Lundi, Vingt quatrieme Octobre

So lovely day here in the Lot today - well not quite.  It was doing what we would say in Aus 'blowing up for rain' and man was it blowing!! My boys stayed in the barn all day today and Will was a bit scared of the noise the wind was making - lucky he had his very relaxed bro to calm him down and give him a cuddle.  This was how they spent pretty much all day - good life for some!

 We on the other hand have been pretty hard at it the past 10 days.  Well Paul has anyway - I have been keeping the food and coffee coming and helping when I can.  The verbal abuse given to the trades assistant sometimes gets a little too much and I have to take a break before it all comes to a bloody end since there are lots of sharp tools involved!   However I have gotten better at holding the dumb end of the tape and cutting the steel for the wall framing - we actually didn't stop work last night until after 10 as we were trying to get the internal walls done as much as possible for the plasterer to do his thing today.  We didn't get as far as we would have liked but it is really coming along.  The bathroom and kitchen areas are close to being done with just the wall around the stairs to be done tomorrow.  Then the finishing will be done on the plaster - so that will lead to painting and then installing all the cupboards - bathroom bits and all the other stuff.  Should be an exciting couple of weeks!

Check out the thickness - 24 cm of insulation - hopefully will be cozy up there!

Many days work right here!

It was actually extremely chilly here this past week - down to below zero one morning.  It was cold enough for me to order the heater for the attic and buy a little blow heater for the van.  Most of the past week though, despite being cold in the mornings and at night, the days would warm up to being absolutely gorgeous with sunny blue skies and not a breath of wind.  On one of these days I went on a hike with my friends John and Aileen - 13km and 3 hours later we got back!   Was a really great walk though with lots of Autumn scenery going on - it really is a pretty good spot we've found ourselves in.  I really would like to get a horse or at least have access to one - I keep meaning to make contact with the riding school that is only a km or so away but my experience with riding school horses is not great.  However their horses actually don't look too clapped out so will have to do it soon as there is so many nice places to ride through.  It is prime hunting season at the minute so you do have to be a bit careful - lots of men strolling around with guns and bright orange vests on.  We actually got home from a trip to town one day to find a hunter and his dog (covered in blood!) in our driveway.  He obviously wanted to speak to us which always scares us a little due to our awesome grasp of the local language... but as it turned out I could understand him reasonably well and he told us our house once belonged to his wife's family - with the family name of Malvey, which of course we have found written and carved in several places - once of which says "Paul Malvey 1881".  He said they lived there up until the 40's which fits in with what we have kind of worked out with the what the other neighbors had told us.  They would have been the last people actually living here.  It would have been good to get more information from him but I had used up my complete French vocab already -was very interesting though to know they are still in the area as he lives in a village not that far away.

We are still getting heaps of walnuts from our tree.  Paul has a mild obsession with picking them which has lead to an invention of a method to collect as many as possible at one time - it involves attaching a largish rock to a rope - slinging it over the tree as high as possible and then pulling the rope and basically shaking the nuts off - it is quite amusing and fun too.  Here is a shot of Paul with his contraption after collecting walnuts from the two trees down closer to our front entrance.  After today's wind he also picked another half a large shopping bag full.  I have been using them in pastas and salads.  I have actually developed a strange addiction to something that goes very well with walnuts - Blue Cheese!! Yum - yes Murray Royce you were right - Blue Cheese is amazing - never thought I would be saying that ha.  Particularly good with the fig jam I made too.  I have got a microwave/convection oven on it's way so I can finally bake something (walnut and date loaf anyone??) - 5 months of cooking with a two burner camping stove has gotten a little bit old.  Although I do have a slow cooker which has come in handy and will do so even more now its gotten colder.  I actually made some Grape Jelly in the slow cooker using the grapes from our vine - they have all become ripe at once and we are struggling to eat them all so I thought I would make some juice from them.  However it's quite labor intensive and after I saw how much juice I was getting I decided to make jam from it.  I only used sugar initially but it was super runny so I then added in some pectin and it did set pretty well.  Peanut butter with grape jelly and French bread - yummo! Lucky it's winter - we need a good layer of fat to help us survive a French winter - or that's my plan and I'm sticking to it - ha.

Nuts galore...

On Saturday we had our first relatives to visit.  Well sort of relatives - my dads sisters husbands sister and her husband came to visit.  Joe is French but they live in Canada, however they still have a house here in France which is only and hour or two away from us that they visit a couple of times a year.  Was lovely to meet them and show them around.  Joe is a plumber so Paul also picked his brain a little re the plumbing which was handy!  Here they are outside our barn.

