Making hay while the sun shines

Sorry, I just couldn't resist!

It was so foggy/misty this morning that I took a photo - intending to take an "after" shot when the sun had burnt off the mist. Well, I forgot to do that, but here's an "after" shot of a different kind:Jean-Luc is ill (with some sort of virus, I think), but someone very kindly took his place on the tractor this afternoon. Apparently the forecast is good out to Sunday; I'm guessing that's long enough to make the hay? In England it always seemed to take much longer than a few days, but I'm guessing the heat we get here vs. the humidity of a maritime climate makes a massive difference.

Fortunately, Jean-Luc comes and turns it with his tractor; I can remember helping dad to turn it by hand. By the time it's hot enough to dry the hay, it's hot enough to burn your gingery-blonde helpers! And it's arm-aching work; I'd much rather a nice man in a tractor does it!

Shouting at swallows

I've seen a fair bit of wildlife in the last 24 hours, sadly most of it dead. There was a decomposing chick on the path, I think a magpie or crow? Something big with a whopping beak.

And on my walk I saw a limb, which I was deciding between cat & rabbit, when I'd pretty much decided on cat [claws retracted] before walking on & finding most of the rest of a squashed kitty. Odd, it's on a farm track, so no-one goes very fast.

This morning there was half a mouse under the horse chestnut tree (and yesterday I saw a splattered one in the track), so I'm hoping I've got my share of dead animals out of the way for the summer!

An all-too-live visitor just: swallows think our house would make a perfect home - it does, but just not for them. The redstarts think that too, but they've finished nesting at the moment. Not sure if the swallows are having another brood or this is their first one this year.

It's odd how the silence of something being quiet sounds totally different from the silence of nothing there... The swallows make a racket outside and then it suddenly goes quiet, and I think a left-over from my childhood is the instinct that when a known trouble-maker goes quiet (small brothers do that when they're up to mischief!), to go and investigate.

I usually manage to notice them & shout at them till they go out; this works best for all parties, as if I have to evict them it's pretty stressful & often involves little [unwanted] "offerings" [guano!].

Last summer I had to open ALL the windows downstairs before this one swallow would finally vacate the premises! In a way I was happy (not happy that I was stressing him/her out), as we had been wondering whether they were swallows or swifts, and having to carefully lean past this chap let me get a very good view of the colouring & confirm he/she was definitely a swallow.

Thinking of which, I'm off to the stable to check nothing's nesting in there...

Bill from project manager?

Yes, that one we CAN manage!

Plumbers?

What do you think!

Carpenters?

Still nope!

Much better, now!

I went for a walk - couldn't really decide what clothes to wear, so ended up in "work" clothes (paint/hole ridden track pants & a sweatshirt I don't really like, so never mind it ending up dusty) with a gilet to ward off the wind [which is still COLD].

It's a lot warmer than when I got up; 8ºC out the back - it's made it into double figures!

Anyway, I got to see lots of fluffy white clouds, some big menacing grey ones, a couple of partridge and the usual quota of small birds, and I feel a LOT happier.

I think the wind blew away some of the crabby mood that's been plaguing me; the work will or won't happen on time, which doesn't matter anyway. If I have to stay here because the house isn't secure, I get to spend more time in this beautiful countryside; if I get to go back to London, I can go swimming everyday! And I do think that if I feel like going for a walk on Friday morning, everyone can wait for me for a change/get on with the meeting in my absence - I've been waiting on other people too much, and that's going to change.

Happy windy day!

Carpenters?

Not yet...

Friday meeting, continued

Jean-Marie showed up at 9.50 - in plenty of time for the 10 o'clock meeting!

I'm a bit pissed off that we're always the last to know what's going on...

To say the least!

Anyway, the builders have laid the concrete wrong: there should have been insulation up to the sill, and they've made the sill too big, so we will get cold bridging...

When I overheard Jean-Marie saying to M. Mekki [whose given name is "Mad", which I thought lovely!], that he wasn't getting paid to draw those little plans that crop up on every building job it had me thinking "What HAVE we paid you for, then?", not a good way to have clients reacting to you when they've paid a huge amount of money up front!

