Back in France again, and today I’m loving it! (OK, so I wrote that a few days ago, but I'm still loving it!)
Yesterday was the first proper “summer” day we’ve had (the weather’s been like England, but colder at night and without the flooding!). It’s amazing how much happier you are when the sun is shining…
All the little irritations seem so trivial when you are no longer cold & wet (apart from the power supply, more of which later…).
For instance, when it’s cold, I mind having to put a wooden slatted mat down in front of the shower, and then use the towelling bath mat (it’s been too wet to dry out the wooden mat, if I get that wet! Chopping boards & wooden spoons had gone mouldy!).
Obviously, I can’t leave the wooden mat down (and it’s amazing how heavy things are when you’re tired and your back really aches), because then it would be in the way of the kitchen sink!!
Because everywhere is unfinished concrete, there’s so much dust, you daren’t drop anything on the floor – so that means dragging a (heavy-enough, metal) chair round to put the towel/clothes/dressing gown on (putting them on the draining board leads to some stuff falling off and getting very mucky!).
And then there’s getting naked to shower – not bad, in itself: the immersion heater seems remarkably efficient!
But the trying to get dry as quickly as possible afterwards without feeling a draught is the worst part. When it’s only about 12°C, you notice the draughts.
And of course you then have to put the mat and chair away.
I’m itching for the day when I can just chuck dirty clothes in the laundry bin and pad naked across the bathroom to the shower and not get cold/have to close the shutters first so no one on the road can see in!
Did I mention that?
As I say, when it’s warm that all just seems part of the fun!
Needless to say, it gets too hot to work outside pretty quickly, but I can usually find something to do under the trees (it’s usually at least 10 - 15°C cooler in the shade), or even clean something in the house…
Yesterday though I couldn’t put off any longer the dreaded task of trying to connect up to the Internet…
France Telecom vs. Orange:
I’ve read so many stories about France Telecom, and its attitude to customer service (as in “what’s that? No, we don’t do that”!) that I was dreading trying to get a line put in the house.
The worst stories I’ve come across were 2 different sets of people, both of whom had to wait over 12 months to get a phone line!
So, as I say, expecting a frustrating experience…
David phoned France Telecom on the English speaking number that you can call from abroad (you can find it after quite a while in fruitless searching on their less than user-friendly website!) on Thursday afternoon.
Monday morning, I got an email from M. Lorin (who’d kindly let the chap into the house) telling us the phone line was up and running!
Wow!
Orange, on the other hand, after three reminder phone calls (not to mention the numerous aborted attempts when their phone wouldn’t ring, or David had to give up after hanging on in a queue for 15, 20, or even 25 minutes) FINALLY sent out the letter giving our log-in details over a month later!
I should mention that it took only the one phone call to order both phone and broadband, but that was as close as it got to seamless!
Nearly five weeks before we could use the Internet, but they still managed to charge for it!
I’m not so fussed about having the Internet over here, but the package we went for includes free telephone calls to the UK as well as France and French mobiles – that’s what I was after!
It was a palaver, but not nearly as bad as trying to install the BT broadband – that just didn’t work and the instructions didn’t relate to anything that appeared on the screen!
At least the booklet was very user friendly with loads of pictures (that corresponded exactly to what was on screen). Still took a long time, but worth it now.
It was only when I was packing away the box & leftovers that I found a fold-out poster with all the steps on one page! Well, never mind!
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Progress Report
David, bless his heart doing his best to help with my "yellow" problem...!The problem is: I have an exact shade of yellow in mind to paint the dining room at home.
You'd think finding a colour-card in the same colour, and getting paint made up to that shade would work...
But no, you'd be wrong!
I've found 2 colour cards and had paint made up, but when I've painted the walls, the colour hasn't matched the colour card.
So, therefore, didn't match the colour in my head!
Unfortunately, the colours David came up with had already been discounted as not soft enough! But nice try!
Seriously, though, his collar bone is healing, but he's not been signed off yet; there is still a section of the break that has not joined up yet. He's got almost full function back, so is not worried.
I'm hoping the next time he goes to the hospital he gets the "all clear".
AND that he makes that his last visit to hospital for a long time!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Progress...
Or not...
Who knows?
We still haven't had any response from Dominique, and are nearly at the point (I hope!) that this could be slowing up starting work on the house again.
The latest news is that, with M. Boyer's help, we have contacted our house insurers (both the insurance company and their legal advice section). Originally, when David spoke to them, they both said 'try the other one' and 'we don't do that'...
I'm guessing the computer said "no!"... But M. Boyer said it was worth setting it all out in a letter, and trying again.
Which we did - we still got referred to the other part of the company by one half (can't remember which way round this is, sorry), but the other half has at least asked for further details...
Needless to say, we are keeping our fingers crossed.
We have also written to Dominique's insurers, to try to claim for the work he did before he stopped paying the premiums...
So again, fingers crossed.
We are also going to write a letter to Dominique giving him one last chance to deal with M. Boyer before we start legal proceedings against him.
Everything is taking so long, that it seems daft not to start proceedings!
And who says we have to continue...?
And, equally, who says we have to tell Dominique that we might not see it through to the bitter end!
Who knows?
We still haven't had any response from Dominique, and are nearly at the point (I hope!) that this could be slowing up starting work on the house again.
The latest news is that, with M. Boyer's help, we have contacted our house insurers (both the insurance company and their legal advice section). Originally, when David spoke to them, they both said 'try the other one' and 'we don't do that'...
I'm guessing the computer said "no!"... But M. Boyer said it was worth setting it all out in a letter, and trying again.
Which we did - we still got referred to the other part of the company by one half (can't remember which way round this is, sorry), but the other half has at least asked for further details...
Needless to say, we are keeping our fingers crossed.
We have also written to Dominique's insurers, to try to claim for the work he did before he stopped paying the premiums...
So again, fingers crossed.
We are also going to write a letter to Dominique giving him one last chance to deal with M. Boyer before we start legal proceedings against him.
Everything is taking so long, that it seems daft not to start proceedings!
And who says we have to continue...?
And, equally, who says we have to tell Dominique that we might not see it through to the bitter end!
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Update
The bad news is:
David has broken his collarbone
The good news is:
The boiler, after its little rest, started working again properly. I booked the annual service (a couple of months early) this morning, so that I can get it checked out.
Very glad not to have to do emergency call-outs on a Bank Holiday weekend with a broken husband due home!
I was so happy to have David home, in one piece (relatively!), and to have the flat warm and the boiler working so he could have a hot bath to relax. And remove the dust!
Aaahh! So relieved it wasn't worse...
David has broken his collarbone
The good news is:
The boiler, after its little rest, started working again properly. I booked the annual service (a couple of months early) this morning, so that I can get it checked out.
Very glad not to have to do emergency call-outs on a Bank Holiday weekend with a broken husband due home!
I was so happy to have David home, in one piece (relatively!), and to have the flat warm and the boiler working so he could have a hot bath to relax. And remove the dust!
Aaahh! So relieved it wasn't worse...
Sunday, May 06, 2007
"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt"
OK, so it's a different bone, but he's going to be wearing the T-shirt again!He's been told not to do that, but will he listen?!
Sadly, I had a call from David to say he'd crashed (this time at Rockingham), and was on his way to Kettering Hospital with a suspected broken collar bone.
He says the track day organisers may be able to take his bike back to St Albans, and he will arrange to collect it from there, but is anticipating a horrible train journey home. Well, it is Sunday on a Bank Holiday weekend, so it's bound to be deeply unpleasant - if trains are running, they're almost certain to be on an engineering schedule.
To add insult to injury, I have a nasty feeling the pump has gone on the boiler...
It fires up the gas burners, but no hot water is getting through to the taps/radiators. I'm leaving it for 20 minutes or so (I know stuff can have a bit of a nervous breakdown sometimes, and will kick in again after a little rest), so fingers crossed...
I just noticed that the box for 'Labels for this post:' suggests: scooter, vacation, fall as examples.
It could so easily have been: motorcycles, Bank Holiday, fall-off!!
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Change of style
I'm trying to keep my paragraphs short - I've tended to write like I would write a letter, but recently read a couple of other people's blogs, and liked the short paragraphs; made it easier to keep your place.
So I'm trying out the new "improved" (hopefully) version.
I've got a couple of friends who send occasional letters, and when I read their correspondence the way they write is so similar to the way they speak that I can "hear" their news. [No, not in the "needing a visit from the nice men in white coats" way!] It's almost like a verbal report. Does that make sense?
I've tried to do this blog in the same way I compose my letters, but I guess I've got to make some concessions to the difference between screen and paper. Being a complete Luddite (well, slightly less so, these days), I naturally prefer paper...
But having said that, I do occasionally come across blogs from complete strangers that I really enjoy, and there's no way I'd receive a letter from those people!
In my experience, the only strangers that send you letters (as opposed to flyers, reminders, etc. from companies you have dealings with - all the junk that goes with the business of living in the 21st Century) tend to be dangerous nutcases, so have I just accidentally made out a case against paper updates?
If you don't like it, please let me know... I suspect people who know me find long rambling paragraphs much more my style!
So I'm trying out the new "improved" (hopefully) version.
I've got a couple of friends who send occasional letters, and when I read their correspondence the way they write is so similar to the way they speak that I can "hear" their news. [No, not in the "needing a visit from the nice men in white coats" way!] It's almost like a verbal report. Does that make sense?
I've tried to do this blog in the same way I compose my letters, but I guess I've got to make some concessions to the difference between screen and paper. Being a complete Luddite (well, slightly less so, these days), I naturally prefer paper...
But having said that, I do occasionally come across blogs from complete strangers that I really enjoy, and there's no way I'd receive a letter from those people!
In my experience, the only strangers that send you letters (as opposed to flyers, reminders, etc. from companies you have dealings with - all the junk that goes with the business of living in the 21st Century) tend to be dangerous nutcases, so have I just accidentally made out a case against paper updates?
If you don't like it, please let me know... I suspect people who know me find long rambling paragraphs much more my style!
Last (hopefully) version of the plans
We finally got around to doing the amendments we wanted to the plans for M. Boyer. It looked like a massive amount, but in reality we were just changing the direction of several doors opening (I prefer them to open into a room - e.g. bathroom - so that no one gets clouted by someone exiting a room) and moving the upstairs loo slightly plus a few other "tweaks".
The fact that the upstairs loo will be done in phase 2 makes it seem bit odd to be worrying about it now, but if we're totally happy with the plans we can just forget about it. Then when we want to do phase 2 (yeah, right! I'd be happy to do phase one!) we won't have to think about it at all.
Not that thinking is a bad thing, but it feels as though life at the moment is spent repeating the following cycle:
The fact that the upstairs loo will be done in phase 2 makes it seem bit odd to be worrying about it now, but if we're totally happy with the plans we can just forget about it. Then when we want to do phase 2 (yeah, right! I'd be happy to do phase one!) we won't have to think about it at all.
Not that thinking is a bad thing, but it feels as though life at the moment is spent repeating the following cycle:
- Prepare questions, changes and new plans (as necessary) for the next visit to M. Boyer
- Visit M. Boyer, discuss his latest news and proposals and our ideas that we haven't emailed to him in the meantime
- Spend time at the house together discussing the outcome of the meeting
- Go home and prepare any changes, plus adding to my "To Do" list anything that has cropped up (like noticing that one of the bars on the kitchen window isn't true) and send anything important to M. Boyer
- Plan our next meeting with M. Boyer, and we're starting again at point 1.
Please don't misunderstand me, I'm much more happy to have the house (very VERY happy!), than I am unhappy about the thinking! I'm not even unhappy about the thought processes, but sometimes it seems a bit never-ending...
If we hadn't done all this once for/with Dominique, I might feel differently, who knows. But this time we both feel that we've been given a chance for a "fresh start" so have almost approached it again from scratch.
That's been good, because we have made one or two material changes, and I think the house will work/flow better because of it. And in year's time this will all be a distant memory!!
Well, as to that last sentence, please keep your fingers crossed for us!!
Friday, May 04, 2007
DO try this at home...
...or the office, or internet café
And do it soon, somebody without a sense of humour is sure to get wind of it and "fix" it.
I don't normally pass on jokes, but this I couldn't resist!
Follow these steps [in order of course]
1. go to www.google.co.uk [or www.google.com if you prefer]
2. click on Maps
3. click on Get directions (top of screen)
4. go from "New York" to "Paris, France"
5. scroll down in the directions to number 24
6. laugh and then forward, so other people can enjoy
And do it soon, somebody without a sense of humour is sure to get wind of it and "fix" it.
I don't normally pass on jokes, but this I couldn't resist!
Follow these steps [in order of course]
1. go to www.google.co.uk [or www.google.com if you prefer]
2. click on Maps
3. click on Get directions (top of screen)
4. go from "New York" to "Paris, France"
5. scroll down in the directions to number 24
6. laugh and then forward, so other people can enjoy
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Massive apologies!
I seemed to get very bogged down by the struggle to get Blogger to work in March, and by the time I’d given up had lost the will to live! So, apologies to anyone who reads this for the enormous amount of ‘updating’ I’ve finally got around to!
April visit 12
Parting is such sweet sorrow…
I’m not convinced I understand that quote! All I do know is that it gets harder to leave the house, and I’m less inclined to do it; I haven’t yet dropped to my knees pleading to be allowed to stay, but I can imagine it coming to that if I don’t pull myself together! I can foresee that when the place is dust-free (what M. Boyer is promising us as the goal for the end of Phase I), I shall be even worse! Oh well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Driving back up to Calais, it really came upon me that summer was fully here – at least a month too early, according to the neighbours. The grapes are where they should be late May/early June (I’m sure that’s summer?). All the trees were fully out (when I’d come down, a few were just starting) and it felt so warm. We even used the air-conditioning! OK, so most of that is to do with motorway speeds and the need to use the A/C regularly, but still!
David had booked us on the 9.50pm shuttle, knowing that if we missed that they were every half-hour until just after midnight. So we took advantage of the late start to finish off the last bits in the garden/tidy the house/wash up/have a shower, etc. etc. etc. That’ll learn us! We got to the shuttle terminal at 10.20pm to find that the next train was 1.43am… Hmmm! We got to the pizza place just before it closed its doors and had a couple of slices of surprisingly nice pizza, and sat to wait in the car (it was warmer than the terminal building). They unloaded the shuttle before ours (we saw all the cars coming the “wrong” way through the barriers, and they had the previous letter on their tickets), so at least we hadn’t had that happen – I think I would have been much more cheesed-off if we’d been that close to going home & had it snatched away!
Finally got to bed at 3.30am, but slept easily in the absence of weed-filled nightmares!
I’m hoping to spend a few weeks getting on top of the weeds/garden, and David will come down with me and come back by train to work and return the following weekend, so all I need to do now is master by fear of driving so that I can run him to the station/collect him rather than using taxis! But that is another story…!
I’m not convinced I understand that quote! All I do know is that it gets harder to leave the house, and I’m less inclined to do it; I haven’t yet dropped to my knees pleading to be allowed to stay, but I can imagine it coming to that if I don’t pull myself together! I can foresee that when the place is dust-free (what M. Boyer is promising us as the goal for the end of Phase I), I shall be even worse! Oh well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Driving back up to Calais, it really came upon me that summer was fully here – at least a month too early, according to the neighbours. The grapes are where they should be late May/early June (I’m sure that’s summer?). All the trees were fully out (when I’d come down, a few were just starting) and it felt so warm. We even used the air-conditioning! OK, so most of that is to do with motorway speeds and the need to use the A/C regularly, but still!
