Chopping down the pig-damson

The large, but very rotten damson tree in front of the house had to come down...

Days numbered...

We were worried that it would fall down, as we've lost at least two other diseased/old plum trees and had to chop down another one that was totally unbalanced by the loss of a huge branch.

Uh-oh!

We don't like chopping them down, but as it was right next to the road we worried that it could fall down on someone and injure them...

Or worse!

Going...

In the field, we are quite happy to let the trees take their chances, but this one has been for the chop the whole time we have had the house.

...going...

There's a seedling of it next to it which is fruiting happily [normally], so we're not going to lose the opportunity to make pig-damson liqueur.

Just not this year, as none of our trees have much fruit, if any.

...gone!

Now we have a blank canvas for a few more decorative plants!

Potager: membrane

Hose, showing Vincent where to dig

We had a chap come and help us bury a weed-root barrier so that we could stop travelling nasties like bindweed and couch grass from re-infesting the potager.  I had read that 40-50cm damp-proof course would work perfectly well, so I bought some 60cm thick black plastic [couldn't find 40cm or 50cm, but the more the merrier, eh?] off the internet.

Vincent, digging the hole & David lining the trench

We arranged for Vincent to come and dig out a trench while we were at the house for a weekend in March.  We thought that would probably take ages, but it was so fast that he had it filled in and levelled within a couple of hours.

60cm damp-proof course to block weed roots

I dread to think how long that would have taken David and I to do, but I know it would have been back-breaking work (and would probably have become soul-destroying before we would have got it finished).

Vincent levelling off the earth after filling in the trench

It's already seeming to work; we haven't had the run of grass that I was tracking for yards back to the field during last year's weeding marathon, so fingers crossed that it works as we hope.

Bye-bye digger!

We are having to spray glyphosate on the bindweed as the ground is so heavy that trying to dig it out just causes the roots to break, and voilà, new plants are formed!

[Anyone else remember the skeletons that sprang from dragon's (I think) teeth in Sinbad?]

"After"

I'm not delighted using chemicals, but this way we should have a useable garden area in months rather than years!  So needs must, and all that.

David weeding/spraying bindweed

The bit along the wall will hopefully be the home for fruit trees, and the part next to the house should be OK for vegetables, so I'm desperately hoping that next summer's photographs look markedly different!

"And the winner in the 'better-late-than-never' category is..."

Christmas photos!

I don't think anyone cares at this stage, but it will give me "closure"!

Enjoy!

One of the wreaths on one of the front doors!

Fireplace in the entrance hall

We lit some candles, but not all

Sunlight/candles/mirror

The "large" tree from London is tiny in France!

Ornament

Santa, enjoying the sun

Lights on the stairs

Tiny tree in the entrance hall

Mistletoe...

Dismantling Christmas

Miscellaneous photos 3/more snippets 2

I know this photo doesn't do it justice [nothing short of "smellyvision" is capable of that], but I couldn't resist posting this pic of Marcelle's honey.

Well, it's my honey now!

She gave me this tub, and it is absolutely gorgeous. It's not filtered or centrifuged or pasteurised, or anything of the other things producers do to honey to stop it tasting/handling how it used to in my childhood.

I was starting to believed that it was another of those "summer was always warm and sunny" childhood mis-memories, but seeing, tasting, and spreading this stuff restored my faith in bees!

Ooh, did I mention tasting?

I can remember why I used to eat honey sandwiches now!

In my mind this photo is entitled "clown socks".

I have many pairs of socks that are entertaining to me, [I have a pair that were surely designed for trolls, or possibly size 7 ducks, so wide is the toe area], but I think what I like about this pic is not so much the socks, but the sock/slipper combo.

I love the slippers, but sadly they are supermarket cheapies; I wore them in the house for about three days when the soles fell apart.

:-(

This is an opium poppy field as seen from the motorway.

We love the agriculture in the Aube: blue fields of flax; yellow sunflowers following the sun; hemp that has drivers stopping their cars for a second take; opium poppies that have us reversing back to check we haven't gone potty!

In case you are worried, the hemp plants grown do not contain the "active" ingredient, and all hemp/opium poppy growers are licenced and thoroughly checked.

The opium poppy crop is moved under similar conditions that money transfers to banks have [I can't remember if they use armed guards, but it sounded pretty scary].

Other snippets:

• We saw cranes, lots of cranes - presumably flying to or from the lakes. What I always forget is just how much of a racket they make!
•  Having a long bathroom window that we can walk out of, and the French windows in the bedroom, brings our total door-count to five...  Is that too many for what is (essentially) a two-bedroom bungalow?
• Having a "spare" room, and a spare table, I indulged in my old Christmas passion of snowy-scene jigsaws.  It's great now to be able to do as long as my back can stand, and then just leave it - without it being in the way, or bits getting lost as I move it off the table so we can eat.  OK, I know we could do like more 'modern' families do, and eat off trays on our laps, but neither of us like that very much and it's not great for the digestion...  So a huge hurrah for having space for hobbies!