I'm wondering why we are using a project manager when he's supposed to oversee so we don't get mistakes; that's NOT happening, & WE have to deal with our favourite artisan because T+B refuse to (are scared of him?)!

And when M. Torelli showed up [he really doesn't look well, and his tablets are giving him vertigo!], it came up again that T+B knew he'd had several incidences of bad health in the past.

Not his fault, and I'm not blaming him, but given the history we've had with workmen [including M. Th. Huguenot who T+B checked out - not noticing, somehow, that he'd registered for voluntary bankruptcy; what the heck were their checks?!], you'd think Jean-Marie would steer us clear of people with known problems.

Sorry, I know this has been a rant! I just am fed-up with avoidable problems provoking the shrugged shoulder reaction, and we're now of the opinion that it would work out better if we just did it ourselves (not to mention massively cheaper)!

Very short-sighted of them, too, because we're in a position we couldn't honestly recommend anyone use T+B as their project manager. I've managed to head off a lot of problems because I'm hyper-vigilant & have a pretty good idea of how a building project works, but someone without that experience - I dread to think what result they'd end up with.

So, sadly, this will be the end of a working relationship and we will be recommending people to look elsewhere should anyone ask us for a project manager!

And that does make me sad.

Friday meeting

9.10am.

Late yesterday afternoon I got confirmation that the meeting was this morning, at 9am...

One of the non-attendees seemed better informed, but in this case he wasn't!

However, so far I am the only attendee.

Reminds me of more than one meeting I attended when working for a German bank; although we had other participants in other countries, so there really were meetings.

If you're the only person on the project side, you can get tougher than when there's someone to rein you in!

Today, sadly, no-one to get tough with.

Obviously NOT day 9!

Well, I'd worked it out, but got an email late this afternoon saying the carpenters will start on Monday.

They don't work Friday afternoons, so it seems they spend Friday morning finishing off jobs or doing minor repairs [I don't think in this instance "dépannage" counts as "breakdown"?!].

Doesn't explain today though...

Unless I blinked & missed Thursday?

Day 9?

Or not?

At this moment its shaping up into a "we'll see"!

On my calendar [why was I compiling this when we have a project manager?], it shows the carpenter starting...

No-one has said otherwise, but I'm beginning to wonder.

Mind you, the French seem crap at communicating!

We are slowly training ourselves to ignore letters until WE are ready to respond; it SO goes against the grain to "sit" on an official request for information, but we've learned that the officials won't respond to [any!] of our letters, so we are trying to become more French!

Still struggling with the absence of (what seems to me) business-like/courteous contact.

As I say, "we'll see" whether this turns into Day 9.

Or not.

Xylophène, part 2

Another change of plan.

It only took an hour to do the second coat, but as it's so much easier seeing where you've done on DRY wood, I'm going to have a longer break before doing the third coat, so that I can tell where I'm up to!

Xylophène

Change of plan with the Xylophène: just because I can now scamper in a relatively-fearless manner up the ladder to the bit above the stable, it does NOT mean than I'm happy at the top of the steps treating the joists...

After half an hour (and four feet of progress), I took the decision that, as they haven't been munched away in the last 150 years, the joists will probably outlast David & me WITHOUT being treated for woodworm.

So I stopped that, but am doing the big beam that will be visible, and the woodwork above the door/window.

It needs three coats, and as the first coat took 1 hour 45 minutes I'm having my lunch break then will start again.

I reckon that by the time I've finished the second coat, I will be able to start again at the beginning which will allow the hour between coats suggested.

Part of me feels a complete wuss, but the greater part thinks "well done, not HAVING to do every last thing to perfection, IS making progress".

Tomorrow the carpenter starts work to replace the floor upstairs, and as part of that he is reinforcing the joists, so he will spot if any of them are bad enough to come out.

Gorgeous day!

It's started out lovely today: I got a really good night's sleep and when the alarm went off didn't feel like pleading for "just 10 more minutes".

OK, so it took me half an hour to get out of the house, but I went for a cycle ride again, so feel very virtuous.

It's not at the stage where I'm enjoying it, yet, but that will come.

I've also taken some photos of the garden in the sun, and inspected the concrete which is dry, so I'm off to treat the timbers as soon as I've had a cup of tea.

Don't tell David that I've been up for nearly three hours without having had a brew...