David had booked us on the 9.50pm shuttle, knowing that if we missed that they were every half-hour until just after midnight. So we took advantage of the late start to finish off the last bits in the garden/tidy the house/wash up/have a shower, etc. etc. etc. That’ll learn us! We got to the shuttle terminal at 10.20pm to find that the next train was 1.43am… Hmmm! We got to the pizza place just before it closed its doors and had a couple of slices of surprisingly nice pizza, and sat to wait in the car (it was warmer than the terminal building). They unloaded the shuttle before ours (we saw all the cars coming the “wrong” way through the barriers, and they had the previous letter on their tickets), so at least we hadn’t had that happen – I think I would have been much more cheesed-off if we’d been that close to going home & had it snatched away!
Finally got to bed at 3.30am, but slept easily in the absence of weed-filled nightmares!
I’m hoping to spend a few weeks getting on top of the weeds/garden, and David will come down with me and come back by train to work and return the following weekend, so all I need to do now is master by fear of driving so that I can run him to the station/collect him rather than using taxis! But that is another story…!
April visit 11
Meeting with M. Boyer:
The usual topic of conversation cropped up immediately – we will be wholeheartedly relieved when Dominique (D) is no longer the bête-noire of our project – but we can’t really start to do anything until the issues over his work have been resolved. We would, ideally, like him to refund some money so that we are not totally out of pocket, and officially agree to have nothing more to do with our job. The system in France is different to England because of the guarantees given by workmen. No one wants to give a guarantee if their work has been done on a foundation started by another firm – if the original work is defective, it will be the chap who finishes the job who will end up having to put it right. We have already become reconciled to the fact that the work will all have to be stripped back to bare bones so that we will be able to find new workmen to finish the job (and because a lot of it is defective), but there is still a danger that Dominique could take us to a tribunal and sue us for the money he would have earned had he finished the job. That feels like adding insult to injury!
M. Boyer has been persistent in trying to pin Dominique down (and preferably get him to give us a refund, rather than insisting on redoing the defective work), but has ground to a complete halt. Dominique is no longer responding to messages or letters (the most recent letter, sent by recorded delivery, asked him to show up on the Saturday of our meeting and return our keys). The last effort M. Boyer made to contact him by phone ended up with Dominique’s mother shouting that there were no problems with the job until M. Boyer started butting in. She then slammed the phone down on him. Part of me wants to write a letter to her pointing out a few home truths: we never would have needed a project manager if Dominique had done good, timely work and finished our (3 to 4 month) job in less than the 2+ years spent so far. I feel quite strongly that she shouldn’t allow her address to be used by Dominique as his business address if she can’t behave in a professional manner! She’s obviously got a blind spot to he “baby”… Either that, or she’s never had him do any work for her! I feel it’s best that I don’t write the letter though!
Part of me wants to write to Crédit Agricole and tell them what a bad job he’s done at our house, but the part of me with experience of CA knows that it’s highly unlikely that anyone will care! So that’s another letter I shan’t write.
M. Boyer has finally had copies of Dominique’s insurance certificates: he wasn’t insured for insulation, metalwork (that will include the rails our plasterboard is mounted on, I’m sure, as well as the RSJ holding up the grenier floor!), plumbing and something else (which I forget). He was insured for building work, I think, but if you discount all the bits he’s not covered for (insulation under floors, metal reinforcing under floors, insulation behind the plasterboard, not to mention the electrics!) that only leaved the doorway between the kitchen and hall that doesn’t need ripping out and starting again! All of the insurance he did have (at the time of doing our work) has now lapsed, probably because he hasn’t paid the premiums. So even if we wanted him to re-do the work on the house, there is no way M. Boyer would let him!
The latest idea is maybe we could claim on our insurance… Which of course has thrown up a new problem: of course we should have checked the documents more carefully at the time (but with all the nightmares that the Halifax were throwing up with their failure to actually send the money they’d agreed we could borrow, [a simple re-mortgage took 13 weeks instead of the promised fortnight!] we seemed to have greater problems!), but it seems that our insurance is for main residence, not second home. We’ve got the photocopy that clearly shows we wanted second home insurance, so we’ll have to get that sorted out, as I doubt we are covered at the moment!!
M. Boyer showed us some more sketches – I feel we are nearly there with the plans. David and I spent all Sunday morning going over the later versions of the plans (M. Boyer had posted the changes to me at the house). We’ve got to send a few minor changes, but if he accepts those I think we’re there!
We both felt more positive after that meeting: we feel as though we may make some forward progress in the not too distant future… I am particularly heartened thinking back to our meeting: he told us to choose sanitary ware, so it sounds as though we may have need of it!! Fingers crossed…
We learnt an interesting thing: apparently “onerous” is NOT as expensive as “expensive”!!
Following our last visit, we bought a new chain (the sort used for securing motorcycles) – that should foil the bolt-cutters! But still no success in getting our keys returned… I think we should change the locks, but we ran out of time!
The usual topic of conversation cropped up immediately – we will be wholeheartedly relieved when Dominique (D) is no longer the bête-noire of our project – but we can’t really start to do anything until the issues over his work have been resolved. We would, ideally, like him to refund some money so that we are not totally out of pocket, and officially agree to have nothing more to do with our job. The system in France is different to England because of the guarantees given by workmen. No one wants to give a guarantee if their work has been done on a foundation started by another firm – if the original work is defective, it will be the chap who finishes the job who will end up having to put it right. We have already become reconciled to the fact that the work will all have to be stripped back to bare bones so that we will be able to find new workmen to finish the job (and because a lot of it is defective), but there is still a danger that Dominique could take us to a tribunal and sue us for the money he would have earned had he finished the job. That feels like adding insult to injury!
M. Boyer has been persistent in trying to pin Dominique down (and preferably get him to give us a refund, rather than insisting on redoing the defective work), but has ground to a complete halt. Dominique is no longer responding to messages or letters (the most recent letter, sent by recorded delivery, asked him to show up on the Saturday of our meeting and return our keys). The last effort M. Boyer made to contact him by phone ended up with Dominique’s mother shouting that there were no problems with the job until M. Boyer started butting in. She then slammed the phone down on him. Part of me wants to write a letter to her pointing out a few home truths: we never would have needed a project manager if Dominique had done good, timely work and finished our (3 to 4 month) job in less than the 2+ years spent so far. I feel quite strongly that she shouldn’t allow her address to be used by Dominique as his business address if she can’t behave in a professional manner! She’s obviously got a blind spot to he “baby”… Either that, or she’s never had him do any work for her! I feel it’s best that I don’t write the letter though!
Part of me wants to write to Crédit Agricole and tell them what a bad job he’s done at our house, but the part of me with experience of CA knows that it’s highly unlikely that anyone will care! So that’s another letter I shan’t write.
M. Boyer has finally had copies of Dominique’s insurance certificates: he wasn’t insured for insulation, metalwork (that will include the rails our plasterboard is mounted on, I’m sure, as well as the RSJ holding up the grenier floor!), plumbing and something else (which I forget). He was insured for building work, I think, but if you discount all the bits he’s not covered for (insulation under floors, metal reinforcing under floors, insulation behind the plasterboard, not to mention the electrics!) that only leaved the doorway between the kitchen and hall that doesn’t need ripping out and starting again! All of the insurance he did have (at the time of doing our work) has now lapsed, probably because he hasn’t paid the premiums. So even if we wanted him to re-do the work on the house, there is no way M. Boyer would let him!
The latest idea is maybe we could claim on our insurance… Which of course has thrown up a new problem: of course we should have checked the documents more carefully at the time (but with all the nightmares that the Halifax were throwing up with their failure to actually send the money they’d agreed we could borrow, [a simple re-mortgage took 13 weeks instead of the promised fortnight!] we seemed to have greater problems!), but it seems that our insurance is for main residence, not second home. We’ve got the photocopy that clearly shows we wanted second home insurance, so we’ll have to get that sorted out, as I doubt we are covered at the moment!!
M. Boyer showed us some more sketches – I feel we are nearly there with the plans. David and I spent all Sunday morning going over the later versions of the plans (M. Boyer had posted the changes to me at the house). We’ve got to send a few minor changes, but if he accepts those I think we’re there!
We both felt more positive after that meeting: we feel as though we may make some forward progress in the not too distant future… I am particularly heartened thinking back to our meeting: he told us to choose sanitary ware, so it sounds as though we may have need of it!! Fingers crossed…
We learnt an interesting thing: apparently “onerous” is NOT as expensive as “expensive”!!
Following our last visit, we bought a new chain (the sort used for securing motorcycles) – that should foil the bolt-cutters! But still no success in getting our keys returned… I think we should change the locks, but we ran out of time!
April visit 10
Other wildlife:
On a much nicer note, I saw (I think; it didn’t stay still long enough for me to fetch the book!) a swallowtail butterfly. It’s an interesting process working out what creatures I’ve seen: spot the quarry, try to remember all the details, look it up in my (French) book [I haven’t managed to find the English equivalent to the Flammarion], hope to recognise the Latin name so I can translate it into English. That does happen (sometimes). The alternative version involves looking up the French common name in the “wrist-breaker” (Oxford Hachette), and failing that Google the Latin when I get back home. It’s a lot easier when I manage to take a photo of the flower/wildlife and can compare my image to the pictures!!
I found out that “bouillon blanc” is the French name for mullein (or as I know it, verbascum), and you can make a tisane from the flower buds for sore throats. But I might Google that before I try it out!
The house seemed plagued by bumblebees. Their buzzing is a particularly irritating thing when one is trying to nest under your bed and you’re trying to sleep! I turfed out about six (or maybe the same 2 or 3 several times each?), and there always seemed to be at least one in the bathroom, one in the bedroom and one or two in the kitchen! Having knelt on a couple of bees as a child (with consequences painful for me and fatal for them), I’m quite keen on removing them from the premises! I think they were nesting, as they seemed obsessed by holes in the woodwork. The smaller bees were irresistibly drawn to the drainage holes in the windows; I may have to clean them all out when we’re actually able to stay there…
On a much nicer note, I saw (I think; it didn’t stay still long enough for me to fetch the book!) a swallowtail butterfly. It’s an interesting process working out what creatures I’ve seen: spot the quarry, try to remember all the details, look it up in my (French) book [I haven’t managed to find the English equivalent to the Flammarion], hope to recognise the Latin name so I can translate it into English. That does happen (sometimes). The alternative version involves looking up the French common name in the “wrist-breaker” (Oxford Hachette), and failing that Google the Latin when I get back home. It’s a lot easier when I manage to take a photo of the flower/wildlife and can compare my image to the pictures!!
I found out that “bouillon blanc” is the French name for mullein (or as I know it, verbascum), and you can make a tisane from the flower buds for sore throats. But I might Google that before I try it out!
The house seemed plagued by bumblebees. Their buzzing is a particularly irritating thing when one is trying to nest under your bed and you’re trying to sleep! I turfed out about six (or maybe the same 2 or 3 several times each?), and there always seemed to be at least one in the bathroom, one in the bedroom and one or two in the kitchen! Having knelt on a couple of bees as a child (with consequences painful for me and fatal for them), I’m quite keen on removing them from the premises! I think they were nesting, as they seemed obsessed by holes in the woodwork. The smaller bees were irresistibly drawn to the drainage holes in the windows; I may have to clean them all out when we’re actually able to stay there…
April visit 9
Autosuggestion…
I spoke with my cousin, who warned me away from long grass (we’d only got a few clumps of grass, most of them small, in the garden) because there’s a plague of ticks at the moment. Just thinking about them got me itching! And when I came upon a couple of tussocks of longer grass I could virtually feel the little buggers on me. I’m guessing the absence of “passengers” means that it was all in my mind, but it did keep me out of the field. Not that I had time to do anything there, but I did want to cut the long grass down by the hazel trees (and maybe coppice them, but I think I ought to read up on that before starting…), and tidy under the walnuts, so it’s not such a panic in September and we can reasonably ask M. Lorin to collect the nuts for us.
I spoke with my cousin, who warned me away from long grass (we’d only got a few clumps of grass, most of them small, in the garden) because there’s a plague of ticks at the moment. Just thinking about them got me itching! And when I came upon a couple of tussocks of longer grass I could virtually feel the little buggers on me. I’m guessing the absence of “passengers” means that it was all in my mind, but it did keep me out of the field. Not that I had time to do anything there, but I did want to cut the long grass down by the hazel trees (and maybe coppice them, but I think I ought to read up on that before starting…), and tidy under the walnuts, so it’s not such a panic in September and we can reasonably ask M. Lorin to collect the nuts for us.
April visit 8
Little luxuries:
It was really good to have the gas stove – I used it in evenings in the bedroom until I went to bed; a nice warm room, 2 hot-water bottles & 2 (or 3!) duvets & I was perfectly comfortable. OK, ok, I’ll admit to turning into a nesh Southerner! But trust me: duvets are goooood!
We used to go camping a lot when I was a child, and again with my first boyfriend – Stan & I had no money to spare for hotels, so camping meant being able to go away for holidays, so no complaints. But I’ve got out of the habit… Getting old? Probably, but I couldn’t get over how much I missed lights switches! The current regime: find an extension cable and a lamp (or a couple of lamps, and find an adaptor), plug in the extension cable, switch on the electricity at the junction box, and switch on the lamp. Now that we’ve got three lamps and two extension cables, we manage to have light in two rooms. The loo, bathroom and back corridor do have ceiling lights, so there we only need to plug in the extension cable that supplies that part of the house. We have one 4-gang socket that works (that is the entire power supply to the house at the moment): into this Dominique had plugged the immersion heater, the lights to the back of the house, and we have added 2 extensions cables – one to the bedroom, and one to the kitchen. In the kitchen we have bought another extension cable so we can have lights over the table where we eat, as well as fridge & kettle/hob/lamp on the table where we prepare food. I’m sure that people will be having nightmares over the number of plugs leading off the one power source in the house!! Hi John! In mitigation: we unplug most of the stuff when we’re not using it, we switch off the electrics totally when we leave the house, and finally, if there’s too many things plugged in we know that the trip switch works!! Too many things usually means a light, the hob and another cooking source (a sort of flat griddle)!
As I say, I dream of light switches!
Talking of luxuries, I’ve turned into a girl! I’ve started eating chocolate… Weird or what? I think I’ve eaten more chocolate in the last two or three months than I did in the previous decade! It still only averages out at one or two bars a week, but that’s still an enormous increase. Hope it goes away soon. I think it’s probably comfort eating?
It was really good to have the gas stove – I used it in evenings in the bedroom until I went to bed; a nice warm room, 2 hot-water bottles & 2 (or 3!) duvets & I was perfectly comfortable. OK, ok, I’ll admit to turning into a nesh Southerner! But trust me: duvets are goooood!
We used to go camping a lot when I was a child, and again with my first boyfriend – Stan & I had no money to spare for hotels, so camping meant being able to go away for holidays, so no complaints. But I’ve got out of the habit… Getting old? Probably, but I couldn’t get over how much I missed lights switches! The current regime: find an extension cable and a lamp (or a couple of lamps, and find an adaptor), plug in the extension cable, switch on the electricity at the junction box, and switch on the lamp. Now that we’ve got three lamps and two extension cables, we manage to have light in two rooms. The loo, bathroom and back corridor do have ceiling lights, so there we only need to plug in the extension cable that supplies that part of the house. We have one 4-gang socket that works (that is the entire power supply to the house at the moment): into this Dominique had plugged the immersion heater, the lights to the back of the house, and we have added 2 extensions cables – one to the bedroom, and one to the kitchen. In the kitchen we have bought another extension cable so we can have lights over the table where we eat, as well as fridge & kettle/hob/lamp on the table where we prepare food. I’m sure that people will be having nightmares over the number of plugs leading off the one power source in the house!! Hi John! In mitigation: we unplug most of the stuff when we’re not using it, we switch off the electrics totally when we leave the house, and finally, if there’s too many things plugged in we know that the trip switch works!! Too many things usually means a light, the hob and another cooking source (a sort of flat griddle)!
As I say, I dream of light switches!
