A Week (or perhaps longer) in our Lives v.2

So, as you may have noticed, doing a regular record of what is going on in our lives at the moment didn't quite happen! We were far too busy to get down to actually writing about it, and when I did have the time I seemed to be playing card games on the computer. I wonder if this is going to be a theme!

Anyway, rather than wait until I had filled in the gaps, I thought I'd start anew since this is another new chapter. 
 
This is what I wrote back in August . . .  A couple of weeks ago the guy redoing the central heating came and took away all the old radiators in the main house. It's such a shame this is France - these radiators are the big cast iron ones that in the UK we could sell for a reasonable return. Unfortunately France is about 20 years behind the UK in most things, and hence they are still in the rush of wanting new modern stuff, not 'antiques'. Also, since many people are modernising their old houses, there are a plethora of them, so it would be very difficult to make enough money to cover the effort involved. So they went down the tip. (Well, I assume so - it could be we were being taken for a ride by  Monsieur Mignon and he took them off to sell himself. Still, it would have been one hell of a job to get them out of the house so I'm looking at it that that is the equivalent of having to pay someone to do it for us.) He also took away the enormous safe we had under the stairs. That's not a usual thing to find left behind! But it was sooooo heavy! (Mind you, wouldn't have been a very good safe if it wasn't!)

Interesting thing about French workmen - they seem to be able to do everything! Take young Johanne for instance, only 22 and he did our 'tout a la gout' to connect the house to the mains water (we had/have septic tank but are required by the Mairie (Town Hall) to get connected to mains waste disposal within 1 year of purchase). We then used him to rewire the gite. He's just finished replumbing the bathroom in the main house bathroom, putting in the shower and sinks as well as doing the wall tiling and the floor.  He also offered to mend the roof! Now is this because they just didn't have the same specialisation in France as in the UK, or is it just that we never met such broad spectrum workers in the UK? Or is it because in the UK we have lost the apprenticeship route?

Johanne must have left school before he was 16, because he did a 5-year apprenticeship with M.Garreau (who is doing the electrics in the main house) and then worked with his brother-in-law before starting up his own business. He is also in the process of building his own house!  Somehow I think university has taken something away from us.  I remember being quite surprised at the mental difference when I went to university. I was 21 at that time, having left school at 16, done 2 years at college and then worked as a secretary for 3 years. So I was still young, but had seen something of the world, and found I had very little in common with the young children who were with me on the course - those who had gone straight from school to university. Most of my friends were much older (John being the principal one, who also had been out to work (having been chucked out of university the first time round because he was enjoying himself too much) before coming to Leeds) or were of that mentality. It's an interesting point that I will no doubt ponder on over several bottles of wine!

*********************

Thursday - getting locked in the loo!! That's just a note I made for myself and it's not something I thought I would be writing about! Olivier, the guy we bought the house from, took away anything that he thought he would be able to sell, and that included quite a few of the door handles for some reason. In the downstairs loo we only had a handle on the outside of the door, and I stupidly allowed the door to shut when I went in. The trouble is it was just after 12 noon, so Eric, the electrician, and his mates were all down the local Auberge having lunch, and John was in the gite so there was no-one around to just open the door from the outside. I could just see myself being there for ages, and was even considering trying to climb through the 1ft gap at the top of the wall, but luckily after 15mins John came through to find me.  What interesting times we live in!

 *********************
This is another note I started thinking I'd finish it off in a couple of days and post it . . .

Wednesday, 20th November 1 p.m.

So, for the first time in months I'm sitting here with enough time on my hands to write another blog entry. Well, perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it feels like it. We are in Le Bourg Dun at the moment, just returned from the bank where we arranged to take out sufficient cash to pay Roger for the work he's done on the roof.