Miscellaneous photos 2/more snippets

As part of our tidying-the-kitchen mission, we needed to empty the blue dresser in the entrance hall [trust me, it does make sense!], so that we could put it in the kitchen.

Obviously, that meant that my "secret gin cupboard" needed relocating...

I know it's no longer a secret, but the name seems to have stuck!

So at the moment, all of the bottles of decanted liqueurs are in boxes in the small cellar.

That one is totally dry, so the best place to store them; we are still trying to dry out the bigger cellar...

The rest of the [undecanted] liqueurs are still in the cupboard in the study...

Hopefully, they are not spoiling...

But at the moment, I don't feel like worrying about them!

Laurent installed a door upstairs for us to get from the grenier into the bit above the study/bedroom.

It's already a huge hit, and we moved masses of stuff through there, so that we can start using the grenier as a "summer sitting room".

It's great finally having things int tidy piles - and out of sight!

I know that David and I could have put in the doorway, but finding time for everything else that is more urgent is already enough of a challenge.

And knowing Laurent's work, I doubt we could have made as sturdy a job!

[It was a bit of a running joke with the other artisans that his beams were in no danger of falling down (and could probably support a whole house, not just a really light wood floor above); speculation was that if the house fell down, the beams would still be standing.]

I know it seems like we have masses too much "stuff" [that part is true], but a lot of the things we've stored are items that came as 'freebies' with things we wanted.

For instance: buying a table in a dépôt vente involves having a set of chairs as well, and buying a buffet (sort of sidboard with a cupboard above, a bit like a Welsh dresser) often involves having a table and chairs too!

Can you see how we could end up with spare chairs?

Still, when I can get around to cleaning them up, we won't be short of seating!

There are also some items I bought with the intention of painting them [too tatty as they are, but would be lovely with a coat of "shabby chic"!]

And obviously (by now, that must be true, surely?), you can't but a wardrobe without getting a bed, too!

One day, I think life will get back to normal, and I'll have 'spare time' and will once again enjoy pottering and fixing up things/cleaning cast iron items/painting miscellaneous treasures.

Well, here's hoping!

I'm including this photo for your entertainment...

It's [nearly] a bathroom set that we saw, but I couldn't persuade David to buy it for future use in the house.

Well, you never know when it will come back into fashion, do you?!

It's not as though we don't have room to store it now.

Miscellaneous photos

Slabs left over

We spent some time on my birthday [Christmas Eve] moving the leftover bricks and stone slabs into a neat pile away from where we need to wheel the wheelbarrow.

It was great to have the last remnants of builders' materials (that we are keeping) out of the way!

[OK, so there was plenty of rubbish left to get rid of, but we knew that once we bought the trailer, we could take that to the dump really easily, so it felt like an immense step forward.]

Materials all out of the way

The odd part was finding we didn't have a spare tarpaulin - how could that be, we seem to have dozens!

Anyway, we treated ourselves to another one and covered up the pile so that none of the walnuts from the trees nearby could land amongst the stone/bricks where we couldn't get at them and germinate.

And hidden!

That would have been a real pain!

Anyway, the pile is so neat and tidy that we don't really notice it any more, so job done!



This is the wall that we have M. Milesi coming to fix - probably in September [nothing, of course, can happen in August!], although we won't know when he's coming until he arrives if he is anything like the other workmen!

The crack has opened up a lot more during the last winter [it's been getting worse ever since we bought the house, but has markedly worsened since last autumn] - another casualty of the bizarre weather we think.

Either way, I worry about it falling down and injuring someone, so we have bitten the bullet and got a really painful estimate to replace it.

Scrap gone!

I know the one that will go up is going to be ugly, but at least it won't squash anyone!

The scrap being gone has nearly doubled the size of the garage (or so it feels), and we can easily get around without risking damage to ankles.

Tidying the rest of the barn is on our list of "Things To Do" when we go for our summer "holiday".

More catching up snippets

Top Tip: Don't try to remember seven months' happenings!!!