1) He won't believe it, and

2) It might set a precedent!

Day 8

Turns out all my worrying was for nothing!

The builders arrived this morning (just before the concrete mixer lorry), and when asked "what about the pipes in the bathroom floor" were not at all phased - "oh, we'll just shutter that bit off and do it later".

Phew!

The concrete mixer driver was really skilful, and manoeuvred the arm into the stable & the tapis did the rest.

Not sure whether to think of it as a flying carpet or a magic carpet...

I think it was a bit of both?

Either way, I wish my dad could have lived to see one; I can remember the struggle with barrow-loads of concrete getting them from the mixer to the site before it went off when the lorry couldn't get close enough to where it was needed.

Alain says it will be dry tomorrow, so hopefully I will be able to get up the step-ladder and treat the woodwork before the carpenter gets here.

Mountain biking

Along with staying on the wagon [actually surprisingly easy, when there aren't home-made liqueurs to 'evaluate'!], I'm trying to take more exercise in a bid to become healthier...

I love walking round the tracks, but some days I leave it too late, or the gaps in the showers don't feel long enough, PLUS I would like to explore further afield.

So we've invested in a couple of mountain bikes.

Yesterday I went off for a trial ride: it took me six goes to get about 200 yards (300?) up the hill at the back, so I turned right and did the circuit I can walk in about a quarter of an hour.

Took me 10 minutes...

Hmmm!

Baby steps it is then.

Today, I still needed to stop five times [and it was only five because I gritted my teeth and refused to stop when I REALLY wanted to!], but when I got back onto the road I turned left instead of heading straight for home.

Managed just over half an hour, and I expect I will pay for it tomorrow!

My "seat" is going to take time to become acclimatised to the saddle; but as it's always like that when you start cycling, I'm not worrying.

Perhaps I'm slightly unhinged starting out my ride with the steepest hill I can find?

I like to walk that way, because when I get to the plateau it's all easier from then on in: I think I climb about 50 metres over a distance of 300-400 metres at the start of a walk, so it is pretty aerobic (or maybe it's just because I'm really unfit?), and then the remaining ups & downs don't seem as daunting.

If I get to the stage I can ride further than I can walk (which is looking a bit shaky, to be honest), I will need to find my map.

But that's not such a problem as getting my thighs & posterior into shape will be!

Elderflower gin

I was running out of time to pick my elderflowers, so didn't have much time to research a recipe.

I reckoned that getting a batch made was more important than finding the "correct" way to do it and missing the (rapidly closing) 'window' of opportunity.
So it was out this morning to pick the best of the remaining heads flowering, as they were rapidly going to seed.

I ended up with about 32 (but it could have been 33) heads that I checked for insects and then cut the flowers off into a Le Parfait jar.
Again, going for the "let's get it done" theme (and totally lacking in finesse), I drowned them in gin!

Someone reckoned that they should be decanted after three days, but I'm going to try & follow Hank Shaw's (Hunter Angler Gardener Cook) advice & let it "rest in my cupboard until the berries from the plant it came from turn ripe".

If anyone remembers me making fruit liqueurs last autumn, and is wondering how they taste, the verdict is "Yum". David selflessly sampled four bottles of damson gin and two versions of quarante quatre (plus half-and-half mix of both versions), and declared we could offer any of them to our friends!

Day 7

Or should that be "Day 6" - I can't make up my mind whether Day 1 counted [showing up, saying "Hello!", and coming back hours later to measure from a hole drilled in a block down 1m - still not sure if that IS a day's work!], and whether the bonus half hour on Saturday does either...

Still, we've had workmen on site now for 7 days, so I'm sticking with "Day 7".

On Day 7 we had an electrician run a few cables so that they will be covered in concrete when the builders lay the concrete tomorrow.

We've got two places where power sockets/telephone/TV are going to be located on the stone walls & the cabling needs to come up from the floor in a joint in the stone work.

We were going to have three places, but there was no other suitable joint, so we've compromised!

Still not sure what's going to happen with the absence of a plumber and needing to encase the waste pipes in the slab...

BUT, I'm reminding myself that we have a project manager whose job it is to worry about that sort of thing (and who knew about the problems with the plumber's health before he quoted for our job), so I'm going to let Jean-Marie earn his money!