Oh, you don't know Roger do you. He's an English guy we met at the local rubbish tip down in La Vendee - well, where else would you meet?  He lives with his wife in a village about 15 mins drive away from Nieul, and does odd jobs. He needs to do work since the exchange rate has fallen so much he needs more money. The trouble is, he only wants cash and the French banks make it difficult to get cash. We have a cash card, but that has a quite low weekly/monthly limit. The only other way is to go into the your branch (here in Normandy, of course) and arrange to take a single amount out of the machine in their office, but you have to give them 24hrs notice!  Anyway, we've done that this morning so we can call in tomorrow on our way back down south.

Roger has been helping John do the bathroom in the gite, which is where we are living at the moment as the main house is being pulled apart by the electricians and central heating guys. Whilst we've been away he has also been replacing the broken tiles on the roof, and mending the guttering, so we should have a dry house down south!

Ah, down south! Hopefully it'll be warmer and dryer than here in wet Normandy. (Just looked at Bing weather, and it's 7 degrees down there, whilst it's only 4 here. It's also raining here, and won't rain in Nieul until after 5 p.m.) Even so, I  hope the central heating work is finished and we'll have a warm house tomorrow or Friday at the latest. I bet we won't, though. We don't have an email address for M Etienne Mignon - the plumber, and so can't let him know when we'll be back. Yes, I could phone but that means talking French on the phone, and I hate that! We'll take down a convector heater so we have some warmth and pop into his shop as soon as we get down there - it's only a 5 min walk from the house.

Must stop for lunch now - very easy to prepare since it's what's left over from the meal we cooked last night when we entertained Carole, Martial their 2 friends and their son. As usual, I cooked way too much, but it was only a recipe for 8 when there were 7 of us so not as excessive as it could have been. After all, I only cooked one main course whereas I often cook 2 or more, just in case someone doesn't like the first - and in case everyone doesn't like one dish, I obviously have to prepare enough for everyone to eat each one! Then John and I eat the leftovers for the next week! 

Over the weekend there was a Herring Festival in Dieppe, and we bought fresh herring (surprise, surprise!) and coquille St Jacques. The herring we soused ourselves - our first attempt, with carrots, onions etc - and I must admit to them being gorgeous. Coquille are just fried, so no probs there and none of them or the herring left! Just some of the cold meats that we gave in case someone didn't like fish (see, I told you!). However, we have got lots of chicken forestiere (a casserole of chicken and mushrooms with haricots), some of the potatoes and lots of green beans left for lunch today. Plus the cheese, and only 1 pot of chocolate soufflé.

Oh, that's making me feel hungry, must stop now and reheat everything!

22nd December
Reading that last entry is interesting. We are down in La Vendee now, and entertained an English couple on Friday that live here in Nieul - Steve and Liz. They found out that we were buying the house back in March last year when Olivier was having a car boot sale (most probably including the door handles!) and left us a 'Welcome to Nieul' card, which we thought was really nice. We only had enough left from that meal for the Saturday lunch for us. And the other English couple we know who run the chambres d'hotes we stayed in when we first came down to look for houses came over for a barbecue in the summer, and they managed to get through ALL the food we cooked. Don't know if that's just a coincidence or something to do with being English!

Anyway, it wad good having Steve & Liz around because it gave us the impetus to buy yet more furniture and make the house more livable in. We still haven't finished all the final painting and everything in the gite, but did the important stuff like buying a 46" TV, a settee and a dining table. 

We have all this stuff up in Normandy, but we wanted to be comfortable for Christmas here, since it is yet another first - the first Christmas of our new life. 

We had hoped that we would be having Christmas in the main house, but the best laid plans . . . When we got back from Normandy neither the electricians or the plumbers had finished. The former didn't matter too much, but the latter was crucial since it was COLD.  M Mignon came round the next day and gave us a couple of paraffin stoves to keep us going whilst he got the gite heating working, so we weren't too bad. Now the electricians have done 95% of their work, as have the plumbers, and the remainder will be finished when we've done our bit on panelling the walls. 'Done' doesn't mean that it all looks beautiful, though. We have wallpaper hanging off the walls, great big holes in the plaster/walls, cables hanging from the ceiling and piles of stones on the floor!. Not what I ever thought the word 'done' would refer to.

