Semaine Sept

Finally we have got back to some real summer weather - well probably still too mild for a normal summer but the past few days have been absolutely fantastic - about 26 degrees - no wind - and since we've had the rain you can just about watch everything growing around you.  We have just got back from a quick stroll down to the Abbey Nouvelle - well it was meant to be about 1 and half hours walk as it's about 10kms there and back but I got us slightly lost so 3 hours later we struggled up the driveway ha.  Was a lovely walk though - partly through the forest in the hills behind us then partly along some country roads through farms and little hamlets.  Unfortunately we went left at a fork and were meant to go right so ended up going a lot further than we had hoped - ended up back in the forest and wondering if we would end up on the news as the lost Australians who survived on berries for three days haha.  It would have been a shorter walk but we had to keep checking out some of the old shepherds huts that litter the forest - we found this one that was once three rooms - two are still intact - can only imagine the sheep getting put in there on freezing nights - they look too small for any human habitation although Paul still managed to go inside this one!

The Abbey Nouvelle is a lovely old stone building that is mostly in ruins - we hadn't walked to it before and came in on it through the forest - a rather nice little cluster of buildings behind it in a really nice spot.  A dairy with some very fat and content looking cows is right next to it.

L'Abbey Nouvelle

 Other than our little adventure today, it has been reasonably uneventful this week.  We are both suffering pretty badly with sore hands after a couple of weeks straight of chipping off the clay plaster but Paul finally did the last little bits yesterday.  Paul has also been digging out the kitchen floor to get it down to the level we need to install the underfloor heating - also another big job now done. 

 

 

 

Paul chip chip chipping away.... 

 

 

While cleaning out the fireplace on the first floor Paul found some old papers including this lovely birth notice from the 1930's.  We also have some newspapers in the old chest from that same era.  We are starting to think this is around the last time it was used as a house and not just a wine cellar and or tobacco drying place.

Paul also found something else a little more interesting in the ash of the fireplace - it is a very old type of syringe - made of glass in it's own wooden holder. It was broken which is a shame but strangely enough there was a small glass vial of some liquid sitting on the fireplace so maybe someone was a diabetic, who knows?

1930's junkies??

Well we have a delivery of sand and render mix coming tomorrow - we bought a high pressure washer during the week that we will need to clean down the walls before we start doing the render - Paul had fun testing it out on on old door and on a couple of the beams in the kitchen.  It sure rips into stuff - we have to be careful not to get carried away with it. 

Paul having fun with the pressure cleaner - I am sure in a week or two it won't be so enjoyable!

All the fruit in our garden is starting to ripen - we have been eating plums flat out - or Paul has in particular and the grapes are starting to go red.  We have a loaded fig tree too - might have to make some jam once I am a bit more organised!

Ok well hopefully this time next week I will have some pics of some successfully pointed walls in the attic.  We are still trying to locate someone to do the gyprocking in the ceiling but no luck yet.  That's one job we have tried before and both agree it's not worth the aggravation!

Just had the cheeky wild cat pop his little head into the barn twice whilst I am sitting here next to the door - we are currently feeding him and our two boys -  he then also has the gall to beat them up most nights ha - he's gotta go - not sure how though - cat trap??

La Sixieme Semaine

Another week and a few developments in our life in the "Lot".  We now have the telephone and more importantly the net on in our barn.  We had the man from France Telecom return last Wednesday and after a few slight misunderstandings about where we could put the connection he finally got stuck into it.  With some help from Paul he pulled the cables through the conduit down to the road and put in the outlet in the cellar - but then promptly told us "un probleme avec le ligne" - and something about he would try to fix it "aujourd'hui " (today) - and then left.  I had immediate visions of several more weeks without communications and more painful telephone conversations for my friend and french translator Aileen, but no - within an hour or so we plugged in the phone and voila - it worked - fantastic!
Also on the Monday we had a nice young lad turn up with a digger and a truck to say he was dropping the machine off and would be back the next day to begin work on the fosse septic.  It pretty much rained for the whole time he was here which was probably quite good as it kept the dust down to pretty much nothing.  What a big job it turned out to be - here is a pic of the pipes leading from the house and barn to the covered septic tank - you can see the large area of drainage to the left. 