Ok well I think that is about it for the goings on over the last 10 days.  You'll see from the next lot of photos the attic is coming together nicely - Paul and I are off to buy the bathroom fittings tomorrow whilst the plasterer does his thing.  We are going to take the van to Cahors - might have to have John on speed dial ready to come and rescue us if the van doesn't make it there and back!

Paul gyprocking!

Bathroom taking shape - Green board is the water resistant gyprock..

And the plaster finishing begins!

Bathroom framing

Door goes on the bathroom!

Treizième Octobre 2011

Ok - well finally got some things happening around here so it's about time for a fresh blog.  I actually spent pretty much the whole of today breaking a local French law - but thats a story for a bit later on!  We have been enjoying some beautiful Autumn weather for the last week or so - very chilly in the mornings and at night but the days fine up to be clear and warm with no wind.  Am enjoying it as pretty sure the forecast is for very chilly days in only a week or two's time.  Here is some pics of all three boys enjoying the late afternoon sunshine.  You will see from the shot of the cats that the forest behind us is starting to go brown and dropping leaves.  Paul is excited about being able to see all the interesting things in the forest that you currently can't see for the trees.  Not sure I am so thrilled ha.

Paul has been busy finishing off his attic flooring,  putting in the plumbing and electrics in the attic as well as doing some of the plumbing in the downstairs kitchen.  When digging into some of the older foundations he found this old hand blown glass - not sure if it was put there on purpose - very strange.  Would love to know what era it comes from - the glass is very thick at the base.

Since I last blogged we also had our interviews for immigration at Toulouse.  After much stressing and reading of expat sites information etc it turned out extremely routine and not scary at all.  There was no language test - just a chest xray to make sure we weren't bringing in TB with us - some very general health questions - a bit of waiting around and voila - good to go.  So we are currently legal until March next year when we have to go through the process of getting a visa extension which can take up to three months hence the early start on it, since our actual visa wont expire until June.  Anyway we spent most of the day in Toulouse and then after the interviews we headed out to Ikea for some kitchen stuff for the attic - after about 10 minutes I had a major dummy spit about Paul not measuring what I wanted him to (why oh why can he not read my mind!!) so we pretty much just left.  I have decided it is very hard to storm out of Ikea with any style at all since I got lost a couple of times trying to find the 'quick' exit out.  No such thing - and yes we still had to do the tour of the kiddies section!!  Was a very quiet trip on the way home - but we got over it after a day or two ha.  The joys of spending 24/7 together - it's just not natural I think!  Other events of note this week included spending Saturday night at our closest neighbors house (or garage to be more precise) for a commune 'fete'.  It was good to meet a few more of our French neighbors from a little further across the way and it is a good example of the community spirit that you find here.  The food was, I hope, not really traditional French unless you call chucking some lumps of meat and whole vegies into a stewing pot for a day and then serving it up, French cuisine - hmmm probably not the best meal we have had in France but it's the thought that counts.  And the entertainment was mildly amusing albeit very confusing -  it consisted of our neighbor Michel putting on a blonde wig and doing a spiel in French - it was all too fast for me to have any clue as to what it meant but apparently it had something to do with Celine Dion...Another of our French neighbors is also obsessed with Kangaroos and eating them everytime he sees me - which never gets old - even after the 500th time.  I am going to bring back a Kangaroo steak with me from Aus when I go in January for him if I can get it in!
Yesterday was another big day as the van finally passed it's inspection.  Paul had spent hours trying to get it ready to go so it was a big relief to hear the inspector say ' c'est bon' - even Paul understood that!!   And today was the day Paul and our new expat Aussie friend Bernard starting doing the plastering in the attic.  Here are some shots.  Lots of setup work to be done prior to the plaster going on, including the very thick insulation going in.

Metal railings to connect the plasterboard to.

Getting the ok from the local site inspector/foreman/engineer/architect and general quality controller!

Whilst the guys were in the attic I spent the day planting out our new hedge.  This sounds easy enough but it took me all day to plant just 12 bushes.  The ground is literally all rock hard clay and so for each hole I would use the crowbar then fill it with water - let it sit for a while - dig out what was soft (er) then start process again until the hole was big enough for the plant to go in.  But it looks good and will hopefully block out some of the more aesthetically challenging parts of a house across from the barn and provide some privacy for us.  We have a very strong and active 'neighborhood watch' in our little area.  The day after we got back from the US the English neighbors had been very accurately informed by several other neighbors that we had arrived home at exactly 9.30! 

Check out the water in the holes - it can stay like that for ages!