Talking of luxuries, I’ve turned into a girl! I’ve started eating chocolate… Weird or what? I think I’ve eaten more chocolate in the last two or three months than I did in the previous decade! It still only averages out at one or two bars a week, but that’s still an enormous increase. Hope it goes away soon. I think it’s probably comfort eating?
April visit 7
Mirabelle
My last task before leaving was to re-shape the mirabelle: I’d thought it was a sucker, and nearly chopped it down when we first saw it. It was only time pressure that prevented me. Luckily! M. Lorin said it was a seedling that was doing much better than the parent tree, and that we should remove the old, worn out, one as it no longer fruited very well.
He very kindly took his chain saw to it last summer (did I mention: I neeeed a chain saw?!), and pulled out the root with his tractor. But of course the sapling had grown away from the mother & was quite wonky, and a bit lanky. I’ve been debating whether to chop out the middle to leave just the bottom few branches (which have healthy new growth), and decided to ‘go for it’. I tried (lots of times) to knock in a metal stake to pull the tree to, in an effort to straighten the trunk, but no chance: there are just too many stones – I gave up after about 8 goes. Now, there’s an interesting (and, I hope, successful) Heath Robinson arrangement involving breezeblocks & baler twine (I finally found a decent length of the stuff, rather than the six to eight inch bits I had a huge collection of!). The tree is currently upright, but we shall have to see whether this will correct the bend, or whether I’ve left it too late. Time will tell….
My last task before leaving was to re-shape the mirabelle: I’d thought it was a sucker, and nearly chopped it down when we first saw it. It was only time pressure that prevented me. Luckily! M. Lorin said it was a seedling that was doing much better than the parent tree, and that we should remove the old, worn out, one as it no longer fruited very well.
He very kindly took his chain saw to it last summer (did I mention: I neeeed a chain saw?!), and pulled out the root with his tractor. But of course the sapling had grown away from the mother & was quite wonky, and a bit lanky. I’ve been debating whether to chop out the middle to leave just the bottom few branches (which have healthy new growth), and decided to ‘go for it’. I tried (lots of times) to knock in a metal stake to pull the tree to, in an effort to straighten the trunk, but no chance: there are just too many stones – I gave up after about 8 goes. Now, there’s an interesting (and, I hope, successful) Heath Robinson arrangement involving breezeblocks & baler twine (I finally found a decent length of the stuff, rather than the six to eight inch bits I had a huge collection of!). The tree is currently upright, but we shall have to see whether this will correct the bend, or whether I’ve left it too late. Time will tell….
April visit 6
Garden progress!
After about 35 hours, I’d got the garden weed-free, and David spent about 8 hours weeding the paths and spraying the drive. We’ve reluctantly taken the decision to spray weed-killer on the drive (and maybe the edges I can’t get to). If we can get the garden under control, and mulch it once it is weed-free for a couple of weeks, I may be able to control the weeds on the drive by hand, but at the moment it is just too much. And if we don’t control them somehow, all the weeds on the drive will just spread seeds all over the garden! I’m not happy about it, but regard it as a short-term emergency measure rather than a permanent solution. I don’t know what else to do…
Every time it got difficult (I got either hot or cold [depending on the time of day and strength of the wind] and tired/achy) and I was demoralised, I reminded myself of Troy Baylis (I often try to be more like him). That guy is an inspiration: generally he seems to be the hardest working chap you can imagine, never complains, doesn’t blame anyone (even when he so easily could) for mishaps & generally finds a smile. The piercing blue eyes and cheeky grin probably don’t hurt, but that’s another story!
His latest exploit was trying to race in the second round at Donington. It was only being forbidden by the race boss & paramedics, who insisted that he go to hospital, that prevented him. He’d ground away most of his little finger in a crash and had to have two bones amputated. I think I’m quite a lot hardier than footballers, but Troy’s a role model and a half!! A weeding blister seems small beer!
Being English, I thought a jardinière was a plant pot stand… And preferably a nice example by Minton or Moorcroft! I found out that I’m a jardinière by accident. When M. Lorin was having his vide-grenier to clear more of his “stuff” out after we’d bought the house, there was a little boy playing with some gardening tools his grandparents had bought, so I mentioned that he was going to be a gardener when he grew up. Thankfully they laughed at my bad grammar! How much worse if I’d had to explain that I thought their little “jardinière” was a boy rather than just getting the feminine wrong…
After about 35 hours, I’d got the garden weed-free, and David spent about 8 hours weeding the paths and spraying the drive. We’ve reluctantly taken the decision to spray weed-killer on the drive (and maybe the edges I can’t get to). If we can get the garden under control, and mulch it once it is weed-free for a couple of weeks, I may be able to control the weeds on the drive by hand, but at the moment it is just too much. And if we don’t control them somehow, all the weeds on the drive will just spread seeds all over the garden! I’m not happy about it, but regard it as a short-term emergency measure rather than a permanent solution. I don’t know what else to do…
Every time it got difficult (I got either hot or cold [depending on the time of day and strength of the wind] and tired/achy) and I was demoralised, I reminded myself of Troy Baylis (I often try to be more like him). That guy is an inspiration: generally he seems to be the hardest working chap you can imagine, never complains, doesn’t blame anyone (even when he so easily could) for mishaps & generally finds a smile. The piercing blue eyes and cheeky grin probably don’t hurt, but that’s another story!
His latest exploit was trying to race in the second round at Donington. It was only being forbidden by the race boss & paramedics, who insisted that he go to hospital, that prevented him. He’d ground away most of his little finger in a crash and had to have two bones amputated. I think I’m quite a lot hardier than footballers, but Troy’s a role model and a half!! A weeding blister seems small beer!
Being English, I thought a jardinière was a plant pot stand… And preferably a nice example by Minton or Moorcroft! I found out that I’m a jardinière by accident. When M. Lorin was having his vide-grenier to clear more of his “stuff” out after we’d bought the house, there was a little boy playing with some gardening tools his grandparents had bought, so I mentioned that he was going to be a gardener when he grew up. Thankfully they laughed at my bad grammar! How much worse if I’d had to explain that I thought their little “jardinière” was a boy rather than just getting the feminine wrong…
April visit 5
Obsessing again?
I watched my minimum-maximum thermometer avidly (I’m such a fan that I’m considering getting one for downstairs – often the temperature is markedly different on the two floors – and one for outside: now that would be interesting!), and the coldest it got when I was there was 6°C. Still pretty nippy! By Tuesday (I’d been there since Sunday afternoon), downstairs was actually warmer at 7am than upstairs: 15°C rather than 11°C; that’s one of the nice things about great thick stone walls – once you get some warmth in there, they do seem to retain it. I’ve got a little second thermometer that only reads the temperature (not highs & lows), so that’s on the mantelpiece in the hall.
Outside (OK, I cheat, I put my other [other other!] thermometer in the sun; but I work in the sun, so I want to know how hot it is!) it was 30°C at 10am and 36°C at midday on Monday (24°C indoors). It was still cold at night; at 7.45am on Wednesday it was only 8°C in the sun, and, with a North wind, that was pretty cold to be hand weeding. Towards the end of the week, I tried to go outside only when the mist had burnt off, but was still wearing t-shirt, jumper, scarf & canvas gardening smock (like a fisherman’s smock) till about 11am/midday! Once I’d warmed up it was back to long sleeves/sun block & hat!
I watched my minimum-maximum thermometer avidly (I’m such a fan that I’m considering getting one for downstairs – often the temperature is markedly different on the two floors – and one for outside: now that would be interesting!), and the coldest it got when I was there was 6°C. Still pretty nippy! By Tuesday (I’d been there since Sunday afternoon), downstairs was actually warmer at 7am than upstairs: 15°C rather than 11°C; that’s one of the nice things about great thick stone walls – once you get some warmth in there, they do seem to retain it. I’ve got a little second thermometer that only reads the temperature (not highs & lows), so that’s on the mantelpiece in the hall.
Outside (OK, I cheat, I put my other [other other!] thermometer in the sun; but I work in the sun, so I want to know how hot it is!) it was 30°C at 10am and 36°C at midday on Monday (24°C indoors). It was still cold at night; at 7.45am on Wednesday it was only 8°C in the sun, and, with a North wind, that was pretty cold to be hand weeding. Towards the end of the week, I tried to go outside only when the mist had burnt off, but was still wearing t-shirt, jumper, scarf & canvas gardening smock (like a fisherman’s smock) till about 11am/midday! Once I’d warmed up it was back to long sleeves/sun block & hat!
April visit 4
Staying on at the house…
David’s such a sweetie! He encouraged me to stay on (the weeding really was assuming massive proportions in my mind – the bit that does worrying; – much more than the thought of the weather turning cold), and made sure we had enough food and things downstairs to be comfortable. We had been taking everything upstairs each time we left (when we had stayed at the house) so that there was nothing in Dominique’s way; nothing that could give him any excuse to not do any work. We’ve got a couple of folding beds (that we cable-tie together to create a really good sized double), and a couple of duvets, sheets, towels, clothes, spongebag and a makeshift kitchen – a trio of tables, a table-top 2-ring burner, kettle, crockery, cutlery & food. All the things that are waiting for the house to be ready so that we can use them, plus a few things we’ve bought specially for camping out there. We’ve got a pair of deckchairs & some flexible lamps, so we can even read in the evenings!
I’m always a bit nervous about staying on my own (it’s got to be done, so I do get on with it, but I don’t sleep as well), and the strange noises don’t help… We found some different kind of animal droppings this time – rats maybe? Or possibly dormice? Not in the house (like the owl poo!), but in the grenier over the bedroom, so that explains the “clog dancing” that I’ve heard a few nights! And I saw a mouse in the kitchen, which would explain the scritching sounds and polythene-bag-rustling when there is no wind… I tried to chase him out of the door, but he came right back in! No point setting traps until we’ve got the holes sorted out, but it made me super careful about putting the lid on firmly when I’d rummaged in our plastic boxes where we store food and clothing.
David’s such a sweetie! He encouraged me to stay on (the weeding really was assuming massive proportions in my mind – the bit that does worrying; – much more than the thought of the weather turning cold), and made sure we had enough food and things downstairs to be comfortable. We had been taking everything upstairs each time we left (when we had stayed at the house) so that there was nothing in Dominique’s way; nothing that could give him any excuse to not do any work. We’ve got a couple of folding beds (that we cable-tie together to create a really good sized double), and a couple of duvets, sheets, towels, clothes, spongebag and a makeshift kitchen – a trio of tables, a table-top 2-ring burner, kettle, crockery, cutlery & food. All the things that are waiting for the house to be ready so that we can use them, plus a few things we’ve bought specially for camping out there. We’ve got a pair of deckchairs & some flexible lamps, so we can even read in the evenings!
I’m always a bit nervous about staying on my own (it’s got to be done, so I do get on with it, but I don’t sleep as well), and the strange noises don’t help… We found some different kind of animal droppings this time – rats maybe? Or possibly dormice? Not in the house (like the owl poo!), but in the grenier over the bedroom, so that explains the “clog dancing” that I’ve heard a few nights! And I saw a mouse in the kitchen, which would explain the scritching sounds and polythene-bag-rustling when there is no wind… I tried to chase him out of the door, but he came right back in! No point setting traps until we’ve got the holes sorted out, but it made me super careful about putting the lid on firmly when I’d rummaged in our plastic boxes where we store food and clothing.
April visit 3
Garden
The garden (if you looked past the weeds - & that took some doing!) was starting to look lovely; there were clumps of about 10 different narcissi, and both kinds of ipheion, and the damson (soon, hopefully, to be removed by M. Lorin & his chainsaw) and mirabelle were covered in white blossom. Very vernal! For every silver lining (it sometimes feels) there has to be a cloud: the “indelible” pen I bought (yes, it was a proper one for writing on labels) turns out to be a joke indelible pen – the only labels that hadn’t washed/faded clean were the few bulbs that I knew the names of anyway! That will teach me to try to be organized! We ran out of time when we were planting the bulbs, so I never managed to draw a little plan of what had gone where, safe in the knowledge that the really big strong yellow labels wouldn’t blow away… They didn’t, but they might as well have done. Oh well, next year I will have to take with me some pictures of the types of bulbs I planted & map them out then.
I was trying to work out the last time I had weeded properly – it must have been in the summer some time, and possibly as early as June, so no wonder the weeds had gone mad! At least this year I won’t be digging out for the patio (still have to lay it, but that will be comparatively easy), nor will I have to move the soil mountain (that’s just a distant memory), so I can focus on hoeing and hand weeding. If I don’t plant any seeds, I can just hoe… but how likely is that?!
We saw a nuthatch checking out the blasted tree (another mirabelle, I think) by the snail pits – we think it was inspecting the hole for a nesting site. But that wasn’t our most exciting bird sighting: we were in Troyes, turning into a retail park to look at fireplaces, when we were treated to a bird’s eye view of a bird of prey trying to catch lunch. We think it was a sparrowhawk and a wagtail; they were so close we could see really clearly the markings on the feathers. We were so startled that we didn’t turn round in time to see whether the little bird got away (I’m always on the side of the underdog!)…
The garden (if you looked past the weeds - & that took some doing!) was starting to look lovely; there were clumps of about 10 different narcissi, and both kinds of ipheion, and the damson (soon, hopefully, to be removed by M. Lorin & his chainsaw) and mirabelle were covered in white blossom. Very vernal! For every silver lining (it sometimes feels) there has to be a cloud: the “indelible” pen I bought (yes, it was a proper one for writing on labels) turns out to be a joke indelible pen – the only labels that hadn’t washed/faded clean were the few bulbs that I knew the names of anyway! That will teach me to try to be organized! We ran out of time when we were planting the bulbs, so I never managed to draw a little plan of what had gone where, safe in the knowledge that the really big strong yellow labels wouldn’t blow away… They didn’t, but they might as well have done. Oh well, next year I will have to take with me some pictures of the types of bulbs I planted & map them out then.
I was trying to work out the last time I had weeded properly – it must have been in the summer some time, and possibly as early as June, so no wonder the weeds had gone mad! At least this year I won’t be digging out for the patio (still have to lay it, but that will be comparatively easy), nor will I have to move the soil mountain (that’s just a distant memory), so I can focus on hoeing and hand weeding. If I don’t plant any seeds, I can just hoe… but how likely is that?!
We saw a nuthatch checking out the blasted tree (another mirabelle, I think) by the snail pits – we think it was inspecting the hole for a nesting site. But that wasn’t our most exciting bird sighting: we were in Troyes, turning into a retail park to look at fireplaces, when we were treated to a bird’s eye view of a bird of prey trying to catch lunch. We think it was a sparrowhawk and a wagtail; they were so close we could see really clearly the markings on the feathers. We were so startled that we didn’t turn round in time to see whether the little bird got away (I’m always on the side of the underdog!)…
April visit 2
Obsession with temperature?
This time at the house the temperature had only dropped to -1°C inside. And it had been as warm as 23°C! Downstairs was much colder than upstairs (and, until we get the shutters fixed up there, downstairs is where we stay), so we spent as much time as possible with the doors and windows open, to try to warm it up. I think we managed to get it to about 11 or 12°C in the few days we were there, but it was nice to go outside and warm up! In fact, outside was so lovely and warm that I decided to stay on for an extra week… OK, then, honest reason: there were so many weeds that I couldn’t face the thought of leaving them to grow for another 5 or 6 weeks before being able to tackle them, and it wasn’t cold enough to be put off staying! ;-)
Apparently, this year again we are going to have the prevailing wind as a North wind. There’s one day of the year that dictates wind direction (some time after Easter, I think) and it was a Northerly then. I’d rather not, given the choice, but managed to cope last year. And at least it cools you down when you’ve got hot in the garden!