The highlight of this adventure was probably getting the couple of visits from the "Spanc" inspector - who is rather handsome and has a reputation around the area for being a bit of alright ahahaa - I really actually think it is because he speaks English in a very nice French accent that gets everyone going! (or is it his Levi's Aileen?? hehe)  The second highlight is we now have a flushing loo - although it is still in the corner of a very open barn so not sure any visitors will be that keen on using it mid dinner party hehe - but I am pretty happy about not having to visit the 'cabine' anymore!
As far as what we have been doing all week we have actually been getting stuck into the house for most of it.  I have chipped all of the old clay plaster from the downstairs living room - done a little bit on the first floor before tackling the attic and now have about two thirds of that done.  We have decided that I should concentrate on the attic for the time being as we are thinking we need to get out of the barn before winter (this week it has been pretty chilly here so have realised how cold it will get in winter with the wind hooting through!).  The attic just needs the ceiling gyprocking - a new timber floor and the smallish walls repointing - JUST ha - then Paul can install a bathroom and then we can move in whilst doing the rest of the house.  Paul is still working on the lower floor though as we would like to get the concreting done in the next few months too. He is pretty happy to finally be rid of all the concrete that needs to go in the house.  The entry hall has been taken out by Paul here is a pic;

  Here are some photos of the plaster chipping and the attic as is;

Before chipped on the right - after on the left.  We now will have to pressure clean the walls then repoint with a lime render.

The attic - the roof has already been done by the last owner - would like to have keeped the very thick old floorboards but a heap of them are quite rotten so we think we will have to just start with a new lot of boards.

I saved the writing - but not sure what to do with it now - will have to try get it off in one piece somehow perhaps!

Whilst chipping the walls on the first floor we found some writing on one of them - turns out it was written by one of our neighbors (easily spotted and hard to deny as it begins with his name in full haha) when he was 10 (or so he says - pretty well written for a 10 year old ha) - but it is about how he and a girl have been up there kissing and smoking a cigarette and that they are two hearts entwined etc etc - all sounds very french like.  He is now over 70 so this house really hasn't been lived in for some time.  Still have to find out more info about it but this neighbor was saying the person who owned it during that time didn't live there but lived and had a shop in Degagnac, but he would come up to work at the house on his bicycle.  I suppose it was him who was making the wine in the house - who knows?

Paul proving to us he does actually fit in - sorry but I don't fit in as well - bad luck for me I guess!

Well Paul has finally taken delivery of his new toys today.  A Piaggio P350 Vespa Car or Ape and an old Peugeot scooter are now in our barn.  His is playing with them this very minute.. Above is a great pic of the Piaggio getting pushed by Paul and some neighbors up to our house from it's spot down in Jouanicou hamlet.

And a scooter! 

Well I think that is about all the developments for now - has been a good day for Australia - big win for Cadel Evans in the Tour de France - a big win for the Eagles too - would have loved to have been at that game but never mind.  Someone said here that Gillard has declared a public holiday for the whole of Aus tomorrow - any excuse I say - I guess she is thinking ahead to the next election, she might need all the help she can get I would say! A bientot!

Semaine Cinq

Sunday night and I am cuddled up with Will in the van - it’s been raining most of today which is kind of nice as it will keep everything green and lovely although the temperature has been low along with it.  It feels very much like a wintery day in West Aus!  We have had a few developments this week - I finally have got a car - yay - I have ended up with a Peugeot 3008 that has a diesel engine that will be cheap to run according to Paul -it has everything you could possibly need including an inbuilt navman and lights that go round the corner before you do so it’s rather lovely.  Mind you they have given it to us sans any books of any sort including any service history - and since it is a year old I really need to have them I would think especially for the warranty, so I am going to need to contact the car yard somehow - painful but we didn’t notice until we got it home.
We picked the boys up from the airport at Paris on the Tuesday morning - not sure if they recognized us straight away as they were too busy being freaked out from being delivered by a tooting forklift driver - poor lil guys!  However they were very quiet and slept for much of the 6 hour drive home and then had a great time exploring the barn on their first night.  Check out the photo of them looking out from the one window we can’t close off - luckily it is too high for them to think about escaping from!