[Maybe by tomorrow's update I will have eaten my words, but maybe (just maybe) not.]

Snap decision

Having dithered about for months trying to decide whether to get a French-style washing machine [narrow, top-loader] or an English one [wider, front-loader, many more programmes, half the price], we were no nearer to making a decision, until this afternoon.

We'd gone to Burgundy to try and source some stone for the sill under the French window in the stable [I think we're OK: M. Pasdeloup has enough for a small terrace (can be installed later) that's "nicely weathered" (a.k.a. needs pressure washing!), as long as we can find a way of getting it here... 1.8 tonnes is more than a Berlingo can carry!], and needed a "pit stop".

I was waiting for David & got sucked into browsing the 3-day sale of white goods; sometimes I think having an oven would be great!

I was also admiring a decent-sized fridge [one where tenants haven't broken all the door shelves & half the other shelving, so we could stand cartons of juice upright!], and went to have a look around the other side only to get 'sucked in' to washing machines.

There were 2 cheap ones: a "French" one and an "English" one... David found out from the salesman that the top-loader only spins at 600rpm, whilst the front-loader has choices of 400, 600, 800, 1000 & 1200rpm and they both use the same amount of water/are A rated. The front-loader takes 6kg to the top-loader's 5kg, so it was a pretty easy choice!

The downside: top-loader slightly narrower, but greater functionality seems more important that a bit of extra space in the laundry room...

Which really IS a laundry room now!

Luckily, we'd got some filthy boiler suits [pressure washing 150+ years of crud off beams & walls creates a fair amount of muck!], and grotty work clothes [tying a (very gritty) tarpaulin to the wall plate left so much residue in my hair it took 2 washes to get it to lather, so you can imagine what previously dirtied clothes ended up like] so we felt fully justified in doing a "test run".

So far, so good!

No leaks [yet], and given the colour of the water coming off, it seems to be working.

And given the special offer, we paid not much more than a second-hand one from the charity shop in Wallington would be, and half the price/less of a new one on display in the Auchan normal display of washing machines.

Fingers crossed it lasts a while.

Day 6

Bonus!

We were sitting there in our dressing gowns about 8am [after leaving Lydie's at 1am, we'd got to bed around 2] when the SMS van drove up...

Being the type to only go out in my nightclothes to take photos of my plants, I let David go and open the gate!

Alain & his colleague worked for half an hour or so & then were off: they have almost finished laying the plastic sheeting, reinforcing-rod mesh & polystyrene insulation.

We're not sure what happens regarding the plumbing wastes/missing plumber, but I'm sure I'll find out on Tuesday when the concrete is [due to be] poured...

Day 5, continued

Jean-Marie did show up eventually, by which time we'd spoken with M. Huguenot and sorted out almost all his queries regarding electrics: height of switches/wall lights, location of sockets, etc.

We do have a lighting plan [and this time it has been updated - SO much easier than my pale blue pen amendments!], but when faced with stone walls that we are keeping visible, things have to "give", and that includes placements of power points vs joints in the stonework.

He seems OK with it, and we're happy, so that was painless.The builders are at the stage where they seem to be rattling along.

They get all the "glory" bits - knocking down walls, building walls, breaking through windows, finishing around openings - it's all relatively rapid, with a lot to show for a day's effort.

David is really impressed by how fast they are going; I'm happy with progress, but being much more familiar living on a building site, know that all trades work equally quickly, but you only "see" the bits the builder, tiler & joiner do...

Plumbers, electricians (and especially anyone doing air-conditioning) tend to have so little to show on the finished project it can be easy to wonder why they seem to spend the longest time on site.

Answer: try living somewhere where they haven't spent much time on site, and you'll soon know why...

Just the one light and two sockets in a room brings more inconvenience than waiting the extra week or two to get an adequate supply of power!View from our bathroom window.

OK, so it's not a window yet, and it won't be a bathroom for quite a long time, but it's definitely a view!

We're off for apéros with Lydie & Laurent to meet Aude's friend's [Anna?] parents: we're wearing our other hats as "exchange visit brokers", so until the girls are safely back from Stuart & Tracey's we'll be keeping everything crossed that everyone gets there safely/gets on/has fun/gets home safely!

