April visit 1

Our latest visit to France:

We went to France again to meet with M. Boyer and look round the house with the sketches he had prepared. On the way down, it finally felt as though spring had started. This year the winter (for me, at least) seems to have dragged out forever; I’ve been longing to see the sun & feel some warmth in my bones. It was lovely before we left London, so I took some warm-weather clothes as well as thermals & cardigans/enormous socks. We had debated staying at the house, but as the last time we went it had dropped to –11°C inside the house – even with our lovely new gas stove, we didn’t feel like risking it! So we booked a gîte in a nearby village - at the last moment, because we had been waiting for the Gîtes de France brochure to arrive (a month later, and we’re still waiting; but that may be owing to the rubbish service we endure from the Royal Mail, some things never arrive, and some things arrive having been opened!). All the gîtes we have used before had bookings, so we tried a new place… It was very quaint, but I don’t think we’ll be recommending it. The welcome was wonderful, but I’m a bit fussy about cleanliness… (It took me about 20 minutes to clean the soles of my slippers when we came home – no, I’m not so anal that I clean the soles of my shoes, but these are sheepskin moccasins where the sole is rubbed smooth like leather, and they had picked up loads of [unidentified] “bits”.) That makes me sound as though I’m a cleaning freak – not so! – but I’m not a massive fan of wading round in other people’s grit… The place was like a dolls’ house, but not as delightful as the gîtes in the 2 villages nearer to the house.

It was lovely to be able to open our new shutters! Sooo easy! There were still a few spots of damp paint, but never mind about that; I’ll clean that up at some point. Weird, but in a good way, to just lift a lever and push; no bolts, no angle iron, no going outside & shoving hard to get the shutters in place when closing them again. Ahh, happy memories! ;-).

Dominique B has also eased the windows in our absence – they had all swelled up owing to the damp, but there were a couple that really stuck even in the dry weather, and he has planed back a little on a couple of the surfaces that rubbed. I can see that by the time the joinery has settled in properly (and I know we should wait at least a year before having any final adjustments made), it’s all going to go as smoothly as silk. I still can’t get over what a fantastic job Dominique B has done. M. Boyer has already recommended him to one of his other clients!