But, we do have radiators that are warm and lights that work, so that's a fantastic improvement! We are planning to sleep in the main house for Christmas Eve so our Christmas present will be to wake up and shower in our 'new' (i.e. half finished) bathroom. Given how expensive paint is over here, I can't see us finishing the bathroom until our next visit to the UK which isn't being planned until Easter.

But as the French say, 'petit a petit l'oiseau fait son lit' (little by little the bird makes its bed). And John's just made me a cup of tea so I'll go up to bed and play card games on the ipad!

 

 

August: A typical week of our new life

Monday, 5 August
Well, here we are, getting down to the usual routine. And what is that at the moment? Well, having spent what seemed like the whole weekend on Skype for Worldcon, followed by writing up summaries of the discussions, and John desperately trying to get the new website for Worldcon finished, we haven't really been getting up to anything much. 

The routine is settling down into me digging in the garden for about an hour before the sun gets too warm and then cutting down hedges before starting up the Barbie about 1 p.m. John is usually working in the gite to finish off the kitchen during this time. Remember, we don't do early mornings, so get up about 9ish, and by the time we've had breakfast it's gone 10 before we start work.  As an aside: I love having all our meals out in the garden - including breakfast. It's not just the weather makes it easier, but also the physical location - the garden table is right outside the kitchen door and so it.) Then we stop for lunch until about 2-3 p.m. and John gets onto the computer for the rest of the day and evening. Me, well, after playing cards on the computer, and possibly going out and doing some more work in the garden, I'm not sure what I do, so I think I will start today to list exactly what I'm doing.

Today is slightly different since it's raining (pretty spectacular torrential rain we get here). (Note: must check the pigeon in the guttering is OK - yes, appears to be at the moment.) I came in at 12.30, made a coffee and started doing this whilst John is still in the gite kitchen.

God, that rain's really heavy and been going on for over half an hour now - I feel really sorry for that poor pigeon. Still, I have noticed one difference in my reaction now - instead of thinking "Oh bugger" my first thought was "Well, that should help keep the well water topped up!" At the moment we are being very eco because we are only using water from the well in the garden. No, not going each morning to collect a bucket full! There is a pump which takes the water automatically into the gite kitchen from where it is pumped throughout both houses. It means we don't pay any water rates since the waste all went into a septic tank. We have a liability to get the house connected to mains sewage by December, and then we'll obviously have to pay. If/when the well dries up (which I assume it will, because the main river in the town - L'Autise - dries up. When we first came to see the house last September it was completely dry.) we'll have to start using mains water which is again paid for by usage over here.

13.30 Just about ready to start lunch now - listening to Round the Horn on Radio 4 Extra if John's ready. And I can continue playing cards!!

Sad News - Tuesday

Noticed this morning that the pigeon wasn't in the gutter any more. Then noticed a small dead chick on the patio. What a shame!! Poor mother/father had sat there in the pouring rain and hot sunshine protecting the eggs, for it to all end in tears. Or else the chick was born and the mother/father decided it had had enough and chucked it out! We'll have to get up there some time to get rid of the nest. It'll be interesting to look if the water still pours over the gutter next time it rains.

Sunday
Yes, well, daily entries was a bit of an optimistic target - but if you don't aim high, you'll end up even lower (or something like that!).

What have we done? - the kitchen, the kitchen, the kitchen, Worldcon, Worldcon, Worldcon.  Today due to finish the last of the painting of the kitchen walls, and 'perhaps' do the doors. But the aim is to have a 'finished' kitchen by the end of today. Finished is in inverted commas because the end near all the water filter and softener gear cannot be finished until we have it all looked at by the company that installs it. Until then John's using bottled water in his Ricard because he's not too confident about the quality of the well water.

We've started cleaning out the main bedroom in the gite in readiness for it to be painted since that's where we'll have to live once the electricians start on the main house. That should be 16th September and they anticipate it will take a month to rewire the whole thing. So mid/end October we should be able to start on the main bathroom and hopefully our Christmas present to ourselves will be to be able to live in the main house!!

