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!
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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!
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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!
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