This time at the house the temperature had only dropped to -1°C inside. And it had been as warm as 23°C! Downstairs was much colder than upstairs (and, until we get the shutters fixed up there, downstairs is where we stay), so we spent as much time as possible with the doors and windows open, to try to warm it up. I think we managed to get it to about 11 or 12°C in the few days we were there, but it was nice to go outside and warm up! In fact, outside was so lovely and warm that I decided to stay on for an extra week… OK, then, honest reason: there were so many weeds that I couldn’t face the thought of leaving them to grow for another 5 or 6 weeks before being able to tackle them, and it wasn’t cold enough to be put off staying! ;-)
Apparently, this year again we are going to have the prevailing wind as a North wind. There’s one day of the year that dictates wind direction (some time after Easter, I think) and it was a Northerly then. I’d rather not, given the choice, but managed to cope last year. And at least it cools you down when you’ve got hot in the garden!
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!
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!
Back in the UK after our March visit
Bad news
We got back from our March visit and almost immediately had a mail from M. Boyer – Dominique wants to re-do the work himself. That was definitely our least preferred option. We know that M. Boyer won’t want Dominique to do any work until he’s received confirmation that Dominique is adequately insured, but we sent M. Boyer a list of criteria that would need to be met before we would let Dominique resume work. This included: a fixed time scale, (punitive) penalties for over-running, starting immediately we’re agreed, he pays for materials (we’ve already paid for one lot!) & a water-tight contract drawn up either by M. Boyer or our notaire.
I have to admit the main reason for sending this list is hoping M. Boyer will communicate these pre-conditions to Dominique and that will be enough to put him off completely! We’d much rather he changes his mind and offers to pay us back some of the money we paid him!
I don’t play poker, but I have a feeling this is what it’s like…?
Depression vs despair/inertia
I’ve been spending some time (an inordinate amount, it feels) pondering the difference between depression (probably seasonal affective disorder) and despair, coupled with inertia. The only conclusion I came up with is that they feel different, but the effect (i.e. nothing happening) is the same…
Was it worth the thoughts? Have you been helped?
Cormorant
I was coming home on the bus, crossing the Thames on Westminster Bridge, when a cormorant flew overhead. It was lovely to see it, but oddly made me think it ought to be in China; I have a feeling I’ve read (or even seen a television programme?) about Chinese fishermen who use cormorants to catch fish. Am I imagining that?
Snow
We had some snow – not very much, but enough to cause chaos on the roads. I hope that we will have some when we are staying at our house this winter (probably a bit optimistic!); that would give me chance to take some new Christmas card photos!
We got back from our March visit and almost immediately had a mail from M. Boyer – Dominique wants to re-do the work himself. That was definitely our least preferred option. We know that M. Boyer won’t want Dominique to do any work until he’s received confirmation that Dominique is adequately insured, but we sent M. Boyer a list of criteria that would need to be met before we would let Dominique resume work. This included: a fixed time scale, (punitive) penalties for over-running, starting immediately we’re agreed, he pays for materials (we’ve already paid for one lot!) & a water-tight contract drawn up either by M. Boyer or our notaire.
I have to admit the main reason for sending this list is hoping M. Boyer will communicate these pre-conditions to Dominique and that will be enough to put him off completely! We’d much rather he changes his mind and offers to pay us back some of the money we paid him!
I don’t play poker, but I have a feeling this is what it’s like…?
Depression vs despair/inertia
I’ve been spending some time (an inordinate amount, it feels) pondering the difference between depression (probably seasonal affective disorder) and despair, coupled with inertia. The only conclusion I came up with is that they feel different, but the effect (i.e. nothing happening) is the same…
Was it worth the thoughts? Have you been helped?
Cormorant
I was coming home on the bus, crossing the Thames on Westminster Bridge, when a cormorant flew overhead. It was lovely to see it, but oddly made me think it ought to be in China; I have a feeling I’ve read (or even seen a television programme?) about Chinese fishermen who use cormorants to catch fish. Am I imagining that?
Snow
We had some snow – not very much, but enough to cause chaos on the roads. I hope that we will have some when we are staying at our house this winter (probably a bit optimistic!); that would give me chance to take some new Christmas card photos!
March visit 7
Wild flowers
We saw loads of scilla (squills) and hellebores (stinking, I think, but having virtually no sense of smell I couldn’t tell!) in the grass verges. It’s so lovely seeing the wildflowers, not something we’re used to here…
They were wild daffodils in a couple of woods (the Wordsworth kind, narcissus pseudonarcissus). We were in a hurry one day, so I never stopped to take any photos. We went back the next day, and they’d all gone; we’d seen a couple of people collecting them, but I wouldn’t have believed they could strip an entire wood. Someone had… We saw lots of the wild daffodils in florists and in windows, so I suspect they are either not protected like here, or the protection is just ignored. We found another little wood we’d seen from the road – across a field, over a stream and behind a barbed-wire fence – and that still had plenty; so difficult to photograph, but at least no one had managed to pick them all. It was beautiful to see the wood carpeted like that!
Makes me wonder whether I should plant some under our trees…
We saw loads of scilla (squills) and hellebores (stinking, I think, but having virtually no sense of smell I couldn’t tell!) in the grass verges. It’s so lovely seeing the wildflowers, not something we’re used to here…
They were wild daffodils in a couple of woods (the Wordsworth kind, narcissus pseudonarcissus). We were in a hurry one day, so I never stopped to take any photos. We went back the next day, and they’d all gone; we’d seen a couple of people collecting them, but I wouldn’t have believed they could strip an entire wood. Someone had… We saw lots of the wild daffodils in florists and in windows, so I suspect they are either not protected like here, or the protection is just ignored. We found another little wood we’d seen from the road – across a field, over a stream and behind a barbed-wire fence – and that still had plenty; so difficult to photograph, but at least no one had managed to pick them all. It was beautiful to see the wood carpeted like that!
Makes me wonder whether I should plant some under our trees…
March visit 6
Observations on French homes
Following on from thinking about the lovely gîte, there are 2 points I’m not sure about:
1. Brown kitchens
Why? I don’t think anything more needs saying! However, in case anyone doesn’t immediately twig what I mean (you may not have recently been in a French house), let me just say: brown sink (2-tone, of course), brown taps (2-tone, also), brown tiles (worktop, splash-back &, obviously, floor), brown hob, brown oven (if one fitted) and of course wooden (a particularly brown kind; no beech or birch here) doors.
2. Five (at least) different types of flooring
We’ve stayed at enough places now to wonder whether there is some sort of ordinance that decrees you must have at least five different types of floor covering in any home. Preferably at least four different types (shapes, sizes, colours) of tiles and two kinds of wooden flooring. I’ve got pictures to prove it!
Following on from thinking about the lovely gîte, there are 2 points I’m not sure about:
1. Brown kitchens
Why? I don’t think anything more needs saying! However, in case anyone doesn’t immediately twig what I mean (you may not have recently been in a French house), let me just say: brown sink (2-tone, of course), brown taps (2-tone, also), brown tiles (worktop, splash-back &, obviously, floor), brown hob, brown oven (if one fitted) and of course wooden (a particularly brown kind; no beech or birch here) doors.
2. Five (at least) different types of flooring
We’ve stayed at enough places now to wonder whether there is some sort of ordinance that decrees you must have at least five different types of floor covering in any home. Preferably at least four different types (shapes, sizes, colours) of tiles and two kinds of wooden flooring. I’ve got pictures to prove it!
March visit 5
Gîte
We stayed at the gîte belonging to the nephew of M. Lorin, in the next village along the valley. In this part of the world you can’t just say “M. Lorin” and expect anyone to know whom you mean! We know four M. Lorin (Lorins?), and I’m sure there are more out there to discover!
The house has been done up beautifully. The bedrooms are themed: blue toile de Jouy in the main room, yellow and green in the second bedroom and green gingham in the third. The sofa in the lounge confirms I’m right in intending to do up our folding iron bedstead as a sofa! Just need to buy some penetrating oil to free up the joints, then I can sand down the rust, paint it & away we go. That’s, of course, a project for another day!
There’s a large eat-in kitchen with a (non-working) fireplace and all mod cons. The lounge is lovely, but the fireplace not so much. And it doesn’t work – that really does make a difference; we’ve got so spoilt by being able to have an open fire – it wasn’t necessary, with the central heating, but we missed the hypnotic effect of the flames. But overall this is a lovely holiday home; one that we could recommend to anyone! (Unless they’re particularly tight, of course! He he he!)
We stayed at the gîte belonging to the nephew of M. Lorin, in the next village along the valley. In this part of the world you can’t just say “M. Lorin” and expect anyone to know whom you mean! We know four M. Lorin (Lorins?), and I’m sure there are more out there to discover!
The house has been done up beautifully. The bedrooms are themed: blue toile de Jouy in the main room, yellow and green in the second bedroom and green gingham in the third. The sofa in the lounge confirms I’m right in intending to do up our folding iron bedstead as a sofa! Just need to buy some penetrating oil to free up the joints, then I can sand down the rust, paint it & away we go. That’s, of course, a project for another day!
There’s a large eat-in kitchen with a (non-working) fireplace and all mod cons. The lounge is lovely, but the fireplace not so much. And it doesn’t work – that really does make a difference; we’ve got so spoilt by being able to have an open fire – it wasn’t necessary, with the central heating, but we missed the hypnotic effect of the flames. But overall this is a lovely holiday home; one that we could recommend to anyone! (Unless they’re particularly tight, of course! He he he!)
March visit 4
Dominique Drouot’s insurance
M. Boyer has spoken with Dominique’s insurance company – there is a problem getting copies of his certificates. M. Boyer thinks this is because either Dominique has stopped paying his premiums, or because there is an existing claim being made against him. Either of which doesn’t look good. Apparently M. Boyer needs to contact the head office in Paris to get copies, which he is trying to do. Bureaucracy always takes time!
In the meantime, he believes that Dominique is not insured for: insulation, metalwork, building work and plumbing. So that’s pretty much got our job covered! Obviously this will influence whether Dominique can re-do the work, so we need to know the answer…
M. Boyer has spoken with Dominique’s insurance company – there is a problem getting copies of his certificates. M. Boyer thinks this is because either Dominique has stopped paying his premiums, or because there is an existing claim being made against him. Either of which doesn’t look good. Apparently M. Boyer needs to contact the head office in Paris to get copies, which he is trying to do. Bureaucracy always takes time!
In the meantime, he believes that Dominique is not insured for: insulation, metalwork, building work and plumbing. So that’s pretty much got our job covered! Obviously this will influence whether Dominique can re-do the work, so we need to know the answer…
March visit 3
Meeting with M. Boyer
We went to M. Boyer’s office (I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that) for an all day meeting (9 –5.30, phew!). It seems as though there were no points left unaddressed, but I’m sure I’ve forgotten most of them by now. We looked at some sketches (by the end, I knew that we’d have to send some scanned alterations, but I can only think in French for a certain time before losing the will to live!), and David has christened M. Boyer “nitpicker pursuivant”. This made me think of a certain beautiful young lady of my acquaintance (hi M – you know who you are!), but nitpicking to the highest level is what we need!
The Boyers took us to see their house; they are in the process of renovating an old house themselves and are keen to use environmentally friendly processes wherever possible. We really liked the hemp/lime wall covering – it’s rougher than plaster, but apparently a really good insulator (doesn’t need rock wool or glass fibre as well). Also, the finish can be left as it is; no painting, I like that idea! If all our insulation/plasterboard has to come out (and it sounds as though it does!), that would be a very good alternative.
While we were saying goodbye to the Boyers, a flight of cranes went overhead; they sure are noisy brutes! It was lovely to see them; perhaps we’ll get around to trying to see them nesting next year… Once we’d seen the first skein, we saw them again several times on the journey home. They fly much more untidily than geese, whose neat V-formation made it comparatively easy to tell the difference. Also, if they are low, the noise gives the game away!
We went to M. Boyer’s office (I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that) for an all day meeting (9 –5.30, phew!). It seems as though there were no points left unaddressed, but I’m sure I’ve forgotten most of them by now. We looked at some sketches (by the end, I knew that we’d have to send some scanned alterations, but I can only think in French for a certain time before losing the will to live!), and David has christened M. Boyer “nitpicker pursuivant”. This made me think of a certain beautiful young lady of my acquaintance (hi M – you know who you are!), but nitpicking to the highest level is what we need!
The Boyers took us to see their house; they are in the process of renovating an old house themselves and are keen to use environmentally friendly processes wherever possible. We really liked the hemp/lime wall covering – it’s rougher than plaster, but apparently a really good insulator (doesn’t need rock wool or glass fibre as well). Also, the finish can be left as it is; no painting, I like that idea! If all our insulation/plasterboard has to come out (and it sounds as though it does!), that would be a very good alternative.
While we were saying goodbye to the Boyers, a flight of cranes went overhead; they sure are noisy brutes! It was lovely to see them; perhaps we’ll get around to trying to see them nesting next year… Once we’d seen the first skein, we saw them again several times on the journey home. They fly much more untidily than geese, whose neat V-formation made it comparatively easy to tell the difference. Also, if they are low, the noise gives the game away!
March visit 2
New shutters
Dominique Baty has fitted our new shutters – I was so concerned in the last post with getting down the stuff from our meeting with M. Boyer and the “breaking & entering” that I never answered the first question: it was Dominique B who replaced the chain, when he came to do something to the shutters (I think he came back & painted the têtes-bergères and hinges). He had come to the house a couple of days before we got back, and found the chain cut. He had noticed that Dominique D’s stuff was missing, so we think DD must have gone to the house, knowing that we were due there at the weekend. Sneaky, I think just about sums up how I feel about him at the moment!
Because it had been so rain-soaked, the paint that Dominique B had touched up was still wet and that, coupled with the knowledge of how the damp upsets new joinery, made us reluctant to open the shutters. So we didn’t! Of course that meant no sun got into the house, so it didn’t warm up much.
Dominique Baty has fitted our new shutters – I was so concerned in the last post with getting down the stuff from our meeting with M. Boyer and the “breaking & entering” that I never answered the first question: it was Dominique B who replaced the chain, when he came to do something to the shutters (I think he came back & painted the têtes-bergères and hinges). He had come to the house a couple of days before we got back, and found the chain cut. He had noticed that Dominique D’s stuff was missing, so we think DD must have gone to the house, knowing that we were due there at the weekend. Sneaky, I think just about sums up how I feel about him at the moment!
Because it had been so rain-soaked, the paint that Dominique B had touched up was still wet and that, coupled with the knowledge of how the damp upsets new joinery, made us reluctant to open the shutters. So we didn’t! Of course that meant no sun got into the house, so it didn’t warm up much.
March visit 1
Journey down
On the journey down, we were amazed at how much standing water we saw. We’d just missed the rain, judging by the road surface, but fields were absolutely sodden, once more, and streams had overflowed their banks. England has had plenty of rain, but had been dry for a while before we left home, so we weren’t expecting that.
Needless to say, the garden was, still (again?), so soggy that we couldn’t get on to it to weed! Boo… It needs it, desperately.
When we chatted with the neighbours, they all told us that the rain had only just stopped before we got there – we’d missed the flooding, but still saw the evidence of enormous rainfall when we were leaving four days later, so they really did have it come down.
My obsession with how cold our house gets was fuelled by a look at the thermometer… –11°C, inside, of course. I think it was down to –15/16°C outside – really must buy another minimum/maximum thermometer!
One thing I found upsetting, not in itself, but in case it had been left for us, was the mummified cat I found upstairs. Thinking it over later, we think it had probably got itself caught in the rafters and an owl (or another cat) had knocked it off much later. I know the wind can’t have blown it, because the house has been shut up, and in the summer I had all the doors and windows propped open, letting a howling gale through on some days. I know it sounds paranoid to think someone might do something as nasty as leaving a dead cat in our house. Until last summer I wouldn’t have thought of such a thing, but we were talking with M. Lorin about his tractor (we’d said he could leave it in our barn again if he wanted), and he said thank you, but no. The last time someone had put sugar in his fuel tank. The thought of someone trespassing on our land to do something that mean was disquieting. Oh, well!