  They have settled in very well although since we have let them outside we have had trouble keeping Will in at night and he has been having a very noisy, on going scrap with one of the nieghbors cats - hopefully they will sort it out sooner rather than later.  Harry is more than happy just staying in with us in the van although he is prone to launching himself at Paul in the middle of the night which hasn’t gone down too well!  It really is pussy cat heaven here though with lots of places to explore and hide in and it is lovely to have them here to entertain us!
We have also finally managed to locate the phone line after Paul has spent many hours digging several holes in very hard dirt looking for where our phone line enters our property.  One of our neighbors suggested to Paul that he should perhaps try pouring water down the conduit - mmm what a good idea - within an hour or two we had finally found it - only about 30 centimetres from one of the holes Paul had dug but at least we now have been able to re book a time for the phone company to come and connect us to the world so to speak.   They are now coming on Wednesday afternoon so hopefully there won’t be any more problems this time!

"one of these things is not like the other!"

Bastille Day Fete at Rampoux

Last Thursday was Bastille Day which quite frankly I don’t know a lot about but I am pretty sure it has something to do with the peasants uprising against the royals - something on my to do list once the internet has been connected - some French history study! Anyway that night we went to a really interesting social event in a nearby village.  It is a big party - there was over 600 people there - they have long tressles set up and the local teenagers serve you a 5 course meal.  It was a good night even if the food was a bit dodgy and the kids actually throw your  bread at you haha - I drove us there along with some people that were staying in on of our friends little gite (like an apartment at there house they rent out during the summer) - they ended up getting a bit tipsy due to the unlimited table wine and the obligatory apero at the end of the meal which was a locally made plum “wine” which really just looks like methylated spirits and tasted a bit like it too!  We sat with all our English neighbors but I was at the end so had a French lady next to me.  I ended up having a bit of a chat to her and she turned out to be from Degagnac so not far from us.  It was good French practice for me as she was very patient and was nice about correcting me when I had got the words wrong!

Wine still now is the base for the driveway

The past four days Paul and I have been working pretty well all day on the house. Well I say this but several mornings we have started quite late as we have been sleeping in - especially on the mornings like today which are overcast - as the van is inside the barn it really is like a little cave that gets very little natural light - normally both of us are up and about at seven or so at the latest but today for example we woke up at 9.45 - Whoops! Oh well never mind - since the sun doesn’t go down until well after 9 at night we tend to be eating dinner pretty late so not going to bed much later then normal too..  We have finally got to the bottom of a pile of building rubble that Chelsea had worked on before she left.  This meant separating reusable rocks from old concrete and tiles etc - unfortunately there is several more of such piles around the house so isn’t the end of it.  Paul has finally got the wine still out of the living room - what a job that ended up being!  I have now spent the last two days chipping off the clay plaster from the rock walls in that same room.  I now have what feels like arthritis in my hands and wrists - hopefully I will harden up eventually and not have to pop so many anti inflammatory drugs just to get through the day!  Paul had his own little ‘Time Team’ dig in our kitchen yesterday - he has dug up a heap of pearl shell buttons, a silver earring a coin dated 1932 and a few other bits and pieces but nothing too exciting.  Well no Roman gold coins or anything like that haha. 

Digging for treasures...

Well I am off to sleep - hopefully it will be too cold for the mozzies to invade us tonight - we tried looking for bug spray today at the market but couldn’t quite work it out - I ended up with something that says Natural on it a lot - hopefully this doesn’t mean it makes you feel good but doesn’t do jack for mosquitoes!!

Un Mois

One month into this new life of ours and we are now totally empty nesters.  We put Chelsea on her plane this morning and back to Chicago she went.  Was very sad to see her go but hopefully we can get out to see her in September and watch a few of her games so it won’t be so long until we see her again.  We drove up to Paris yesterday - it turns out it takes about 5 hours - most of the way on the motorway there is a 130km an hour speed limit which helps!  We hired a car for the trip as although we have finally signed up to buy a car we don’t pick it up until Wednesday this week.  John can finally have his little Peugeot back too which I am sure he will be happy about!
We have had a pretty good week - once Chels and I got back from our little side trip we drove to Albi in Tarn to look for a car as there wasn’t a lot about locally.  After we managed to buy a car from a dealer who spoke pretty much no English (yay for Google translate) we decided to go home via Toulouse to go to Ikea - we got a few homey things like some kitchen cabinets so that we could make the barn a little bit more comfortable - Paul hates Ikea with a passion so this was a bit stressful for him but he has got over it by now - and the barn looks much more like a home - see pic of the kitchen.