Went to the Saturday market in Fontenay le Comte yesterday morning - they have a good, though small, covered market which deals mainly in meat & fish, though there are artisanal bakery stalls. Outdoors there are all the veg stalls, and surprisingly a couple of Chinese food stalls. Not something we expected to see in France at all, since Indian and Chinese restaurants are very rare. There is also a British pie maker!!! It was really weird the first time we went there, there I was trying my broken French, and he turned out to be British. Well, I knew the company was - Markey's Pork 'n' Pies! -  but that didn't mean the person serving would be. We had a fantastic salmon & asparagus pie from him (though expensive - €6!!) and have now tried one of his pastis - cheese, onion & leek.

Decided to have a bit of a rest and so no major work in the kitchen or the garden. About 7 p.m. there was a knock on the door, and three people were there, asking if they could stay the night, and be given an evening meal! I couldn't quite understand all of it, but there is something going on where people walk around the Vendee doing special exercises. I think it's for charity but I'm not sure. There are two people in a team, and a third person who is the referee to ensure they don't cheat. Anyway, this weekend it was in the Marais Poitevin, and on Saturday finished here in Nieul, so they were all looking for somewhere to stay (about 50 of them, from the numbers we saw down by the Abbaye). We explained that we were in the process of redoing the house and there was no shower, only mattresses on the floor, and they'd  have to use the kitchen sink for washing in the morning since the upstairs sink, though working, is disgusting!! They came in and saw we were not joking, and decided that they'd see if they could find somewhere else, but would use us if there was no alternative!

They also asked that we not take anyone else in in the meantime - which we did when another 3 people knocked on the door about 30 mins later. We went out for a walk to the bottle bank, and when we came back found a note saying they'd found somewhere, but could we put up the other three we'd turned away!! They obviously had met up and explained the situation, because when this 2nd three arrived, they said they'd found somewhere where they could have a shower, and an evening meal, but could not sleep there! So we put the mattresses down on the floor and they stayed the night.  They said the Mairie was putting on breakfast for all the 'contestants' and the people who put them up, next day, but they did not know where! They had a sealed envelope that they were not allowed to open until 7.15 a.m. on Sunday, which would tell them where they had to go and by when, and what their challenge for the day was. We declined the invitation for breakfast - we don't do 7.30 a.m. unless it's really necessary!!

I woke up just before 7 a.m. and could hear the pump going in the garden (every time some water is used, the pump in the well refills the water reservoir) so they were obviously up. Hope they managed to sleep last night since we had the 'dogs choir' going on until after midnight. I can now see why in the circular from the Mairie, it mentioned not only when you could not use lawnmower's etc because of the noise, but also specifically mentioned dogs shouldn't be allowed to  bark in the gardens. We have a collection here, and when one starts, it gets all the others going! I don't know how the owners can put up with the noise, unless it starts because the owners aren't there. We have a noisy Rottweiler opposite our house, but it only barks when someone walks past, which isn't very often. And we found if you used Cesar Millan's advice (the Dog Whisperer) and just ignored him, looking the other way and continuing en route, he shut up!

OK, so that's used up an hour of my time, it's now noon so I'd better get into the kitchen to do the last coat of paint on the walls before we stop for lunch!

Monday, 12th

The week's up and THE KITCHEN IS DONE!!! (well, almost, I still haven't painted the doors and their frames, but that doesn't really count considering what we have done.)  And I've managed to keep to my weekly schedule - let's hope this is the start of something . . .