On the journey down, we were amazed at how much standing water we saw. We’d just missed the rain, judging by the road surface, but fields were absolutely sodden, once more, and streams had overflowed their banks. England has had plenty of rain, but had been dry for a while before we left home, so we weren’t expecting that.
Needless to say, the garden was, still (again?), so soggy that we couldn’t get on to it to weed! Boo… It needs it, desperately.
When we chatted with the neighbours, they all told us that the rain had only just stopped before we got there – we’d missed the flooding, but still saw the evidence of enormous rainfall when we were leaving four days later, so they really did have it come down.
My obsession with how cold our house gets was fuelled by a look at the thermometer… –11°C, inside, of course. I think it was down to –15/16°C outside – really must buy another minimum/maximum thermometer!
One thing I found upsetting, not in itself, but in case it had been left for us, was the mummified cat I found upstairs. Thinking it over later, we think it had probably got itself caught in the rafters and an owl (or another cat) had knocked it off much later. I know the wind can’t have blown it, because the house has been shut up, and in the summer I had all the doors and windows propped open, letting a howling gale through on some days. I know it sounds paranoid to think someone might do something as nasty as leaving a dead cat in our house. Until last summer I wouldn’t have thought of such a thing, but we were talking with M. Lorin about his tractor (we’d said he could leave it in our barn again if he wanted), and he said thank you, but no. The last time someone had put sugar in his fuel tank. The thought of someone trespassing on our land to do something that mean was disquieting. Oh, well!
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Testing...
I thought I'd try to see if I can access Blogger - it seems OK so far... So, I'm going to try saving as draft & see if it will let me edit afterwards...
W.T.S!
W.T.S!
This looks as though it could be working...
Now I'm going to try adding a picture
It all seems to be working OK... Now let's see if it posts...
That doesn't mean I'm going to abandon Shoutpost - that's a really friendly site!
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
New blog address...
New Blog
Blogger seems to be working, at the moment, but I don't know for how much longer - I tried twice this morning, and got nowhere!
I have set-up a new blog on ShoutPost; I'm finding it a bit tricky, but I've only just started, so it could be a 'getting-used-to-it' thing... I remember thinking the same about Blogger, Flickr, Picasa etc. in the beginning.
So fingers crossed I can get my blog updated one way or another!!
Blogger seems to be working, at the moment, but I don't know for how much longer - I tried twice this morning, and got nowhere!
I have set-up a new blog on ShoutPost; I'm finding it a bit tricky, but I've only just started, so it could be a 'getting-used-to-it' thing... I remember thinking the same about Blogger, Flickr, Picasa etc. in the beginning.
So fingers crossed I can get my blog updated one way or another!!
Monday, March 19, 2007
Today I've got the icons back in the Posting window!!
I HOPE this is going to publish; if not I am just days away from finding a new Blog site - if anyone can recommend something attractive and reliable, please leave post a comment, thank you. I'm busy with various other things for about a week, so am not going to change in a hurry, but can't cope with the unpredictability - and when it's not working I can't access the help/contact us functions adequately/at all. So I can't let Support know the problems!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Most recent visit to the maître d'œuvre
We went to see M. Boyer on 2 March - another all day marathon, with (obviously!) a break for lunch. It was good (mostly), but Dominique is still the main cause for concern...We got to the house on Thursday afternoon, and were surprised to see a brand new chain around the gates; the old one was perfectly adequate. Who had put the new one there? And why?
The second question was answered much more quickly than the first: Dominique's machinery for installing plasterboard had gone from the house and barn, and his plastering platform was missing as well. I'm not saying Dominique cut the chain, but someone did: I found one link on the ground near the gate. It looked as though it had been cut with boltcutters and bent apart - that took some effort; I tried to bend it and couldn't make it budge! It's probably leaping to conclusions to guess that Dominique is guilty of breaking-and-entering (we already know he's not trustworthy), but someone who didn't have a padlock key but did have a house key took Dominique's belongings from our house... The only person we know with a house key, but without a padlock key (we changed that lock) is Dominique...
We told that to M. Boyer, who thinks it's probably Dominique who took his stuff. I'm not sure if it's breaking and entering if the breaking relates to the gate rather than the house, but it's criminal damage if nothing else, and we had asked for our keys to be returned in the letter we sent by courier in October (we've got proof of delivery to his business address: his mother signed for it), and told him that he could collect his belongings, but only by arrangement with us, so I'm sure that's some other law broken there. I know French law is different than English, but I doubt they let you just go to someone else's house and let yourself in when you've been ordered not to, having cut the security chain on their gate! The only reason we didn't report it to the police is that we are trying to get the matter resolved in as friendly a manner as possible. And we still can report him to the police later, if he won't be reasonable...
M. Boyer had finally had a meeting with Dominique (one that he showed up to - I think it was the 6th attempt; he was a no-show all the other times) on the Friday before we saw him. He had told Dominique there were 3 possible courses of action:
- We go to a tribunal. This now predicted to take up to four years, and M. Boyer estimates it will cost us €10,000, and Dominique €20,000 - enough to bankrupt his business,
- Dominique pays us back the money we have given to him, and he walks away from the job, or
- Dominique re-does all the unsatisfactory work under M. Boyer's supervision, and to his standards
We spent the rest of the meeting discussing the house room-by-room - what we intended the use to be, and how we wanted the layout. We'd sent him some sketches, so we are getting closer, but I'm now not happy about the layout of the en-suite bathroom, but David says we can change that. We're planning another meeting in about a month, and hopefully by then Dominique will have got back to M. Boyer, returned our keys and chosen "Option 2"...
Please keep your fingers crossed for us!
Sunday, January 28, 2007
BloggerBot
I guess I'm behind the times (as usual) when it comes to technology. I read about BloggerBot & thought "Wow! Let's give that a go!" I didn't seem to be able to get it installed correctly, so uninstalled & came back later for another try. By the time I was trying again, I couldn't find the original form to fill in on Blogger, so did a search. This came up with various posts from people surprised/sorry that BloggerBot was dead! [No wonder I couldn't get it to work! Perhaps Blogger shouldn't still be advertising it?]
Anyway, just trying the "Blog This" button in Picasa, to see if I can get it to put a caption where I want it... I love Picasa, but the help has never worked since I installed it, and the links on the website give me a "This page cannot be displayed" message. Hmmm! I think I'll probably just be sizing photos manually, as before...
"Urban fox"
Just finishing a snack in the garden...
Anyway, just trying the "Blog This" button in Picasa, to see if I can get it to put a caption where I want it... I love Picasa, but the help has never worked since I installed it, and the links on the website give me a "This page cannot be displayed" message. Hmmm! I think I'll probably just be sizing photos manually, as before...
"Urban fox"
Just finishing a snack in the garden...
New Shutters
I forgot to say, we are due to be getting our new shutters sometime this week, so the next time we visit the house, it should look completely different!
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Dominique's work...
Click photos to enlarge - I'm thinking of trying BloggerBot, but would rather get this post sorted first, so Watch This Space!
Here are just a few example of why we were becoming concerned with the quality of Dominique's work. The darker lines on the concrete of the kitchen floor had appeared the last time we visited the house in October - a sign of the damp coming through where he had not laid a damp-proof membrane under the concrete. We had asked him to lay insulation and damp-proofing under all the floors.
He also let his workmen hide the metalwork on the new windows; I believe he did not know about this before we pointed it out to him. but it's another example of work that we were not happy with. Given the quality of the windows, the surround looks even worse in comparison.
Considering he's a plumber by profession, I think I could do a better job! In fact I know I can do a better job; it's been a long time since I soldered anything, but dad wouldn't have let me make a mess like this! And this is piping that was going to be on permanent display, not something that would be hidden by a kitchen unit.
This is the piping under the vanity unit in the bathroom; given that they don't just have mice over there, but a whopping dormouse problem too, this just looks like a "cat-flap" for the furry critters!
Don't get me wrong; I think dormice are cute! But that doesn't mean I want them making themselves at home in our house!
This is the leak that was under the toilet, and if you look carefully you can see the cracks in the concrete (outlined in red). As we only stayed at the house for 3 weeks since the concrete was laid, I wasn't happy that it started to crack so soon.
An example of one of the holes in the concrete; they were there before we arrived in July, so it wasn't my weight breaking through!
M. Boyer chipped away at this to see how deep the concrete was, and the insulation: about 2 inches of each, laid on bare earth; my worst suspicions were confirmed.
Here are just a few example of why we were becoming concerned with the quality of Dominique's work. The darker lines on the concrete of the kitchen floor had appeared the last time we visited the house in October - a sign of the damp coming through where he had not laid a damp-proof membrane under the concrete. We had asked him to lay insulation and damp-proofing under all the floors.
He also let his workmen hide the metalwork on the new windows; I believe he did not know about this before we pointed it out to him. but it's another example of work that we were not happy with. Given the quality of the windows, the surround looks even worse in comparison.
Considering he's a plumber by profession, I think I could do a better job! In fact I know I can do a better job; it's been a long time since I soldered anything, but dad wouldn't have let me make a mess like this! And this is piping that was going to be on permanent display, not something that would be hidden by a kitchen unit.
This is the piping under the vanity unit in the bathroom; given that they don't just have mice over there, but a whopping dormouse problem too, this just looks like a "cat-flap" for the furry critters!Don't get me wrong; I think dormice are cute! But that doesn't mean I want them making themselves at home in our house!
This is the leak that was under the toilet, and if you look carefully you can see the cracks in the concrete (outlined in red). As we only stayed at the house for 3 weeks since the concrete was laid, I wasn't happy that it started to crack so soon.
An example of one of the holes in the concrete; they were there before we arrived in July, so it wasn't my weight breaking through!M. Boyer chipped away at this to see how deep the concrete was, and the insulation: about 2 inches of each, laid on bare earth; my worst suspicions were confirmed.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Long time, no see...
Happy New Year!
I had put the computer away in it's box before Christmas; it was in the way of where I wanted to put my little Christmas tree, and I wanted a complete break from preparing/thinking about the visit to the maître d'œuvre. After Christmas, I really didn’t want to start thinking about things again, so, it's been a long time since I updated the blog. Here goes:
We spent a long time preparing and reviewing the list of « besoins et souhaits » ("Wants & Wishes") for M. Boyer, and finally sent it off to him last weekend in preparation for our meeting last Friday. We were due to meet at the house at 2.30, but he had emailed us the week before to ask whether he could bring 2 colleagues and spend the whole day there. Of course we were happy to agree to this; the sooner we can get started, the quicker it will be finished!
Remembering how nippy it was when we measured up the house after we bought it (mid-October), we took thermal underwear (long-johns & long-sleeved tops) and thick boots and jumpers, together with our warmest coats. It was the right choice: David got a bit chilled, but I managed to stay completely warm, mainly because I had a trip back to the gîte to fetch some papers/photos – that was enough exercise to get the circulation going again. Even though it was somewhere around 10°c outside, the house was noticeably nippier. The minimum/maximum thermometer had recorded a low of -5½°c (assuming my thermometer is correct) inside the house! Not as bad as last winter (low of -8½°c), but considering it’s only been down to that level outside, still pretty chilly; and it felt as though the house had retained most of that cold!
All the neighbours are disgusted with the weather; according to different reports it's either been below freezing either once, or 2 or 3 times. And then only as low as -5°c (or -6°, depending to whom you listen). It should have been as low as -15° to -18° at this time of year. When we arrived, it was much colder in the house than outside, but it eventually warmed up significantly with the doors open for a time on Thursday, all day Friday and a couple of hours on Saturday.
The unseasonably warm weather was not enough to stop us enjoying the log-fire at the gîte – that’s one of the pleasures we are really looking forward to when our house is habitable. So much more relaxing than a radiator or gas fire!
M. Lorin has a “weather station” (I’m not sure what the proper word is) in his front room, and he said it had been up to 98° humidity! No wonder it felt so sodden everywhere; we had left a wine box at the house (in case of emergencies! :-) ), and that had sagged, the air was so moist. I’m hoping all my books are OK…
We got to the house in good time for the meeting with M. Boyer and his colleagues, but had difficulty opening the kitchen front door, and some of the windows (to open the shutters to let light in) because the wood had absorbed the damp! We found out afterwards that he was late arriving because he had finally managed to make contact with Dominique… M. Baty had told him to call early to catch him; but M. Boyer only had the telephone number on Dominique’s estimate and so woke his mother up at 7am – that will teach her to let her address be used as a business address! [Perhaps Dominique doesn’t use his own address because he’s let too many clients down in the past?] Reading between the lines, a cross telephone call from his mother was enough to get Dominique to finally get back to M. Boyer!
Part of the day’s work was to assess what work Dominique had done: what was finished; what was not finished; what needed undoing and re-doing. One of the Philippes told us that the Tribunal route could take two years, not the year we had been advised; that reinforced our decision not to chase the money through the courts – personal experience has taught me that’s one way of throwing good money after bad! M. Boyer is going to have a meeting at the house with Dominique, after his colleague has quantified the works done (and assessed how much they should have cost). So we’re keeping our fingers crossed…
We walked round the house and discussed what we intended to do everywhere, but ran out of time to discuss any of our carefully prepared « besoins et souhaits », so will be going back for a meeting when M Boyer has had chance to attach the measurements taken by Philippe 1 to the plans and Philippe 2 has looked at all the financial details, and M. Boyer has met with Dominique. A big thank you to John Knighton for sending us the plans in Autocad to forward on.
We are hopeful that by the time we next go to France (late next month?), we will have a much clearer idea of what is possible, how much it will cost, how long it will take, and whether we stand any chance of getting some money back from Dominique…
Apart from a lot of discussions about VAT (the law changed a couple of weeks before our meeting; now you don’t automatically pay 5.5% on renovations – there are hoards of criteria to wade through in the hope of avoiding paying 19.6%, but I have a nasty feeling…!), I don’t know where the morning went! Not being in London (snatched sandwich at the desk), we all went to a local restaurant for a quick lunch. Quick by French standards – but it was lovely, and they had a vegetarian choice! We could get used to that. The downside, of course being that you’d get a lot less work done. But in France they are only allowed to work 35 hours a week, so that wouldn’t be a problem!
As we were shutting up the house to go to lunch, we found we couldn’t shut the kitchen front door. Panic! So we jammed it shut, and hoped for the best… Not that it would have made too much difference; we couldn’t lock the other front door! The 3 hours that the doors had been open had been enough for the ambient moisture to warp the frames just a little bit more. I was not happy. [Not in a strop; just worried.]
After lunch David called M. Baty, but couldn’t convince his wife we had a problem. [David would have been the one with a problem! There’s no way I’d have left France with a door that wasn’t locked!] M. Boyer called later, and M. Baty was back home by then, so he explained the problem, and M. Baty rearranged our meeting from 11am Saturday at his house, to 2.30-3pm at our house. We had to go round and check the house was OK before I could settle down on the Friday night!
One particularly interesting thing to come out of our discussion was a type of fire that is basically an open fire, but has glass sides and front that you can pull down to make it safe at night. I think that could be the answer to one of our questions. Watch this space…
The next day, watching M. Baty was a revelation; I would have got out a chisel or plane, and started taking bits off either the door or frame, but he drifted the frame in a bit further using a wedge, and even managed to alter the way it was sited. Having checked both doors locked several times, he left us with the advice not to take any wood off anywhere until at least a year from now. David R had said the same thing, but I hadn’t realised that a door that could not be closed could be fixed in such an elegant way. He has promised to readjust the frames after we have got our central heating up and running.
M. Baty’s hair has got longer and curlier; he looked quite dashing! What is it about rugged men who are good with their hands?!!
