

Déjà vu...

Got a slightly weird message on the answermachine at 7.50am (had not heard the phone because I was in the loo!) from Karen; not really saying anything. As I had only just missed it, I called her back & got Miche (I didn't think it sounded like Karen) & said Karen had just left a message & I'd just missed the call. She said it was mum, she'd got kidney stones again, but she was alright. Apparently she'd felt she was getting a migraine yesterday, so they'd gone for a swim & she was fine after that (don't know if that was related or just a coincidence), and then she'd started feeling poorly about 2am, and at about 6am knocked on Miche's door. They called an ambulance and she's now in hospital. Karen couldn't find her phone (it was switched off and plugged into the charger) so Evelyn had lent her her mobile (which is why I got Miche when I called Karen)...

Miche said she's ok (well, as ok as you can be with kidney stones - I thought as she'd "got the t-shirt" she wouldn'd be doing that one again!). I sent a text to Evelyn's mobile from David's French mobile (still got some credit on it, and he's got my mobile as he's without a UK mobile at the moment - new job, but that's another post), saying I'd spoken to Miche & would talk to Karen later.

Another day of sitting by the phone, but I'm less panicky this time... So it's another case of:

Watch this space...

Oh, I forgot to mention, mum's in France!

Missing Photos...?

Hello!

I seem to have lost my photos... So am waiting to see if they come back before posting about the last week's work in France...

Seem to be able to load a new one, though...?!