And I'm keeping everything crossed that with me on site everything will go smoothly with this phase of our renovation...

Day 5

9.35, and we're waiting for Jean-Marie for a 9.00 meeting...

Day 4

Half the floor is covered with compacted hard core [does big grit count as hard core?], and the builders are progressing well.

One small annoyance - they have taken down a perfectly good joist [but apparently it wasn't nailed down, and can be replaced]...

Day 3

A day with a digger, and the builders had excavated out for the floor...

AND we had a hole for the bathroom window.

Now THAT felt like progress!

Day 2

At the end of day 2 all the bricks forming the roof to the stable were down, and the wood.

Now THAT felt like a start!

Day 1

Well, you didn't expect anything to have happened on the first day, did you?

Don't be daft!

They did show up, and came back later to take a measurement [but as it was going to be a rough measurement for how far to take the earth down for the floor, I did a rough calculation & wrote it on the blocks & we went shopping!], so that counts as progress.

Update since my last post...

Hmmm, I haven't felt much like updating this blog with progress - mainly because it hasn't felt as though there has been much progress.

Hasn't stopped the bills, though!

The project managers are not covering themselves in glory - delays at their end have pushed the start date from beginning April to Monday of this week [7 June], and we've had a couple of days where they've needed our urgent response to fairly massive issues by lunchtime...

Hmmm [again], let me get this correct: you've sat on this for over a month, and now we have less than three hours to look at it, make a decision and get back to you?

Bearing in mind that France is an hour ahead, and the French are still pretty 'religious' about stopping for lunch at midday EXACTLY, and the urgency is caused by back to back holidays for best part of a month. I'm not happy!

AND then when we do get back to them with a very detailed list of comments and points to absolutely include/don't mention, they just go and ignore it!

Anyway, we've started now, and as far as we have good news, Jean-Marie's telling us to deal with the joiner will save us their fee on nearly a quarter of the budget!

Haven't mentioned that yet... [Probably a 2-month delay on passing that bit of information on?]

Number crunching

We've just [successfully] trimmed 40% off the estimates, so that we can do phase 1b at the house.

OK, so we're not going to have the bathroom (and a couple of walls), but we should end up with a habitable space...

Even if we can't use it in the winter!

[The external insulation to the side wall is one of the economies.]

We'll try & see how cold it is during January, and maybe we can sleep there - I don't mind a cold bedroom as long as I can bathe in the warm & have somewhere warm to be during the evening.

Snow, 2009

It felt like an early Christmas present having a coating of beautiful white snow to wake up to! Especially after the snow had made the journey down so "interesting".

We're kind of more used to the quickly-greying London variety - either than or it's already turned to slush!

When it's this cold and bright it's almost impossible to resist going for a walk. A dose of vitamin D, and the exercise all helps, and you feel good about making the effort.

It was so powdery, we were seriously considering buying snow-shoes! It's beautiful, but even trickier to walk on than sand!

We were amazed to see fruit still on the apple trees in M. Lorin's orchard. I had followed his instructions and helped myself in the autumn, but had left plenty of fruit that I couldn't reach.

I made a greater effort to get the damsons [for my damson gin => alchemy], but there's only so many apples one person can eat. They didn't last very long.

It amazes us to see the leftover grapes still on the vines - we would have thought the snow or frost would have caused them to drop off. But like the apples, they remain, looking like retro Christmas tree ornaments.

We have read of a wine than is only made when the grapes have been frosted on the vines. We suspect champagne grapes harvested at the usual time probably provides a better/safer income.

The pull up the hill behind the house makes me breathe heavily at the best of times; with the powder underfoot it seemed even harder - I wonder if that is why this is a favourite "photo opportunity"?

Possibly; but I still love the view from 2/3 the way up the slope!

The snow provides perfect camouflage for the sails of the wind turbines; you almost miss them at first. I know they are there, so am always looking for a good picture.

OK, I'll take a bad pic, on the offchance it might be alright. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing dramatic clouds in juxtaposition with the turbines!

We saw this print in the snow: in my mind it's Snow Angel/Angel of Death. [I don't know how to notate that?]