Some things I intended to blog about [in no particular order]:

• It was lovely finally being able to invite people into our home without feeling the need to apologise that the place looks like a dépôt vente.  We had a flying lunch visit from Alasdhair & Maria, who drove down from Paris on New Year's Day.  We'd cooked typical "peasant" food: a mixed vegetable 'stew' with a combination of whatever we had.  It was great that they loved it, but embarrassing to have to admit when asked for the recipe that I just chop what I have until it looks like the right quantity/balance of ingredients and then add a tin of tomatoes/herbs to taste...  Oh, and we try to make it the day before, and re-heat when needed as the flavours have chance to mingle and it tastes way better as leftovers (we didn't eat it as leftovers, but the principle is the same!) and it means we don't have to spend time we could be with our guests slaving over the proverbial hot stove.  Anyway, they loved it, it was extremely relaxed and the Christmas cake was a hit!
• We also had apéro visits from Jean-Loup and Bernadette over Christmas; we really appreciated that as she has been so ill with the chemotherapy.  Also wonderful to finally be able to repay [somewhat] the hospitality we have received from Claude and Marcelle over the last few years.  They both really like the English cheeses, mince pies and (particularly) the Christmas cake.  Not sure the sherry was a hit, though...  After Marcelle's home-reared eggs/honey and home-made pain d'épices, it seemed a small enough offering, but we had a lovely evening and were sad to see them go.  Hopefully we will manage to schedule in visits from other friends soon!
• The weather has been mystifyingly weird: from summer being so wet, to autumn being the main "summer" we had, and planting the new bit of garden in October and November (way later than would normally be possible), we expected it to suddenly turn cold...  Well it did, but not until February!  At Christmas we still had in flower: snapdragons, pot marigolds, violas, roses, primulas, schizostylus & ipheions - everything from early spring flowers, through summer blooms to late-lingering autumn long-stayers.  It was three seasons all at once in what was supposed to be the fourth.  Sadly, when winter finally kicked in, it did so with a vengeance.  Everything was already in spring mode, and without a covering of snow temperatures suddenly plumnging to nearly -20°C had a disastrous effect on many of my plants.  I've lost shrubs and perennials, and even the early bulbs were badly damaged.  We have no walnuts on either of the trees by the house, no plums, and about six mirabelles, and I'm sure that's down to the last year's pounding the trees have taken [no proper summer, no autumn, no winter until suddenly 'wham!', and then back to swinging wildly from warm & dry to cold & wet for spring & summer].  Oh, well, let's use this as an opportunity to plant some new, lovely specimens in the flower garden, and hope the trees recover for next year!
• Speaking of which: I'm taking some delightful things with me next time we go, and in the meantime have been "de-filler-ing" the garden; I've been very happy to let most things seed to have plants for free, but have now decided to limit the self-seeding to the new bits of garden where I'm gradually colonising the edge of the drive and the strip directly in front of the house.  The rest of the garden I'm clearing of corncockles, nigella, evening primroses, eryngiums, ox-eye daisies and asters.
• Back to weather: we had the stones "crying" on our last visit - that's what the neighbours call it when the humidity is so high that the stone walls and floor tiles are wet, and no matter how much you mop it you can't get it to dry up.  Thankfully, we have experienced this before, so it was more irritating than worrying, but until David reminded me I was starting to panic a bit!
• More water where it wasn't required: there was a water leak in the flat we rent out which had us in a panic [thank you, Peter, for being such a wonderful plumber and kindly turning out on a Sunday to stop a leak that was the landlord's responsibily (the other leak that is the landlord's duty to fix still isn't repaired, and that dates from last year!  At least it's not gushing)], and we've had water somehow get into the kitchen at #9 - it seems to have dripped down from above, but I can see no signs of water upstairs?  Totally puzzled, but suspect it could be down to the weird weather and maybe the winds did manage to blow water in through the shutters and over the top of the windows?  Seemed implausible to me, but I have had water blown in through the French window in Brixton that I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen it for myself!  As above, I'm not going to worry about something that doesn't happen other than once in a blue moon.
• We've cleared some more of the edge of the meadow; there is now more of the field that is under control than is left to "do", so it feels as if we are getting on top of the outdoors 'maintenance', which is great.  The scrap being gone, the stones/bricks/slabs all neatly out of sight and the logs in neat piles all help us feel that we are in control at long last!
• My camera reset its date on New Year's Day - it took me a couple of days to realise it had gone back to 2008.  Probably digital cameras have a limited life and no-one is expected to still be using an EX-Z55 in 2012?  It's not the only clock to go wrong: the chuch clock has stopped chiming...  I never missed it until David pointed it out, which goes to show how habituated to it I have become.  It now feels odd to not be guessing "quarter past what?" rather than "what time is it?"!  I don't know whether the clock itself is broken, because there is no face on our side of the tower, and I keep forgetting to look up when we're going past.
• Another reflection on time: although it seemed as though we would never finish with getting the (really bad) kitchen wall painted [over a week for filler to dry?  Next time I'm bringing some from England!], I looked at it on our last trip for the first time in over six months and all I thought was "oh, I'd forgotten about that, isn't it great that we don't notice how horrible it is all the time (because it's perfectly fine now)".  So glad we 'bit the bullet' and got it dealt with at the time.  Now we just notice how lovely the stove is!  We particularly appreciated how great it looks with the winter sun shining in and illuminating it like a jewel; it gains a brilliance of blue that is normally hidden - a special winter treat.