Good Intentions

8 July 2013
There I was, all keyed up to write a regular blog so I could read it in my old age and relive all the exciting things we do (and in my dreams be a 21st century Samuel Pepys - a female version, of course. Hah, what dreams!!). Then life got in the way so I didn't record any of the important things that have happened recently. Still, never one to be put off, I thought I'd start now. It's helped by the fact that the days are so warm here that it's impossible to work or sit out in the garden from about 12 noon until early evening! At first the afternoons were taken up by watching Wimbledon and the Grand Prix, but now it's only the Tour de France which doesn't need as much concentration - and today it's not even on since it's a rest day. Now there's nothing to stop me, apart from playing computer games, but I'm determined not to let myself get into that rut.

But what?? Here I am just one paragraph in and we're off to Brico Depo to buy the remainder of the things that we need to complete the gite kitchen.

Main house is 2 sections on left,
gite last on right

Isn't it amazing how one develops a 'code' to help identify different things - we do it all the time. In this house we've bought in the Vendee, there are so many rooms it's vital to be identify which one we are talking about . . . so we a have the main house, which has the main bedroom ('our bedroom'),  spare bedroom, studio, kitchen, lounge, salon, pantry, boiler room and wine cave. The attached smaller house (although still 3 bedrooms like the main house, but smaller) we intend to let out as a gite in the summer months, and that has a gite kitchen, gite lounge etc.


27 July
Boy, that trip to Brico Depo was a long one, it took 19 days! So, what has happened to keep me from the blog? Well, playing cards on the computer has taken quite a few hours, or even days! But NOT TODAY!! So, what has happened over the 2.5 weeks? Lots. Used to hear about people who basically had no life once they'd retired - work had been their reason for being. Not for John and me. For the first time in our lives we can make decisions that are totally our own - it sounds awful to say, but with both sets of parents dead, there is nothing holding us back, we are free to do whatever we want. And believe me it is good to be able to have a totally free choice for the first time in your life - it's only taken me 62 years!

Gite kitchen as we originally saw it

Having got all the electrics replaced in the gite, we bought the kitchen units and set ourselves a schedule which would mean we'd have the whole thing finished for when Dave and Emma came round for a barbecue. They are the couple who own the chambres d'hotes we stayed in whilst looking for the house and then during the buying process - so they've lived this expedition with us. They also know exactly what we're going through in the renovations, since their house was a derelict tannery when they bought it.

We hired a van for three days and had a quick visit up to Le Bourg Dun to pick up the washing machine, some more kitchen stuff and our double bed. (A 'quick' visit means mainly spending hours on the motorways. It takes about six hours to drive from here (including stops) on the motorway, and costs about €45 each way. What appears a good thing in France - no road tax - is not quite so good when you do a lot of motorway driving. The downside consequence is that most of the major motorways are toll roads to raise money for maintenance which makes the trips quite expensive for us. Travelling on the ordinary roads, however, would add about another two hours, so difficult when doing just a three day trip.) Hopefully this means we can have a proper kitchen (not just surviving with a microwave and a barbecue) and also have a spare bed for visitors - though having a bathroom in the gite would be another prerequisite!

Well, we didn't make that deadline. Though it didn't matter too much since poor Emma fell down the stairs and broke her wrist and jaw, so they had to cancel anyway. (Actually a good thing since I realised after that we didn't have any decent crockery!). I did say that it would have been easier and definitely less painful just to pretend they had no time if they didn't want to see us!!

1 August
At least the gaps between my comments are getting shorter - pretty soon they may even be daily!

Following the accident, we arranged another date with Dave and Emma to come round for coffee (Emma can't eat anything solid yet) which was Tuesday, and we were using that as a new deadline to get the kitchen done - guess what!

Today had roast chicken for lunch!! At least the bottom units, oven and hob are working now, so hopefully we'll have a fully operational kitchen early next week. Then we'll go back up to Normandy for a few days to get the work progressed there, and bring back the rest of the kitchen 'stuff' to fill all the cupboards here.