It's a bird touchdown print - and does look like a snow angel, but knowing the only reason for a kestrel to come down like this is to pick up a tasty morsel, it's also an angel of death for the vole/shrew.

This was a view as we walked down the little road back to the village. [We'd had enough walking on the beautiful-but-hard-work powder and knew the road would be plowed!]

We ofter pass this way and think of the Alps - the little field higher up definitely looks like an alp (alpine pasture), and this scene reinforced that resemblance.

As it looked like a Christmas tree, it was also very Christmassy; just what we wanted!

Christmas 2009

It felt a magical Christmas: we had snow for almost the entire journey down; OK that bit wasn't great, but arriving to a covering of white, and seeing the Christmas lights outside the Mairie really set the scene.
We hadn't got the heating sorted out at that stage, so when we arrived the temperature in the house was about 8 or 9°C, but got up to about 12°C by the next morning.

M. Antoni's visit helped massively with that, but that was later...

We were incredibly glad when M. Monnier's men showed up in their van; and even happier when, after 20 minutes of trying, they managed to get the van up the road to our house!

We were worried that it was going to be "snow stopped play", but thankfully the poêle was installed and started off the warming up the house properly process.

We never did get it above 14°C, but given the lows of -19°C [and the stove!] we were fine with that.

I had planned to do the housework and set up all the Christmas decorations after David had gone back to London, but the Eurostar "wrong kind of snow" collapse meant that he stayed with me.

A bonus, and he got to help with putting up the decorations!

I can't believe that I didn't take any photos of the mistletoe I hung up in the imposte above the front door, but as I can't find any, I have to believe it.

Shame, everyone we speak to regards mistletoe as a menace, so they don't mind you helping yourself to masses of it; they'd see that as a service!

I think the enforced early start to David's holiday helped him to wind down much quicker/sooner than he would have done otherwise - he was still logging on to the office and working, but there was a 20 second commute and an hour's time difference in our favour had a massive impact on his sleeping.

Because there was so much snow about, we did our "shop" to last us the fortnight we were there and we had no need to leave the house...

Apart from to try and work off some of the food!

We had one idyllic walk that could have come out of White Christmas, and managed several shorter ones on less sunny days, and just relaxed, read and allowed ourselved to be hypnotised by the flames of the fire and the candles.

I did 'fess up to my autumn's liqueur-making activities, but only after a blind tasting; he did identify one, but not the other two!

David is looking forward to when they have matured a bit; although he's not keen on my plan to lay most of it down for years!

I explained that I could make some more next year, and if we have spare mirabelles, they could be "sacrificed to the cause"; he cheered up a lot at that idea.

We are looking forward to being able to invite guests, and offer them a glass of homemade damson gin...

In the meantime, posting this has got me looking forward to next Christmas already - and you don't often hear me say that before December!

Poêle

December 18th:

The woodburning stove (poêle) didn't arrive in time for our previous fitting date in November, so we were incredibly grateful that M. Monnier managed to fit us in before Christmas.

We had to rearrange our journey to arrive a day earlier, but it was worth it.

As we hadn't yet got the heating regulated properly, it was doubly worth it! [Even now it's above freezing it's still worth it.]

Bizarrely, the workmen showed up on the day they were supposed to, only about 20 minutes late (given the snow that practically counts as 'early'), and worked really hard until the stove was fitted. And didn't complain when we insisted that they check it with a level [Maria was right!]!

We were totally impressed with them, and the lovely job they did, and (of course!) the poêle.

And with that night dropping down to -19°C, it got a real "road test"!

The advice is to burn the logs 'hot' and let the fire go out, rather than banking it down for the night, but we had to keep it in till the heating got into double figures.

It's Norwegian, and all our neighbours agree that they know a thing or two about woodburning stoves and cold winters!

We thought people would look a bit askance that we hadn't chosen a French model, but everyone agreed that Scandinavian stoves are way better; that was a surprise, but we are total converts!

And we've noticed plenty of other people choosing foreign stoves, too.

Best Piece of Advice Award:

The Best Piece of Advice Award goes to Karen, for suggesting getting a side-loading model.

The side door doesn't let any ash out, and less smoke (if the fire is smoky), and when it's hot, you don't roast quite the same...

Brilliant idea!