Along with all the weeds in my garden (too soggy to do any weeding, so they're all still there!), the first of my bulbs are flowering - little yellow crocuses ("Golden Bells").
As we were leaving, Mme. Bouzenard showed us an old photo of our house; it was quite odd seeing that much colour in the woodwork (we knew it must have been green once!), and M. Thäele (still not sure if that’s how his name is spelt) had a lawn in front of the house. According to the reminiscences of the older people, he used to cut the grass with a scythe – and it was perfectly level and neat. That sounds amazing, but if you have ever tried to use a scythe, you’ll know it’s a lot harder than it looks! My efforts rarely achieved grass-removal, let alone a lawn finish! Another photo taken in 1964 when the Bouzenards were building their house showed « le baron » in their garden; it’s nice to put a face to the name. He sounds an amazing man, bit of a character, but very honest and trustworthy. We have heard stories about him from all the villagers we have chatted with. He wasn’t too hot on housework (but I knew that anyway!), and the girls who visited him used to surreptitiously wipe their glasses when he wasn’t looking, before having a drink with him. These days, sadly, I doubt parents would let their children visit an old man living alone, but all the people our age have fond memories of visiting him after school when they were children. He refused to be interred in the churchyard, as he didn’t want to be among the dishonest as well as the good people, so insisted that he was buried among the vines. He didn’t want anyone to attend his funeral, so asked for it to be at dawn. M. Bouzenard took his coffin up to the vineyard at daybreak, only to find the entire village had turned out to send him on his way; even the children had all got up early to attend. I would have liked to have met him; he sounds rather like my grandfather – heart of gold, adored children, but had his own distinct ideas! What he would have made of us, I dread to think, but I feel we are doing a good thing restoring his house to the beautiful place it once was.
My hair had been falling out in the summer, owing to the stress, I’m sure. Once we made the decision to get the place checked out by professionals (and employ someone to project manage, if necessary), that stopped fairly quickly. I don’t think it’s growing back yet, but at least I never got any bald patches (the advantage of having lots of hair, even if it is very fine!). The lovely thing about being out of London is washing my hair, and it actually being shiny, like it used to be!
However, seeing Mme. Bouzenard put all my trivial worries into perspective; I had admired her nail-polish (a deep maroon/purple colour that went beautifully with her jumper) – I thought perhaps she’d dressed up for a celebration – but she said it was to protect her nails. Apparently dark colours are better at stopping sunlight damaging the nails. But there is nothing she can do about her hair falling out; it’s already thinning (and has gone completely flat; all the curl has gone) and she’s only had one session of chemotherapy so far. She’s still having radiotherapy, (I think; my French is still not great) and has a course of chemo that will last six months, with a treatment every three weeks. We’re keeping our fingers crossed…
As well as taking lots of cold weather clothing, we took a shovel in case of snow, but it seems we missed it by a day! I tried to persuade David to phone in on Monday morning (hi Fish!) and say we'd been snowed in so we could stay to enjoy it, but when it comes to work he seems to be incorruptible; what a shame! The temperatures are due to drop as low as -12°, and snow was forecast for Monday or Tuesday [but as I can’t find a very local weather report, I don’t know if it did snow]. It was a blowy old journey back to Calais, but we had no idea of the storms until I spoke to Karen that night!
We escaped any damage, but the neighbours whose house backs onto ours now have a hole in their roof!
I had drained down the outside taps in London before we left (the doom-mongers were forecasting lows of -12°c here; what happened to that?!), but I was glad I had when we had the snow on Wednesday. Still wish I could have been in the Aube with snow, instead…
Phew! Enough already!
I had put the computer away in it's box before Christmas; it was in the way of where I wanted to put my little Christmas tree, and I wanted a complete break from preparing/thinking about the visit to the maître d'œuvre. After Christmas, I really didn’t want to start thinking about things again, so, it's been a long time since I updated the blog. Here goes:
We spent a long time preparing and reviewing the list of « besoins et souhaits » ("Wants & Wishes") for M. Boyer, and finally sent it off to him last weekend in preparation for our meeting last Friday. We were due to meet at the house at 2.30, but he had emailed us the week before to ask whether he could bring 2 colleagues and spend the whole day there. Of course we were happy to agree to this; the sooner we can get started, the quicker it will be finished!
Remembering how nippy it was when we measured up the house after we bought it (mid-October), we took thermal underwear (long-johns & long-sleeved tops) and thick boots and jumpers, together with our warmest coats. It was the right choice: David got a bit chilled, but I managed to stay completely warm, mainly because I had a trip back to the gîte to fetch some papers/photos – that was enough exercise to get the circulation going again. Even though it was somewhere around 10°c outside, the house was noticeably nippier. The minimum/maximum thermometer had recorded a low of -5½°c (assuming my thermometer is correct) inside the house! Not as bad as last winter (low of -8½°c), but considering it’s only been down to that level outside, still pretty chilly; and it felt as though the house had retained most of that cold!
All the neighbours are disgusted with the weather; according to different reports it's either been below freezing either once, or 2 or 3 times. And then only as low as -5°c (or -6°, depending to whom you listen). It should have been as low as -15° to -18° at this time of year. When we arrived, it was much colder in the house than outside, but it eventually warmed up significantly with the doors open for a time on Thursday, all day Friday and a couple of hours on Saturday.
The unseasonably warm weather was not enough to stop us enjoying the log-fire at the gîte – that’s one of the pleasures we are really looking forward to when our house is habitable. So much more relaxing than a radiator or gas fire!
M. Lorin has a “weather station” (I’m not sure what the proper word is) in his front room, and he said it had been up to 98° humidity! No wonder it felt so sodden everywhere; we had left a wine box at the house (in case of emergencies! :-) ), and that had sagged, the air was so moist. I’m hoping all my books are OK…
We got to the house in good time for the meeting with M. Boyer and his colleagues, but had difficulty opening the kitchen front door, and some of the windows (to open the shutters to let light in) because the wood had absorbed the damp! We found out afterwards that he was late arriving because he had finally managed to make contact with Dominique… M. Baty had told him to call early to catch him; but M. Boyer only had the telephone number on Dominique’s estimate and so woke his mother up at 7am – that will teach her to let her address be used as a business address! [Perhaps Dominique doesn’t use his own address because he’s let too many clients down in the past?] Reading between the lines, a cross telephone call from his mother was enough to get Dominique to finally get back to M. Boyer!
Part of the day’s work was to assess what work Dominique had done: what was finished; what was not finished; what needed undoing and re-doing. One of the Philippes told us that the Tribunal route could take two years, not the year we had been advised; that reinforced our decision not to chase the money through the courts – personal experience has taught me that’s one way of throwing good money after bad! M. Boyer is going to have a meeting at the house with Dominique, after his colleague has quantified the works done (and assessed how much they should have cost). So we’re keeping our fingers crossed…
We walked round the house and discussed what we intended to do everywhere, but ran out of time to discuss any of our carefully prepared « besoins et souhaits », so will be going back for a meeting when M Boyer has had chance to attach the measurements taken by Philippe 1 to the plans and Philippe 2 has looked at all the financial details, and M. Boyer has met with Dominique. A big thank you to John Knighton for sending us the plans in Autocad to forward on.
We are hopeful that by the time we next go to France (late next month?), we will have a much clearer idea of what is possible, how much it will cost, how long it will take, and whether we stand any chance of getting some money back from Dominique…
Apart from a lot of discussions about VAT (the law changed a couple of weeks before our meeting; now you don’t automatically pay 5.5% on renovations – there are hoards of criteria to wade through in the hope of avoiding paying 19.6%, but I have a nasty feeling…!), I don’t know where the morning went! Not being in London (snatched sandwich at the desk), we all went to a local restaurant for a quick lunch. Quick by French standards – but it was lovely, and they had a vegetarian choice! We could get used to that. The downside, of course being that you’d get a lot less work done. But in France they are only allowed to work 35 hours a week, so that wouldn’t be a problem!
As we were shutting up the house to go to lunch, we found we couldn’t shut the kitchen front door. Panic! So we jammed it shut, and hoped for the best… Not that it would have made too much difference; we couldn’t lock the other front door! The 3 hours that the doors had been open had been enough for the ambient moisture to warp the frames just a little bit more. I was not happy. [Not in a strop; just worried.]
After lunch David called M. Baty, but couldn’t convince his wife we had a problem. [David would have been the one with a problem! There’s no way I’d have left France with a door that wasn’t locked!] M. Boyer called later, and M. Baty was back home by then, so he explained the problem, and M. Baty rearranged our meeting from 11am Saturday at his house, to 2.30-3pm at our house. We had to go round and check the house was OK before I could settle down on the Friday night!
One particularly interesting thing to come out of our discussion was a type of fire that is basically an open fire, but has glass sides and front that you can pull down to make it safe at night. I think that could be the answer to one of our questions. Watch this space…
The next day, watching M. Baty was a revelation; I would have got out a chisel or plane, and started taking bits off either the door or frame, but he drifted the frame in a bit further using a wedge, and even managed to alter the way it was sited. Having checked both doors locked several times, he left us with the advice not to take any wood off anywhere until at least a year from now. David R had said the same thing, but I hadn’t realised that a door that could not be closed could be fixed in such an elegant way. He has promised to readjust the frames after we have got our central heating up and running.
M. Baty’s hair has got longer and curlier; he looked quite dashing! What is it about rugged men who are good with their hands?!!
Along with all the weeds in my garden (too soggy to do any weeding, so they're all still there!), the first of my bulbs are flowering - little yellow crocuses ("Golden Bells").
As we were leaving, Mme. Bouzenard showed us an old photo of our house; it was quite odd seeing that much colour in the woodwork (we knew it must have been green once!), and M. Thäele (still not sure if that’s how his name is spelt) had a lawn in front of the house. According to the reminiscences of the older people, he used to cut the grass with a scythe – and it was perfectly level and neat. That sounds amazing, but if you have ever tried to use a scythe, you’ll know it’s a lot harder than it looks! My efforts rarely achieved grass-removal, let alone a lawn finish! Another photo taken in 1964 when the Bouzenards were building their house showed « le baron » in their garden; it’s nice to put a face to the name. He sounds an amazing man, bit of a character, but very honest and trustworthy. We have heard stories about him from all the villagers we have chatted with. He wasn’t too hot on housework (but I knew that anyway!), and the girls who visited him used to surreptitiously wipe their glasses when he wasn’t looking, before having a drink with him. These days, sadly, I doubt parents would let their children visit an old man living alone, but all the people our age have fond memories of visiting him after school when they were children. He refused to be interred in the churchyard, as he didn’t want to be among the dishonest as well as the good people, so insisted that he was buried among the vines. He didn’t want anyone to attend his funeral, so asked for it to be at dawn. M. Bouzenard took his coffin up to the vineyard at daybreak, only to find the entire village had turned out to send him on his way; even the children had all got up early to attend. I would have liked to have met him; he sounds rather like my grandfather – heart of gold, adored children, but had his own distinct ideas! What he would have made of us, I dread to think, but I feel we are doing a good thing restoring his house to the beautiful place it once was.
My hair had been falling out in the summer, owing to the stress, I’m sure. Once we made the decision to get the place checked out by professionals (and employ someone to project manage, if necessary), that stopped fairly quickly. I don’t think it’s growing back yet, but at least I never got any bald patches (the advantage of having lots of hair, even if it is very fine!). The lovely thing about being out of London is washing my hair, and it actually being shiny, like it used to be!
However, seeing Mme. Bouzenard put all my trivial worries into perspective; I had admired her nail-polish (a deep maroon/purple colour that went beautifully with her jumper) – I thought perhaps she’d dressed up for a celebration – but she said it was to protect her nails. Apparently dark colours are better at stopping sunlight damaging the nails. But there is nothing she can do about her hair falling out; it’s already thinning (and has gone completely flat; all the curl has gone) and she’s only had one session of chemotherapy so far. She’s still having radiotherapy, (I think; my French is still not great) and has a course of chemo that will last six months, with a treatment every three weeks. We’re keeping our fingers crossed…
As well as taking lots of cold weather clothing, we took a shovel in case of snow, but it seems we missed it by a day! I tried to persuade David to phone in on Monday morning (hi Fish!) and say we'd been snowed in so we could stay to enjoy it, but when it comes to work he seems to be incorruptible; what a shame! The temperatures are due to drop as low as -12°, and snow was forecast for Monday or Tuesday [but as I can’t find a very local weather report, I don’t know if it did snow]. It was a blowy old journey back to Calais, but we had no idea of the storms until I spoke to Karen that night!
We escaped any damage, but the neighbours whose house backs onto ours now have a hole in their roof!
I had drained down the outside taps in London before we left (the doom-mongers were forecasting lows of -12°c here; what happened to that?!), but I was glad I had when we had the snow on Wednesday. Still wish I could have been in the Aube with snow, instead…
Phew! Enough already!
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
28 October
Our last chance to finish any gardening, and we made a good stab at it, but I was really lethargic - it all felt far more effort than I had within me (a marked contrast to in the summer; I felt superhuman then!). We had to leave the gîte because it had already been rented to other people before we had booked, and had booked a hotel just for one night. We knew that we had to get to Bar-sur-Aube to have showers & get changed before going to Chaource to dinner with Sergine & Patrick. If we hadn't had so many other things to think about, we'd have booked a hotel in Bar-sur-Seine! That would have cut out 2 return journeys between Bar-sur-Aube and Bar-sur-Seine, but hey-ho! Something about penguins...!
We'd worked out that we needed to leave the house by 4.30, but at about 3.15 I'd really had enough. We had bought another padlock and wanted to get spare keys cut, so we used that as our justification to pack up early! There were 2 key-cutting places: one was closed for holidays and the other had hundreds of blanks, but not for our size key! It made me feel that chocolate might be the answer (and I'm not that kind of person normally; I can't remember the last time I bought chocolate [as opposed to eating a bit that someone else had given me] - not this year certainly). When you don't eat anything regularly, it's difficult to know what to choose, but in the end we decided on milk chocolate with praline & hazelnuts. It was disgusting (so sweet and teeth gumming), whilst being just what I wanted!
We had a lovely time with Sergine and Patrick, and the food was wonderful, but I can't remember a thing that we ate (didn't write yesterday's & today's blog contemporaneously like the earlier posts). That's no comment on the food - I bet David will know; must remember to ask him. Sergine is in the (equally slow) process of renovating her house, so parts are lovely and finished, some is 'work-in-progress' and some is most definitely 'before'. It will be wonderful when it is finished; what she has achieved so far is marvellous. It was comforting to see what can be achieved.
We'd worked out that we needed to leave the house by 4.30, but at about 3.15 I'd really had enough. We had bought another padlock and wanted to get spare keys cut, so we used that as our justification to pack up early! There were 2 key-cutting places: one was closed for holidays and the other had hundreds of blanks, but not for our size key! It made me feel that chocolate might be the answer (and I'm not that kind of person normally; I can't remember the last time I bought chocolate [as opposed to eating a bit that someone else had given me] - not this year certainly). When you don't eat anything regularly, it's difficult to know what to choose, but in the end we decided on milk chocolate with praline & hazelnuts. It was disgusting (so sweet and teeth gumming), whilst being just what I wanted!
We had a lovely time with Sergine and Patrick, and the food was wonderful, but I can't remember a thing that we ate (didn't write yesterday's & today's blog contemporaneously like the earlier posts). That's no comment on the food - I bet David will know; must remember to ask him. Sergine is in the (equally slow) process of renovating her house, so parts are lovely and finished, some is 'work-in-progress' and some is most definitely 'before'. It will be wonderful when it is finished; what she has achieved so far is marvellous. It was comforting to see what can be achieved.
27 October
For some reason, we felt a bit deflated... I had plenty of gardening to do (thigh-high crucifers to hack back, for a start & another 125 bulbs to plant; I had wanted to do the patio, but we'd lost the will to live, so no chance), and we still needed to finish cleaning the fireplace, but just couldn't summon sufficient energy.