August schedule is:

1. Finish the gite kitchen.
2. Get the gite upstairs bathroom finished (new everything, including plumbing) so we can live there in September when the electrics and heating is being done in the main house.
3. Take out all the asbestos cement panels in the main house in readiness for the electricians and plumbers. Luckily the rubbish tip at Fontenay le Comte actually accepts asbestos! That is very rare, and we thought we'd have to leave them stacked up in the back yard. This wouldn't have been as bad as it sounds since they are OK so long as they don't start to break up.
4. Put in a shower room on the ground floor of the gite - not vital since there is a downstairs toilet already, but it would be nice to have all the messy work finished. If not, we'll just have to keep the door shut when Mike and Pat Meara and the Skeltons come for an overnight stay in early September.

Not much really, probably spend most of the time sunbathing in the garden!



Interesting Things No.1

We had torrential rain one evening with rain pouring out of the guttering. Thought we had a problem till we saw the pigeon who has made a nest right next to the downspout. Hope the eggs/youngsters don't get washed away! Not the safest place to nest.

Corflu Part 1

Wednesday, 24 April

Here we are, sitting in a lovely self-catering apartment in the hotel district just outside Charles de Gaulle airport, watching the snooker from Sheffield with German commentary on World Sport. How’s that for a good representation of life in the Europen community. (Marco Fu is leading Matthew Stevens, if you’re interested, but by the time I’ve finished this post the whole world will know if this is in the slightest important.)

Tuesday, 23 April

What an enjoyable evening at Arques la Bataille with the Connect Club. (Connect Club is a group of people who are interested in meeting different nationalities who are living in France. It is the brilliant idea of an Englishwoman who has lived in Normandy for 20+ years, and a lot of the members are British, but there are lots of French who want to meet Brits. Christine arranges lots of activities - meals out, barbecues, trips to various interesting places - of which this was another one.) In fact, what a good day overall. Almost completely packed for the holiday, and just a little housework to do. To be honest, if it hadn’t been for this Connect meeting we might not be so well prepared. You know how it is, work takes as long as the time available.

Wine and cheese tasting, with a lot of education on the wines - who would have believed that a Frenchman would be recommending a white wine for cheese! They are usually so tied to tradition. And to top it all, I liked the white wine that was recommended to accompany the Stilton (another surprise to have a non-French cheese represented, but maybe it was just a nod towards the English President). Unfortunately my notes are back in Le Boug-Dun so you’ll have to wait with baited breath for the details. It was again a very continental night - French & English (of course), but also Dutch and Belgian. Not bad for a group of under 20.

Wednesday again

“I don’t fancy 4 hours in a taxi to get to Charles de Gaulle Airport”, said John. So here we are, staying in OnlySuites ’hotel’ for the night, having got a lift at 9am this morning to Dieppe railway station, a train from there to Rouen, from Rouen to Paris St Lazare, RER to Gare du Nord, and then another to the airport, and finally a courtesy bus to the hotel which arrived just before check-in started at 3pm. 4 hours too long John?

Still it’s all part of the ’experience’ as is sitting here listening to the English of the referee and the German commentary of the snooker match. And tomorrow we’ll start again on our voyage of discovery. In particular we will find out if there is any drawback to BA paying us to fly from Paris to London and on to Seattle. Yes, you read that right. The flight direct from Heathrow to Seattle was MORE expensive than starting off from Paris and changing at Heathrow for the same flight to Seattle!

 

Corflu here we come!

Yet another new life. . .

 

Saturday, 16th March 2013

What a way to start the rest of our lives!  Just in case you can't keep up, this is the 2nd start of the rest of our lives. The first occurred when we moved over to France when we'd sold our house in the UK. The 2nd one has occurred now I'm retired and we've found the house in which we'd like to spend the rest of our lives (until we change our minds, of course!)

Anyway, this time started with getting up at what for us is the crack of dawn (7.30 am) to get the ferry back to France ready to start all the preparations for buying our new house down south next week. 

I even had the great idea that John could stop off at Sainsbury to get some more underwear.  Well you know what it's like, you buy new pants in a batch, which means they all wear out in a batch, which is what had been happening to John on this trip.  So far, so good, but then it all started going wrong. 