Karen also gets the runner-up Best Piece of Advice Award for suggesting a hot-air blower for the shower room radiator.

When it's not cold enough to have the heating on but nippy enough that you don't want to take your clothes of and get wet, the soufflerie takes the chill off the air enough to get naked.

And like most females I like to be warm if I'm going to be nude!

Snippets I would have posted...

...if I hadn't been pretending to hibernate...

Probably far too long for one post, but I want to make a record of lots of things, and don't want to do numerous tiny posts dragged out over the next few weeks. I do plan to post some photos of the snow, installation of the wood burning stove and the Christmas candles, so there will be another few disjointed points before "normal sevice is resumed".

[In no particular order:]

Wild Boars:

We saw two families of wild boar: one was in the wood just outside the village, and the piglets looked very nearly fully grown, and the other was on an outing we took on Boxing Day - mum, dad & six tiny piglets.

WOW!

I know they have loads of them in France, but we have been looking out for them for over five years, and the closest we'd got previously was the chap who ended up in the body bag, which doesn't count in my book!

The little piglets are so cute with their ginger stripes!

Eurostar:

Apologies all round, blah blah blah, will learn from their mistakes, etc etc etc.

For once we didn't mind - the bonus days when David couldn't get back to the UK were like an early Christmas present!

AND our luck was holding - the trains broke down before David had gone back to London.

[Now him being stuck in London over Chrimbo would NOT have been popular]

And David's mum sent him a text to say the service had broken down, so he didn't even have the wasted journey to Paris/hotel stay/return to Troyes fiasco that he could have had!

Penknife:

Vs. Axe

I was hoping for an axe for Christmas...

[And certainly would have made use of it, had I received one!]

But I got a penknife instead! Actually, I love it - a special gardener's penknife, so thank you Santa!

That of course means I can go axe shopping; yippee!

Boiler going wrong:

Had a minor panic with the boiler...

We're loving being able to phone it up & say "stoke up, please", and arriving at a warm house!

[OK, technically we send an SMS saying "1111 bahk1 2", so it's not the full sci-fi robot experience yet, but sometimes in my mind it could be.]

For the first time since we've being using the "télécommande" we needed to turn the boiler down...

[When it was getting down to -19°C and highs of -2°C we didn't really need to turn the heating down; that was before M. Antoni had adjusted it, and it was struggling to get up to 14°C going all the time.]

Only it wouldn't!

Thankfully much nagging of David by Maria led to sufficient chasing of M. Antoni that he came back & waved his magic wand; we don't know what he did, but we could finally turn the boiler down to the low setting.

Bit of a panic, but glad it's fixed now (and hoping it stays that way)!

Broken tooth:

In September I finally had to go to the dentist having had toothache for 5 or 6 weeks. I felt really weedy, having to make an emergency appointment for a filling-gone-wrong, but Paul was very good about it.

I apologised for being wussy, and said could he just bung me in a temporary filling, and I would make a proper appointment when his diary was less crammed!

Well, the x-ray showed that there was a fracture in the tooth, and Paul said at least one half would have to come out; he wouldn't know if he could save the other half until he'd hoiked out the first chunk...

After asking if there was any way to save the tooth, and re-phrasing it a couple of times in case that gave me a better answer [in my defence, I think I was a bit in shock], it was still "No!", and "Let's get the first bit out and then see about the rest".

It's quite an odd [very slightly unpleasant] sensation having someone wrench out a tooth: there's no other way to do it, unless it's so bad you have to go to the dental hospital & they take away part of the jaw - NOT what I wanted!

Sadly, both halves of the tooth were beyond saving as the tooth had split completely, and the nerve no longer served either bit, so the other portion was dragged out, too.

When I went back to have the stitches out, I asked if I could have broken the tooth in Feb/March: I'd had really bad tooth pain for about a week [I felt as though a horse had kicked me in the face], and could NOT face letting a dentist any where near me, and then we got busy, and I forgot, etc, etc, etc...

Paul said yes, that sounds about right, and by the way I wasn't a wuss!

So, that made me pretty happy!

Chainsaw:

Very sad to lose the damson tree in the storm.

DELIGHTED to be able to use the chainsaw "properly"!

[So far we've only used it attached to the saw horse - that works brilliantly.]