We had a visit at the house from Sergine (immobilière) - she'd called us to see if she could come round. It seemed a bit odd; we were scheduled to go to her house for dinner the next day. It turns out "Mr Laid-Back" isn't; he'd phoned up CAIG and given a roasting to Isabelle and Sergine. We really weren't happy with that; we hadn't felt we'd 'gelled' with him as well as the other gentlemen, but that sealed the issue. How dare he phone and insult our friends - he's not even working for us?! He had said that Sergine shouldn't have recommended Dominique and why was she letting down her clients, and a load more besides. I hope we managed to convince her that we hadn't wanted him to do this, and apologise enough (although that we should be apologising for a 'professional' didn't sit well). When Sergine recommended Dominique to us, he was doing perfectly good work for her and she had no reason to doubt he would continue to work well. Even when he started working for us, it all seemed OK at first (the enlarged doorway between the kitchen and entrance hall looks just what we'd hoped for), it was just the slow progress that bothered us. Later, everything started to look rushed (and we now know it was done in a hurry; not just looked like it - neighbours in rural France are a fabulous source of information!). It was only after Sergine had told Dominique to stop working for her (for the slow progress/not turning up when he said he would), that his work started to cause us concern.
Well, M. Jacquard has ruled himself out of the selection process. He made a big point of telling us that he is the only ISO 9001 (2?) certified project manager in the Aube. But if he alienates people outside of the work, how would he get on with workmen? We have a (tiny) hope that we may get some refund from Dominique, but if M. Jacquard has spoken to him already, I think he will have ruined that for us!
We went for apéritifs with the Bouzenards; it was nice to just have an evening without thinking about or discussing the house, except in the lightest of detail. Mme Bouzenard is looking a little better, but I'm not sure if that's just the steroids plumping out her face. She says she's feeling a bit better, and is eating again, so we're keeping fingers crossed for her swift recovery.
Going back to the gîte and an open fire reminded us why we are doing this; we did need reminding! I often think you appreciate things more when you've had to wait/struggle to achieve them, so we're going to love it when we have the house how we want it (whenever that will be).
We had a visit at the house from Sergine (immobilière) - she'd called us to see if she could come round. It seemed a bit odd; we were scheduled to go to her house for dinner the next day. It turns out "Mr Laid-Back" isn't; he'd phoned up CAIG and given a roasting to Isabelle and Sergine. We really weren't happy with that; we hadn't felt we'd 'gelled' with him as well as the other gentlemen, but that sealed the issue. How dare he phone and insult our friends - he's not even working for us?! He had said that Sergine shouldn't have recommended Dominique and why was she letting down her clients, and a load more besides. I hope we managed to convince her that we hadn't wanted him to do this, and apologise enough (although that we should be apologising for a 'professional' didn't sit well). When Sergine recommended Dominique to us, he was doing perfectly good work for her and she had no reason to doubt he would continue to work well. Even when he started working for us, it all seemed OK at first (the enlarged doorway between the kitchen and entrance hall looks just what we'd hoped for), it was just the slow progress that bothered us. Later, everything started to look rushed (and we now know it was done in a hurry; not just looked like it - neighbours in rural France are a fabulous source of information!). It was only after Sergine had told Dominique to stop working for her (for the slow progress/not turning up when he said he would), that his work started to cause us concern.
Well, M. Jacquard has ruled himself out of the selection process. He made a big point of telling us that he is the only ISO 9001 (2?) certified project manager in the Aube. But if he alienates people outside of the work, how would he get on with workmen? We have a (tiny) hope that we may get some refund from Dominique, but if M. Jacquard has spoken to him already, I think he will have ruined that for us!
We went for apéritifs with the Bouzenards; it was nice to just have an evening without thinking about or discussing the house, except in the lightest of detail. Mme Bouzenard is looking a little better, but I'm not sure if that's just the steroids plumping out her face. She says she's feeling a bit better, and is eating again, so we're keeping fingers crossed for her swift recovery.
Going back to the gîte and an open fire reminded us why we are doing this; we did need reminding! I often think you appreciate things more when you've had to wait/struggle to achieve them, so we're going to love it when we have the house how we want it (whenever that will be).
Monday, November 27, 2006
26 October, later...
The good news is:
All our experts agree
The bad news is:
All our experts agree that Dominique D's (OK, let's name him [if not shame him!]: Dominique DROUOT of 11, rue Desirée Briden, Troyes) work is rubbish. [Note: Rubbish here is a polite euphemism for a heap of #2's!]
This afternoon M. Beauvineau (for whom I couldn't hink of a nickname - perhaps he be "Mr Urban Warrior"? See later), showed up as part of a double act with M. Dufour, his partner in crime. [Tweedledee & Tweedledum would be unfair, as would any other comedy double acts I can think of; they were both really nice blokes.] Happily "Mr Urban Warrior" (or maybe "Parker"? See later) had read the maître d'œuvre/philosopher handbook and showed up in black combat pants, black military (paramilitary?) style jumper & salt-and-pepper van Dyke beard. Clearly and urban terrorist; but let's not use that work. Nihilism/anarchy are OK, guerilla just (maybe) the right side of borderline but not out-and-out terrorism (these days). I'm not sure why I'm thinking Tony Benn when it comes to his eyebrows...? But if it's a Tony who sticks to his principles, I'll take that as a good sign (rather than the other sort!). [Later I realise that he was actually the human incarnation of Parker from Thunderbirds, dressed for the 21st century!]
Sadly, M. Dufour had come as an accountant. What was he thinking of? Clearly he lets his mum buy his clothing - why else would he be wearing a stripy (work, not trendy) shirt & stripy (work, not pin-striped denim or elephant cord) suit pants? It turns out "Mr Urban Warrior"/"Parker" will be the one who will deal with us if we choose this double act, so that's OK; have got used to the ideal of philosopher-as-project manager by now.
Saw M. Lorin: unfortunately "Mr Asterix" was a no-show; perhaps he was off fighting the Romans with his partner in crime, who (through no fault of his own/genetic makeup) will have to be "Mr Obelix"! At least if he's let us down at this stage we're not going to waste any time considering him as a runner.
Nice to see M. Lorin who, despite our being absent, didn't steal our wallets/passports/mobile phones when he dropped off our walnuts earlier. [Note to selves: lock up the valuables rather than leaving them unattended and in the room closest to the road!]
I forgot to mention another thing: I could envisage seeing various project managers in England, talking about estimates, costs, building reg.s & planning etc. But I don't imagine we'd come across restaurant critics! The double act, just before they were leaving, proceded to give us a (fairly long!) list of 3 star restaurants in the area! So much more interesting that costs per 1000 of bricks
All our experts agree
The bad news is:
All our experts agree that Dominique D's (OK, let's name him [if not shame him!]: Dominique DROUOT of 11, rue Desirée Briden, Troyes) work is rubbish. [Note: Rubbish here is a polite euphemism for a heap of #2's!]
This afternoon M. Beauvineau (for whom I couldn't hink of a nickname - perhaps he be "Mr Urban Warrior"? See later), showed up as part of a double act with M. Dufour, his partner in crime. [Tweedledee & Tweedledum would be unfair, as would any other comedy double acts I can think of; they were both really nice blokes.] Happily "Mr Urban Warrior" (or maybe "Parker"? See later) had read the maître d'œuvre/philosopher handbook and showed up in black combat pants, black military (paramilitary?) style jumper & salt-and-pepper van Dyke beard. Clearly and urban terrorist; but let's not use that work. Nihilism/anarchy are OK, guerilla just (maybe) the right side of borderline but not out-and-out terrorism (these days). I'm not sure why I'm thinking Tony Benn when it comes to his eyebrows...? But if it's a Tony who sticks to his principles, I'll take that as a good sign (rather than the other sort!). [Later I realise that he was actually the human incarnation of Parker from Thunderbirds, dressed for the 21st century!]
Sadly, M. Dufour had come as an accountant. What was he thinking of? Clearly he lets his mum buy his clothing - why else would he be wearing a stripy (work, not trendy) shirt & stripy (work, not pin-striped denim or elephant cord) suit pants? It turns out "Mr Urban Warrior"/"Parker" will be the one who will deal with us if we choose this double act, so that's OK; have got used to the ideal of philosopher-as-project manager by now.
Saw M. Lorin: unfortunately "Mr Asterix" was a no-show; perhaps he was off fighting the Romans with his partner in crime, who (through no fault of his own/genetic makeup) will have to be "Mr Obelix"! At least if he's let us down at this stage we're not going to waste any time considering him as a runner.
Nice to see M. Lorin who, despite our being absent, didn't steal our wallets/passports/mobile phones when he dropped off our walnuts earlier. [Note to selves: lock up the valuables rather than leaving them unattended and in the room closest to the road!]
I forgot to mention another thing: I could envisage seeing various project managers in England, talking about estimates, costs, building reg.s & planning etc. But I don't imagine we'd come across restaurant critics! The double act, just before they were leaving, proceded to give us a (fairly long!) list of 3 star restaurants in the area! So much more interesting that costs per 1000 of bricks
26 October
Meeting with "Mr Laid-Back" - he was the more typical-looking philosopher: black pin-striped jeans, black shirt, black jacket, black wrap-round shades, pointy sideburns & flowing white hair. (Hell, what do I know about philosophers' sartorial habits; Nietsche may have bought off-the-peg suits from M&S and worn jumpers knit by his granny!)
The good news is:
At least we're not crying (yet?)...
The bad news is:
It's even worse than we thought!
How can that be? Well, till this morning, we didn't know the electrics were actually dangerous (not earthed; now particularly glad we came back the last time when we'd forgotten to turn the power off at the mains...). [Although John Knighton reckons it's not as dangerous as we'd been told - I'd need to stand in a bath of water holding an electric fan heater to be at risk; yes he's right, that is a horrible thought (probably why I'd edited it out!). Sorry for not making that clear (and hope it is now). But I don't know if there is an earth trip... Everything else seems to be done wrong!]
There is a glimmer of hope: we could take Dominique (D) to a tribunal that could order him to repay all the money we've given to him & then some more to pay to undo everything he's done before we start again from scratch.
As is necessary for every silver lining, there is a cloud: this will take a year, during which time we won't be able to do anything to the house. Well, at least it will give us loads of time to do a plan of action (17 or 3-point, depending on which maître d'œuvre we choose) and get quotes from different firms and draw up a contract!
Almost wish I hadn't started the garden; we could just drain down the water, lock the house & come back in 12 months, Napalm the yard & start the building works...
The good news is:
At least we're not crying (yet?)...
The bad news is:
It's even worse than we thought!
How can that be? Well, till this morning, we didn't know the electrics were actually dangerous (not earthed; now particularly glad we came back the last time when we'd forgotten to turn the power off at the mains...). [Although John Knighton reckons it's not as dangerous as we'd been told - I'd need to stand in a bath of water holding an electric fan heater to be at risk; yes he's right, that is a horrible thought (probably why I'd edited it out!). Sorry for not making that clear (and hope it is now). But I don't know if there is an earth trip... Everything else seems to be done wrong!]
There is a glimmer of hope: we could take Dominique (D) to a tribunal that could order him to repay all the money we've given to him & then some more to pay to undo everything he's done before we start again from scratch.
As is necessary for every silver lining, there is a cloud: this will take a year, during which time we won't be able to do anything to the house. Well, at least it will give us loads of time to do a plan of action (17 or 3-point, depending on which maître d'œuvre we choose) and get quotes from different firms and draw up a contract!
Almost wish I hadn't started the garden; we could just drain down the water, lock the house & come back in 12 months, Napalm the yard & start the building works...
Saturday, November 25, 2006
25 October
Finally got here at 4am - first the comedy of getting past 20 metres' worth of road works in Catford: 1¼ hours to go 5½ miles round the South Circular (I can walk faster)! Needless to say, there was no sign of anyone working... Then, bizarrely they "closed" the M20 between J11 & J12 - we spent 1 hour at a snail's pace (when not actually stationary) getting off at J11. We were anticipating massive roadworks - whole carriageway closed & "boys' toys" as far as the eye could see. Imagine our surprise when having finally got off the motorway [in 2 lines - the one on the left for lorries; the one on the right for cars], the police were directing all the lorries back onto the motorway just the other side of the roundabout! A lot of the lorries were in a much longer queue in the left-hand lane, so I bet it took some of them 2 hours to get off. We saw the M20 another couple of times before J12 and not sign of any roadworks. AT ALL. What was that all about??!
Deep joy, then, to have the usual trouble- (& virtually traffic-) free journey on the French motorways. [Remind me to explain why I love toll roads sometime!] Having made the bed, and put the food in the fridge, we got to bed at 4.30 (third time lucky getting the hire car to lock without the alarm going off 10 minute later!).
Thankfully, our first appointment wasn't till 3pm, so we stayed in bed till 11.45 (up in time for the Angelus!). A quick trip to the 'Champion' to get food & wine (and champagne, naturellement!) & rapidly consuming some bread & cheese and then we went to the house. [Thank you M. & Mme. Bouzenard for your wonderful gîte; staying in an unfurnished, and indeed unfinished, house is not fun when it's been as low as 6½°C there!]
We were picking up stray walnuts when M. Boyer ("Mr Efficient") arrived. I know that the French and English are very different, but it's often brought home to me how different after an absence... I was expecting a chap to detail (possibly with more minutiae than a mere mortal could stand?) what was OK; what was borderline; what was bad; how it could be fixed/whether it needed ripping out & starting from scratch. Also prepared for a disucssion of costs; timetables; schedules of works...
What I had forgotten was that Adam Smith was right: England is "a nation of shopkeepers"; that's one of the reasons why thousands of hardworking immigrants from the Asian sub-continent have integrated so well, and is probably reflected in our collective eBay usage!
It's true, we think in terms of buying & selling or service providing/usage (buying & selling by any other name!) - it's highly skilled commerce - even when I write a (rare) letter of complaint, I tend to focus on how the company can better serve their customer [and how kind I am in helping them achieve that - can I have a refund? ;-) ].
Conversely, the French are a nation of philosophers. I think that was rammed home today when “Mr Efficient” spent the first hour “conceptualising” (I’m sure I’ve got the right word!) outside, before even setting foot in the place. I swung (wildly) between liking his approach, being alienated & totally seeing the sense of what he was saying. Of course your use of a building (we tend to garden/be out of doors & come in to crash/hoover aperitifs; office workers may be away from their homes for a long time & want to spend their evenings looking at the garden) matters much more than whether the builder’s done a good job. I was expecting the mechanics to figure more highly, but hey-ho!; he was so much more Zen than I was expecting.
W.T.S.
Was on wagon; now off. Someone said something like “When you are happy, you don’t need champagne, it’s when you are down that you should drink it” [Wish I could remember who; I could Google it & get the quote right.]
As I said to “Mr Efficient”, half of me is sad the work is done so badly (he gave the building works 4/10, I reckoned 3, and the plumbing/electrics 2/10) & the other half is happy I wasn’t imagining it! At least I’m a good judge of quality…
There are times when a girl (particularly) misses her dad… :-(
Oh, I forgot to describe him: Brown stripy velvet jacket (“looks like carpet”, according to him indoors), red/maroon stripy shirt, brown trousers, brown boots. I liked it (very much, actually), but I know plenty of people (not all of them in the Biblical sense!) in the property business (game?) who might look down on brown (not to mention velvet!). Tant pis!
The good news is:
I was absolutely right (it’s always nice to have that confirmed, isn’t it?!)
The bad news is:
I was absolutely right – the work’s substandard & needs re-doing…
Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people who get pleasure out of saying “I told you so!”…
Previously: had an email from “Mr Efficient”, with, amongst other things, a 17-point plan of action!