I don’t want to make the barn too comfortable though as I would like to get into the house sooner rather than later but it is nice to be able to put things away somewhere and have our food somewhere any critters can’t get too.
Paul has still been spending days smashing up the tonnes of concrete from the wine vat - it still hasn’t gone completely - hopefully by the end of this week it will be out of there.  It’s been a pain to work out what to do with all the rubble - Paul has decided to use it as road base for the entrance to the barn but it looks terrible at the moment and this also means he has to spend a long time breaking it into smaller pieces.  He assures me that we can later put some nice white quartz gravel over it so you won’t see it at all.  This will be better then barrowing it all down to the tree line of our block and dumping it like it seems is the normal thing to do….Paul also has been very busy doing loads of wiring and plumbing - it’s lovely to be able to turn on lights - have a hot shower etc.  Unfortunately still no fosse septic  so are still using the lovely cabine as we have to wait for the professionals to do the installation  - slightly odd that you can completely wire up your house but can’t put in the septic system by yourself!
Had a funny episode with our new washing machine.  We set the machine going for the first time then went out, when we got back the machine had walked its way to the middle of the barn - the next time we tried Chels had to hold it when in the spin cycle to stop it from smashing against the barn wall!  Paul kept saying I would have to send it back - this is slightly problematic when, A. dealing with an online store and B. said store is a French store.  I had the book out and tried to decipher the page that talked about setting up the machine but couldn’t understand it.  I finally went to our friends place to see about contacting the company and luckily I took the book with me - Aileen read out the page and it seems we had failed to release the drum or something which is held in by bolts in transit to stop it stretching or something - whooooppssiiee - luckily it still works like a charm now and you don’t have to arm wrestle it in the spin cycle!
Paul also got one of his ride on mowers working this week that he has bought from a neighbor - both hadn't been used for a while and weren't working but he has managed to make a working one out of the two.  He has happily mowing away when some of the neighbors turned up to warn him he was mowing the local ‘big’ farmers land.  Turns out it’s a bit confusing as to where the boundaries are - we actually have about 8 different blocks in a strange arrangement around the house - there is about 3 acres in total.  Paul then got the ‘cadastral’ out and they all had a chat about where they all think the boundries are - looks like another neighbor has also set up part of his garden on one of our blocks - oh well c’est la vie!

The mowers get unloaded - amazingly one now is a goer!

Up at Domme - for dinner with Chels before she left - check out that view!!

Tomota and mozarella salad - this is on the menu quite often at our place - this is how tomatoes are meant to taste!!

We still haven’t been able to get the phone or internet connected to the house - the man from France Telecom came a couple of weeks ago but he couldn’t find where the conduit from the house met the main switch on the road so he left pretty cranky and apparently we now have to find it ourselves before making another appointment.  Paul has dug several very deep holes trying to find it without breaking the pipe for the village water (that wouldn’t make us very popular!) - this has taken ages in itself as the ground is a heavy clay and it has been very dry lately so it is extremely hard.  We may have to resort to contacting the previous owners to see if they know where it is located.
Well tomorrow I get to pick up the ‘boys’ - our two ginger cats have been at a cattery in Australia and are getting shipped out as we speak - I really hope they will forgive us for dumping them in a strange place for so long but I am sure in a couple of weeks they will be totally immersed in the French way of life and have become happy little ‘chats’!! Can't wait to see them - sad isn't it haha.

We came home one day to find this sign propped up against our post box - one of our neighbors, Michel, does them for the village - how lovely - Paul has been practising all week how to say thankyou in his best French!  And now he has to work out how best to place it at the entrance..

Trois Semaine

Well unbelievably another week has shot by.  I am actually writing this from a hotel in Paris - our room is on the third floor and overlooks the Gare de l'Est - is actually a nice view of the old apartment buildings in the area.  Had a good sleep after eating way too much food last night - note to self - must stop doing this as my jeans appear to be shrinking by the days ha.
Well this week has been pretty eventful - Chels and I on the Monday went on a bike ride to Domme via Beynac and Castelnaud which was really nice apart from one fact - it got to 39 degrees that day.  Most of the ride it was fine but the last half an hour or so was killer - I nearly jumped fully clothed into the Dordogne river at one stage only didn't to save Chelsea from total embarrassment ha - isn't that a mums job??  But that area which is only about half an hour drive from where we live is truly breathtaking and was good to see it again.