Firstly, Sainsbury had no underwear. Oh well, he'll manage, it's not like he hasn't got loads!  Then whilst queuing at the ferry port in Newhaven, we're told that as a result of the high winds the ferry can't actually get into the port.  Hopefully in an hour it should be OK.  And it was. The ferry got in and we were all moved from the warmth and comfort of the cafe out into the car to wait in the main loading area.  Another hour later, it'll be another 2 hours before they think they can attempt to get out of the harbour because the wind is again too fierce ­– but I can stand up in this wind, and I'm a lot smaller than the ferry, even after eating for the 10,000 this holiday!  They let us on board, so at least it's warm, and they’ve even given us a free drink in recompense – a soft one mind you, so generous!

So here we are at 12.15 am, sitting in the bar of a stationary ferry which should have left at 10.00 am, hoping that we'll get back home some time today!  However, the ever-present silver lining is that I have started my diary!!

Sunday, 7^th April

Boy, what a day!  Weather was good again (it’s been cold, but sunny for the last couple of weeks, so can’t really complain).  So got out to do a bit more weeding. None of that digging stuff, far too energetic when you’ve got chemicals that’ll do the job for you.  So finished the weeding that I’d   started yesterday. Still got the whole of the back garden to do, but at least it’s a start.  We’ve been meaning to do so much for so long now, but somehow something always seems to interfere.

First there was John being ill with cold/flu just before Easter, then me following with similar symptoms about a day later. For the first time in almost 40 years of being together, we slept in separate rooms.  Luckily John was feeling better by the time we had the trip down to Vendee for the signing of the final Acte de Vente for the purchase of the house at Nieul sur l’Autise.  That's where we are going to live this 'rest of our lives'. Unfortunately the owner, Olivier Croyeau des Loges, hadn’t finished clearing his stuff – to be honest it looked like he’d cleared virtually nothing. We agreed to give him an additional 2 weeks, and the Notaire had re-written the Acte de Vente, but Olivier started talking about wanting to take all the Porcelain door handles and other crap like that, so the Notaire said no to finishing the deal there and then. He actually went and confirmed with the removers when they could come, and that they would be paid directly from the money we had sent the Notaire.  So we’re due down again in 2 weeks and hopefully it will be 3^rd time lucky!!

Just parking in the garden on Thursday on our return when Tony arrived for Easter – good timing! House was freezing cold having been empty since Sunday but we soon sorted that out!

Weather was too cold to do anything much in the garden over the weekend, even though it was beautifully sunny.  Tony returned on Wednesday, about 2 hrs after Julie arrived!  LD Lines have the most annoying website – you can look up the schedule, which said Julie’s boat would be leaving Newhaven at 10 a.m., but that is only the planned timing. To find the actual time, you have to start to book a crossing, and if we’d have done that we would have known that for some reason Julie’s boat was leaving at 8.30 a.m.!  We only knew when she emailed us to say she was already in, so left the bar immediately and picked her up – unfortunately about 1.5 hrs after she arrived, but luckily it was sunny, so she was happily sitting in the sun listening to her iPhone.

Wednesday we did Rouen, though Julie didn’t get to see Richard the Lionheart’s tomb since they were working on that part of the church. We did get inside Joan of Ark’s church, which is the best. I just love the feeling when you get into it, and the shape of the outside is mind boggling! An upside-down Viking longship.

Thursday we did the funicular railway at Le Treport.

Brilliant!!!

Never been on one before but will sure as hell do it again!  This one’s very short, but it’s mind boggling to be in the tunnels and see all the work that went into it.  In the evening we introduced Julie to meat fondu – such an easy meal to make, but what fun!

Friday went down the bar and joined what looked like an impromptu cake tasting with Daniel, Michel and a couple of other men we know but can’t remember their names. (Must remember down in Nieul to make a quick note every time we meet someone so that we don’t get in the same situation where we know people too well to ask their names!) Then, after an impromptu buffet at home, we took Julie off for the return boat.  By 6 p.m. we were back home and alone!