Deep joy, then, to have the usual trouble- (& virtually traffic-) free journey on the French motorways. [Remind me to explain why I love toll roads sometime!] Having made the bed, and put the food in the fridge, we got to bed at 4.30 (third time lucky getting the hire car to lock without the alarm going off 10 minute later!).
Thankfully, our first appointment wasn't till 3pm, so we stayed in bed till 11.45 (up in time for the Angelus!). A quick trip to the 'Champion' to get food & wine (and champagne, naturellement!) & rapidly consuming some bread & cheese and then we went to the house. [Thank you M. & Mme. Bouzenard for your wonderful gîte; staying in an unfurnished, and indeed unfinished, house is not fun when it's been as low as 6½°C there!]
We were picking up stray walnuts when M. Boyer ("Mr Efficient") arrived. I know that the French and English are very different, but it's often brought home to me how different after an absence... I was expecting a chap to detail (possibly with more minutiae than a mere mortal could stand?) what was OK; what was borderline; what was bad; how it could be fixed/whether it needed ripping out & starting from scratch. Also prepared for a disucssion of costs; timetables; schedules of works...
What I had forgotten was that Adam Smith was right: England is "a nation of shopkeepers"; that's one of the reasons why thousands of hardworking immigrants from the Asian sub-continent have integrated so well, and is probably reflected in our collective eBay usage!
It's true, we think in terms of buying & selling or service providing/usage (buying & selling by any other name!) - it's highly skilled commerce - even when I write a (rare) letter of complaint, I tend to focus on how the company can better serve their customer [and how kind I am in helping them achieve that - can I have a refund? ;-) ].Conversely, the French are a nation of philosophers. I think that was rammed home today when “Mr Efficient” spent the first hour “conceptualising” (I’m sure I’ve got the right word!) outside, before even setting foot in the place. I swung (wildly) between liking his approach, being alienated & totally seeing the sense of what he was saying. Of course your use of a building (we tend to garden/be out of doors & come in to crash/hoover aperitifs; office workers may be away from their homes for a long time & want to spend their evenings looking at the garden) matters much more than whether the builder’s done a good job. I was expecting the mechanics to figure more highly, but hey-ho!; he was so much more Zen than I was expecting.
W.T.S.
Was on wagon; now off. Someone said something like “When you are happy, you don’t need champagne, it’s when you are down that you should drink it” [Wish I could remember who; I could Google it & get the quote right.]
As I said to “Mr Efficient”, half of me is sad the work is done so badly (he gave the building works 4/10, I reckoned 3, and the plumbing/electrics 2/10) & the other half is happy I wasn’t imagining it! At least I’m a good judge of quality…
There are times when a girl (particularly) misses her dad… :-(
Oh, I forgot to describe him: Brown stripy velvet jacket (“looks like carpet”, according to him indoors), red/maroon stripy shirt, brown trousers, brown boots. I liked it (very much, actually), but I know plenty of people (not all of them in the Biblical sense!) in the property business (game?) who might look down on brown (not to mention velvet!). Tant pis!
The good news is:
I was absolutely right (it’s always nice to have that confirmed, isn’t it?!)
The bad news is:I was absolutely right – the work’s substandard & needs re-doing…
Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people who get pleasure out of saying “I told you so!”…
Previously: had an email from “Mr Efficient”, with, amongst other things, a 17-point plan of action!
Thursday, October 12, 2006
I'm thinking of re-branding « Chez le Baron » ...
We put together a list of questions/concerns & points we wished to raise with the gentlemen we are going to meet for the project manager rôle; I never realised what "Sans Soucis" as a house name meant! Now I'm hoping to be in a position to re-name « Chez le Baron » to « Sans Soucis »!
I always thought the 'amusing' house names weren't particularly funny, and the more tortured the pun, the less hilarious I found them, but now I'm starting to see the charm! We didn't name the house « Chez le Baron » - that's what all the neighbours call it; M. Thaelle (I think that's his name; I must check) was known as « le Baron », so of course his house was « Chez le Baron »! It doesn't seem to matter that he's been dead for over 20 years; it seems he was such a character that the name will live on as long as any of the children who used to visit him are still alive. Of course in this time of heightened paranoia, no-one in their right minds would let their children go off to visit a strange man who lives on his own who likes children!! A sad loss, I think. But then I belong to a generation who walked to and from primary school either alone or with a friend...
Sorry, that's all a diversion from where I started! We compiled 3 pages (and it was only 3 because I made the margins really small!) of 'issues'. That includes the most minor, and points that we have verbally agreed with the builder, but are not written down. I do hope the gentlemen do not think we are massively nit-picky; we wanted to get the balance right with giving them all the information they might need, but we shall find out when we meet them...
I think the relief of having our trip all prepared for (and enough time to think of any points we may have forgotten, rather than rushing to take a list with us that we did just before leaving - like homework!), has left me bereft of stress; I've been sleeping much better! So much so that I'm frightened I might be turning into a dormouse!
I always thought the 'amusing' house names weren't particularly funny, and the more tortured the pun, the less hilarious I found them, but now I'm starting to see the charm! We didn't name the house « Chez le Baron » - that's what all the neighbours call it; M. Thaelle (I think that's his name; I must check) was known as « le Baron », so of course his house was « Chez le Baron »! It doesn't seem to matter that he's been dead for over 20 years; it seems he was such a character that the name will live on as long as any of the children who used to visit him are still alive. Of course in this time of heightened paranoia, no-one in their right minds would let their children go off to visit a strange man who lives on his own who likes children!! A sad loss, I think. But then I belong to a generation who walked to and from primary school either alone or with a friend...
Sorry, that's all a diversion from where I started! We compiled 3 pages (and it was only 3 because I made the margins really small!) of 'issues'. That includes the most minor, and points that we have verbally agreed with the builder, but are not written down. I do hope the gentlemen do not think we are massively nit-picky; we wanted to get the balance right with giving them all the information they might need, but we shall find out when we meet them...
I think the relief of having our trip all prepared for (and enough time to think of any points we may have forgotten, rather than rushing to take a list with us that we did just before leaving - like homework!), has left me bereft of stress; I've been sleeping much better! So much so that I'm frightened I might be turning into a dormouse!
Monday, October 09, 2006
A letter from another project manager...
Saturday's post brought a surprise - a written response from one of the maîtres d'œuvre also saying he would be willing to inspect the house/oversea the project. Both he and "Mr Asterix" are partnered with another maître d'œuvre in the area, so that means we've had 80% success from the SYNAAMOB (SYndicat National des Architectes, des Agrées et des Maîtres d'Œuvre en Bâtiment) website!
David has contacted the two latest candidates and we are seeing M. Beauvineau (I'm sorry, nothing springs to mind as a 'nickname'!) when we go to France, and "Mr Asterix" can't make it then, but our neighbour kindly agreed to let him into the house to inspect some time before we go, so we'll still be able to get an opinion from him.
We spent several hours (over six, I think) over the weekend writing a comprehensive list of things we're not happy with/concern us, which we'll send out tomorrow or Wednesday. Now we have to wait till we go to France before we can go any further.
It will sound ironic, I suppose, if I say that I hope the builder doesn't do any more work before we get there! I never took any photos of the holes in the concrete - I can't think why not, as I've taken photos of everything else! I'm hoping that he hasn't patched up the concrete, so that the project managers can see how badly it's cracked...
David has contacted the two latest candidates and we are seeing M. Beauvineau (I'm sorry, nothing springs to mind as a 'nickname'!) when we go to France, and "Mr Asterix" can't make it then, but our neighbour kindly agreed to let him into the house to inspect some time before we go, so we'll still be able to get an opinion from him.
We spent several hours (over six, I think) over the weekend writing a comprehensive list of things we're not happy with/concern us, which we'll send out tomorrow or Wednesday. Now we have to wait till we go to France before we can go any further.
It will sound ironic, I suppose, if I say that I hope the builder doesn't do any more work before we get there! I never took any photos of the holes in the concrete - I can't think why not, as I've taken photos of everything else! I'm hoping that he hasn't patched up the concrete, so that the project managers can see how badly it's cracked...
Friday, October 06, 2006
Another contender joins the race...
Usually I switch off the ringer on the phone & turn the volume right down on the answermachine, but last night (for some reason) decided not to, in case anyone wanted to contact us. [Normally late night calls are drunken wrong numbers & early morning calls are weird wrong numbers; why are morning wrong numbers always weird?] The phone rang just before 6.45, and as I was awake, I got up to answer it (and possibly deliver a pithy lecture on the desirability of dialling carefully before 8am!). The caller started to leave a message in French (you don't know how heartening it is to actually receive a call from a French speaker, rather than just being successful in calling them!), and I realised it was another maître d'œuvre so I called David & got him to the phone in time to speak with candidate number 3 for the position of saviour of our project.
David was chatting away for about quarter of an hour & laughed throatily several times, so I guessed the chap had a sense of humour. He doesn't think he can visit when we are out there later this month, but maybe M. Lorin would be kind enough to let him in? [That's top of David's to-do list today; nicely ask our kind neighbour for a favour.] He gave David his mobile number and his website address, and said we would recognise him by his moustache. I asked David whether he would be Asterix or Obelix. After a quick look at the website, he's "Mr Asterix" - check it out if you don't believe me!
I (very often, anyway) believe in 'third time lucky' - that's not to say we will go with "Mr Asterix", but getting three opinions will give us a majority decision. I foresee a couple of alternatives: either Dominique D's work is OK (in which case we will happily accept that that is just the French way and go with it), or it is not OK (then we need to decide whether to try to get Dominique to put it right, or engage another builder), and: the maître d'œuvre will with either be willing to oversee the work to (successful!) completion or he won't. The fact that the three gentlemen are willing to have a look seems to indicate a willingness to undertake the project management rôle... So the main question is going to be: is Dominique's work OK?
Either way, please keep your fingers crossed for us that we get to a successful conclusion in a timely manner ( I won't say 'quickly', as I have a nasty suspicion that the bits Dominique has done that I'm not happy with were done 'quickly!).
David was chatting away for about quarter of an hour & laughed throatily several times, so I guessed the chap had a sense of humour. He doesn't think he can visit when we are out there later this month, but maybe M. Lorin would be kind enough to let him in? [That's top of David's to-do list today; nicely ask our kind neighbour for a favour.] He gave David his mobile number and his website address, and said we would recognise him by his moustache. I asked David whether he would be Asterix or Obelix. After a quick look at the website, he's "Mr Asterix" - check it out if you don't believe me!
I (very often, anyway) believe in 'third time lucky' - that's not to say we will go with "Mr Asterix", but getting three opinions will give us a majority decision. I foresee a couple of alternatives: either Dominique D's work is OK (in which case we will happily accept that that is just the French way and go with it), or it is not OK (then we need to decide whether to try to get Dominique to put it right, or engage another builder), and: the maître d'œuvre will with either be willing to oversee the work to (successful!) completion or he won't. The fact that the three gentlemen are willing to have a look seems to indicate a willingness to undertake the project management rôle... So the main question is going to be: is Dominique's work OK?
Either way, please keep your fingers crossed for us that we get to a successful conclusion in a timely manner ( I won't say 'quickly', as I have a nasty suspicion that the bits Dominique has done that I'm not happy with were done 'quickly!).
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Chrysanthemum
Part of what keeps my spirits up is “House Doctor Make Believe” – imagining what the house will look like when it’s finished… The kitchen (with units, and a floor, oh but without a shower!) with our big round table set up in the corner, and the dresser with Mrs Smith’s china on it. A couple of sofas in front of the insert, and maybe another table that I can do baking at. It’s all real; it’s just not happened yet, but it’s real to me…I plan to clean up the old iron bedstead we bought from M. Lorin (might even pai
nt it Wild Sage?) and use it as a day bed in the entrance hall. Most of that room will have exposed stonework, but I might paint the exterior wall a buttermilk/golden sandy colour. I think that a light colour will go with the green of the windows & door. I’ve also chosen the fabric for the curtains (in winter when we’ve stayed at the gîte the cold gets noticeably fiercer as you open the curtains, so heavy lined curtains for winter are a must!). William Morris has long been a favourite – I was a child in the seventies, and it was popular to have huge prints as soft furnishings, I guess it just rubbed off, so I was trawling through my books, and wanted a large flower print in shades of green and gold/cream/beige.Chrysanthemum it is then! Now that’s not something I ever thought I would do – voluntarily choose a chrysanthemum!
Not that things can’t change…
Monday, October 02, 2006
Maître d'œuvre
We have enough queries about the way Dominique is working, and the quality of work (I know that things are done differently in France; we don't have a problem with that, & wouldn't expect things to be done in an English way, but cracks in the concrete floor already?) that we want to get a second opinion as to whether he is doing things properly. The doubts, coupled with the (phenomenally!) slow rate of progress, have led us to look for a maître d'œuvre (project manager).
Hands up! We have done things completely the wrong way - we should have had a signed contract stating exactly how long the job is to take, and probably also displayed a declaration of travaux (when we asked the Maire whether we needed planning permission, he told us that we could do what we liked to the inside of the house; that is up to us, the Mairie only gets involved if we change the outside - we never thought to ask if we need a declaration; didn't even know such a thing existed 2 years ago!). Most of the problem stems from dealing with builders like my dad and Bob (yes, our English builder is called Bob!) - we're just used to doing things on an informal business!
We have sent out letters, emails and clicked on the "contact" button on a couple of websites to contact project managers, maîtres d'œuvre and architects who will project manage, and have had responses from 2 maîtres d'œuvre. We plan to meet with both of them (and possibly someone else if anyone else responds - there are still another 9 potential respondees out there!), later this month. In my mind I have labelled the 2 who have contacted us "Mr Efficient" and "Mr Laid-back" - one responded promptly with a (long) list of questions and a detailed fee schedule for a visit and report (negotiable if we engage him as project manager); the other promptly replied that he'd be willing to work on the project and he hoped to hear from us to arrange a meeting soon!
We want to meet them both, because I know that hyper-efficiency can be great at running projects (but can also be counterproductive if too control-freaky & alienates workers! I know that from personal experience - hi Julia!). I also believe that a Zen approach can produce the best results (although not necessarily what one wanted; what you need may not be the same as what you [think you] want... I know that from personal experience, too - hi David!).
I'm working on trusting that we make the right decision!
Will keep it posted when we've decided between M. Boyer & M. Jacquard...
Hands up! We have done things completely the wrong way - we should have had a signed contract stating exactly how long the job is to take, and probably also displayed a declaration of travaux (when we asked the Maire whether we needed planning permission, he told us that we could do what we liked to the inside of the house; that is up to us, the Mairie only gets involved if we change the outside - we never thought to ask if we need a declaration; didn't even know such a thing existed 2 years ago!). Most of the problem stems from dealing with builders like my dad and Bob (yes, our English builder is called Bob!) - we're just used to doing things on an informal business!
We have sent out letters, emails and clicked on the "contact" button on a couple of websites to contact project managers, maîtres d'œuvre and architects who will project manage, and have had responses from 2 maîtres d'œuvre. We plan to meet with both of them (and possibly someone else if anyone else responds - there are still another 9 potential respondees out there!), later this month. In my mind I have labelled the 2 who have contacted us "Mr Efficient" and "Mr Laid-back" - one responded promptly with a (long) list of questions and a detailed fee schedule for a visit and report (negotiable if we engage him as project manager); the other promptly replied that he'd be willing to work on the project and he hoped to hear from us to arrange a meeting soon!
We want to meet them both, because I know that hyper-efficiency can be great at running projects (but can also be counterproductive if too control-freaky & alienates workers! I know that from personal experience - hi Julia!). I also believe that a Zen approach can produce the best results (although not necessarily what one wanted; what you need may not be the same as what you [think you] want... I know that from personal experience, too - hi David!).
I'm working on trusting that we make the right decision!
Will keep it posted when we've decided between M. Boyer & M. Jacquard...
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