Tuesday Paul and I put some more k's on Johns trusty Peugeot and went in search of an architectural reclamation yard that John had mentioned in Prayssac - luckily we found it as it was actually a bit out of town but we did and was interesting to see.  Didn't find any of the oak beams that we are looking for but lots of steel and the roll top baths etc.  And huge sheds full of old doors, windows and furniture - you can really see the influence of the European styles in the reproduction Indonesian furniture we get in Aus.  We felt a bit awkward just wandering around as no-one seemed to be around other then at a front 'office' and some of the sheds didn't have any lights on but apparently 'c'est normal' - we didn't buy anything but we will be back!

Wednesday the two men from a local building firm dropped in to give us our 'devis' for getting our 'fosse septic' installed.  We had been warned it could be nasty so we were happy it was 'only' 4.5k euros.  Putting in the septic in rural france is definitely not the same as in rural Aus - probably a lot to do with the clay soils in our area of France and having more people around but it's a lot more involved then just digging a hole and dropping a tank in.  Funnily enough the same guys had dropped of a 'cabine' for us to use a day or so prior to us agreeing to them doing the job - no pressure - I will let you guess what that is ha - actually no - I will include photo ha.

Paul with 'le Cabine' or is it 'la cabine' either way - gross - hope that fosse septic gets in soon!

Recycling very old crumbly bricks into a new road - Chels and I have done most of this - we like it - Paul not so much - what do you think?  It will crush down to nothing once it's driven on a bit more....

Nearly gone - finally - the room is so much bigger - well it will be once Paul has removed all the rubble!

Wednesday night Chels and I set off on a bit of an adventure.  I have an issue with my wisdom teeth that I have yet to resolve as I was meant to have them taken out a couple of years back but actually missed my hospital appointment - I know dummmmm - but it was a week after we had got back from the US and for some reason I had it in my head it was two weeks blah blah - anyway at the time my teeth had settled and the dental surgeon had said they could be fine for the next 20 years - it was just the risk you took.  Well long story short they have been giving me heaps of grief in the last few weeks and since we are not in the French health system yet I got to googling and voila - you can go to Budapest where there are an over supply of dentists and get what ever dental work done you need much cheaper etc etc.  So after emailing a couple of them that looked legit I booked a little trip - flights only about 260 euros return so pretty cheap.  Anyway long story short we made it to the appointment on the Friday only to be told after being xrayed - 'you need to go to a hospital and we are only a clinic so you must get it done at home' - aaahhh so slight mis communication - is 'surgical removal of wisdom teeth' misleading in any way? ha.  Oh well we ended up having a lovely time in Budapest - did a very interesting 'free' walking tour that we found on Trip Advisor with some young Hungarians that had great senses of humor and gave us a good overview of their country's really turbulent history.  Also had some lovely meals - tried some traditional Hungarian which was yummy - particularly the pancakes stuffed with a minced meat concoction and covered with a paprika and sour cream sauce (see pic).  Apparently about 2000 cal per main meal is the norm in Hungary - have no idea why there are so many slim people there - other then perhaps they all chain smoke.....

Chels and I in Budapest (Buddhapesht) in front of very impressive church. Most of the buildings have been rebuilt at some stage and are versions of older buildings due to many years of war and destruction.

 We were due to come home via a Paris stopover tomorrow night but changed our flight to yesterday to give us a couple of extra days here in Paris.  Will save dragging Paul here next week when Chelsea is due to fly back to Chicago as he is not a huge fan of Paris - or big cities at all really - he doesn't discriminate ha.  We went to the Champs Elysees for dinner last night - to a restaurant I have been to with Paul before that is very reasonably priced and only about 100m from the Arc de Triomph so the view is pretty specky.  This was a Sunday night but the place was pretty much packed - the food was really good - so was the icecream on the way home!  Looking forward to doing some touristy stuff for the next couple of days then back to Degagnac to actually do some work - I think I have a few extra kilos to burn off so it might be time to sort out my eating habits to something resembling normality - not today though haha.

View from our room in Paris