OK, enough already!

Flashbacks

I had to go to London today, and was coming home from Victoria [which I don't normally do; it's ordinarily better for me to catch a train from Charing Cross, which takes a different route out of the centre] when I looked out of the train window and realised that we were in Brixton.

It was really odd; I had been thinking all the time I was using the tube and wandering around Ealing that I didn't miss London at all, and then seeing the market and the Reliance arcade (not that it's called that any longer, but I forget the new name) it was like catching a glimpse of your childhood home - you would not necessarily want to go back, but it was achingly familiar even though you hadn't thought about it in ages.

I'd had a similar thing just before Christmas on my way into Victoria when I'd looked up and the only thing I saw on my journey up to town [bookworm] was the Christmas tree at Brockwell Park.  I had an end of "It's A Wonderful Life" moment.

I loved living in Brixton, but haven't thought about it for ages [apart from missing my lovely neighbours I left behind], so unexpected sightings catch me unawares.  I'm guessing it's changed a lot [it was changing even the last few years we lived there, but these days we read about bars/cafés/restaurants in the Evening Standard, and it sounds pretty well served, rather than being a bit homespun like when I first moved there], but then again it changed a lot in the twenty years I lived there...

That was the longest I've ever lived anywhere, so I suppose it was bound to leave an impression!

Lovely place, lovely neighbours, and a warm feeling in my chest; can't have better memories than that, can you?

Baby steps!

A phrase we are [horribly] familiar with from the glacially-slow progress of our French building work, but it will do for now.

It's taken me a lot longer than I thought it would to get back to [something approaching] normal, and at times it felt like it would never happen.  Still, I seem to be managing to do more than just get some exercise now, so let's make the most of it!

I feel that things not happening is much more tiring that being manically busy!

Regarding our lovely house in France:

• Continuing lack of communication from M. Torelli meant that at Christmas we called M. Huguenot of Schwartz to ask if we could arrange the boiler service and have his chap check over the piping to the bedroom/turn-on the central heating in there and the bathroom.  We're really glad we did; it was getting cold in there without radiators (7°C, and not even very cold outside, so it would only get worse), and more importantly the lovely plumber dealt with the four or five leaks that would have had me panicking!  One radiator doesn't get terribly warm, but the room is fine now.  The electrics to the bathroom radiator don't work, either, but the central heating part does, so that's another thing I'm going to add to the "worry about it later" pile.  M. Antoni was due on 2 January, which would have taken us into the third year of a two-month project, and the fourth calendar year, but as he came on 29 December, the heating was connected in two years to the day! [Obviously the unfinished plumbing takes us into three-year territory.]
• We have since tried to get in touch with M. Torelli by registered letter, but that was returned "no response", so we're guessing he's no better and his business is over.  Sad for him, but I'm past caring at the moment.  The plumbing that doesn't work/isn't connected is small enough for me to be quite blasé [or should that be blasée?] about it!
• We've finally stopped getting threats and pleas from Jean-Marie, so that's another bonus.  We're not sure if that's because we responded to a begging mail from Joëlle with the list of things that hadn't been finished and saying when they were we would make the final payment, so she finally found out how much of the "finished" job he had left undone.  The Mairie still wasn't finished last we heard, so we know it's nothing personal, just really bad management [not what one wants from a project manager!], so I had managed to forget all about it (apart from updating the blog, obviously).
• Having heating in the bathroom meant I could enjoy lying in the bath, looking out over the meadow and vineyards - bliss after moving stones/slabs/bricks and chopping logs!
• We got all the stone slabs, unused building stone, and bricks into a neat pile under the walnut tree and covered them all with a tarpaulin (I know that's not necessary, but we want to stop walnuts falling down the cracks and germinating, and it's not as though we are short of tarps!), and being able to get the wheelbarrow to the compost heap/meadow is a real bonus.
• I had a lovely birthday - Christmas Eve spent with the chainsaw, axe & log-splitter is my idea of fun!!  So much more so than spring cleaning someone else's home year after year [hi, mum!].  Because I'm in control of cleaning my home, it got done earlier!
• Laurent had installed a door upstairs, and we've moved a huge quantity of 'stuff' to the other part of the barn for when I feel like painting furniture/stripping cast iron etc.  It's looking way better up there, and we may even get it all tidied this year...
• We also started tidying the barn: our new trailer is a godsend - a load of cardboard to the dump, and another load of other builder-abandoned rubbish, and it looked way better.  The scrap being collected also helped massively.  We sorted out the beams/joists, as well: the rotten ones were chopped up to make firewood later, the OK looking ones are separated out, and we've sacrificed the ones that the carpenter wouldn't re-use and aren't attractive to the firewood pile also.

Right, that feels enough for the moment, and hopefully having broken this year's "duck", it won't be so long before my next post!