That reminds me; did I mention we have logs?!

Well has water!:

When M. Antoni came to adjust the boiler the second time, he looked in the well, and we now have water - yay!

We "conveniently" forgot that you are supposed to pump the water for 12 hours [which is what caused it to run dry in the first place] before having a water quality test done; and no-one else has mentioned it...

And I'm willing to take the risk for flushing the loo and the cold shower water.

The basin has town water, so teeth cleaning is with treated water.

Pros: shiny hair - like rinsing with rain water. [However cold, I always finish with a cold rinse - wakes the head up nicely in winter!]

Cons: we don't seem to have constant pressure - so there's cold "patches" during showering!!

#LFMF:

When you're really tired, get a strong man to move the furniture!

I dragged a table top [we'd been emptying the stable to allow building work to start again, and had to store the "spare" furniture in the house"] away from the cupboard where we store the coffee maker.

[Site meeting of builders et al = coffee by the gallon!]

Thinking I wouldn't drag it back so I didn't mark the floor tiles, I lifted it to move it back into place...

And the edging and part of the top came away, whacked me in the face & left me bleeding and with a trout pout!

[Thankfully, as I've so far resisted botox, I didn't end up with that "mummified" look we sometimes see in Hollywood!]

Old furniture, made in sections may have weakened glue after a hundred or so years. #LFMF

#LFMF

Thankfully, it wasn't my fail!

The stories of plenty of contenders for the Darwin Awards on Learn From My Fail [#LFMF] suddenly made me stop and think: "Oh, I could end up writing about this on a Cheezburger website!", and then, "if I keep all my limbs/digits" and "as long as I don't bleed to death in the meantime".

It was as though a light bulb came on above my head: when you're so tired that it takes both hands to push in the 'release' button to start the chainsaw, it's probably time to call it a day!

We had a damson tree come down in the Xynthia storm, and it was in the middle of the hay meadow, so needed removing before the grass starts growing.

David wanted to save some of the seedlings, so was digging holes & transplanting seedlings.

[Once the grass grows we'd never have found them again, and then they would have got mown off with the hay.]

So I got to have first go with the chainsaw not fixed to the saw-horse, [David got to have a go later], and I started cutting off the branches & one of the trunks...

Well, thankfully, my belief that you never learn from other people's mistakes was superseded by an incredibly strong desire to avoid being in the news because my shaking arms had given way before the cut-off switch on the chainsaw kicked in!

The tree got moved anyway & I acted sensibly [rather than persevering to the bitter end], so a fantastic outcome.

I may not be as strong as I'm feeling, but the grey stuff between my ears seems to be working better!!

Update

We've got started with some more building work: on Friday we had a site meeting with various firms to price some of the remaining work for Phase 1.

We are calling it "Phase 1b", and T+B are calling it "Phase 2", but quite frankly we don't care as long as something happens!

A big consideration is the interpretation of the planning permission: we have two years in which to start the work, and five years during which we can finish it...

We have started the work in the stable inasmuch as there is a doorway broken through from the house [and blocked up] and there is a waste from where the loo will be connected to the drains.

Is this enough to count as having started? Does the fact that we have done the other work count as starting? Would they refuse to let us continue if we get it wrong?

We don't know [and don't want to find out - in the neighbouring village someone was made to knock down his newly-built house because it didn't have the correct planning permission], and don't want to take the risk; this way we are definitely covered either way.

AND get to have a spare bedroom!

Easing myself back in gently...

Having heard about shepherds in the Pyrenees who hibernate, I've spent the winter wondering how to go about this...

Is is possible for humans to hibernate?

And if so, how?

QI, it's not that I'm doubting you... BUT

Let's just pretend I'm emerging from hibernation!

We had a lovely Christmas at the house, with the newly-installed poêle and masses of candles; and a bonus few days of David-time.

[Thank you Eurostar, for your complete inability to learn from your "lessons" of past train breakdowns & handle a crisis! Thankfully, the Shuttle trains can handle winter weather, and we were the "right" side of the channel before the Eurostars went into melt-down (freeze-down?) & David couldn't get back to London!]

I might post some photos later - I'd gone a bit over-the-top with the candles, so everywhere looked pretty festive, and [obviously!] we had snow...