 Anyway whilst I was doing my hedge today the post lady drove up the driveway as I had done some shopping on Amazon and she had a parcel for me. Well she then started talking about me planting the hedge of  "Laurel"  - which at first I thought was just small talk as she only speaks French but I soon realised she was telling me that the planting of the hedge was 'Interdit' = ie illegal!  Apparently the local government has  banned it due to the recent 'drought'.  They must use too much water.  Anyway after saying I didn't know anything about it she left and I carried on ha - well we have bought 30 plants already so now we will just have to wait and see if the Posty is a spy and the Laurel police turn up to make us remove the hedge!!

The illegal hedge...

Well thats about it for now.  Just thought I would apologise to my friend Carol who would like us to hurry up and get to the after shots of the house a la episode of 'Grand Designs' ha ha.  Trust me Carol - I would like nothing more to get the magic wand out - but hey wheres the fun in that hey?

Autumn view out what we one day be our bedroom window..

Le Mois de Septembre

Hello - I'm back.  We have spent the last three weeks in the US of A visiting our daughter Chelsea and catching 10 of her field hockey games.  It was a great trip but boy are we happy to be back in France and not living in hotel rooms or eating the nutritionally challenged meals that abound there! 
After having our winter coats and boots on in the US, it was a nice surprise to find the weather here in the high 20's - although luckily we missed the high 30's just last week!  So variable here - not something we are really used to.  We spent the majority of the time in and around Chicago where Chels is based but also managed trips to Washington DC (on the weekend of the anniversary of Sept 11 - not great timing!) and Vegas with some road trips as well.  Just this last weekend we drove from Chicago to Michigan State for a game then on to Penn State for another game before heading back to Chicago for our flight home to France on Sunday night.  Nearly 3000 miles done in the rental car over 9 days - crazy.  But Chels and her team are going really well with 10 wins and 4 losses at this stage and are ranked around 16 in the nation which is great for them.  Hopefully they can keep it up and make the national championships for the first time in ages.  Chels also broke a couple of her schools all time records for goals and points that have stood for over 20 years while we were there so was good to be there for that. 



Pic of us three on the day Chels broke the record (hence the flowers) - Photograhy by roomate Claire! x

Chelsea and her boyfriend Hunter - we went to all you can eat sushi in Chicago - was goood too!

Anyway 3 weeks and several kilos later we are back in France and nearly ready to get stuck back into work.  We got in at about 9 last night and went straight to bed as we hadn't not really slept on the plane from the US - but of course we woke at about 1 am - luckily both got back to sleep again but I woke with a jolt at about 10.30 realising it was nearly too late to pick up the cats from the cattery as they shut at 11 - but I ended up getting there in time and the boys are very happy to be back chasing rabbits and mice - Will sat with us at tea time tonight tossing a dead mouse around he had just caught - lovely..  Hopefully we can sleep through normally tonight and not have too much hassles with jet lag. 
Paul is a bit grumpy tonight which is understandable as his flooring that he laid before we left has all shruck and left gaps much larger then he would like! So much for the timber being seasoned and dry!  Is very frustrating as he likes to get things as good as possible which it was when we left.  Can't really pull them up and do again either as it has been 'secretly' nailed so will tear the grooves if pulled up again.  Oh well - lots of floor rugs should do the trick.. The only other problem is that we have about 1/4 still to lay as the timber merchant didn't have any in just before we left so we got some more today but now Paul doesn't want to lay it until it has been left for a few weeks to make sure it is dry.  This could delay the gyprocking of the attic which will delay all the other work that needs to be done up there.  The joys of building/renovating I guess!



Paul unloading the last lot of boards today for the attic floor.

 I spent a few hours this afternoon picking walnuts from our tree.  There are thousands and a lot have fallen on the ground which is fine but since we have a lot of ivy growing under the tree heaps are basically hidden
and you have to ferret around a bit for them.  They are very tasty though - I don't know why but we really get ripped for the quality of nuts in Australia - maybe we have to import them from somewhere and we get them when they are too old or something but a walnut or pecan in France or even the US tastes nothing like the ones in Australia - ie they are amazingly crisp and not bitter like in Aus.  I made a walnut and basil pesto and used it with some pasta for our dinner tonight - was yummo.  A meal without some form of animal fat was also good to have after our last three weeks - however I am sure it won't be long and I will be missing ribs and Paul is probably missing Chipotle (mexican burrito chain) already!  I brought some canned chipotle chillies back with me to make the barbacoa beef in the slow cooker - will wait until it gets cooler though I think.  I also brought back some proper maple syrup which might come in handy to make a walnut pie.  So much for dropping those extra kgs!

Well this Thursday we have to make the trek back to Toulouse for our immigration interviews.  I will spend some time tomorrow making sure all the paperwork etc is organised.  This is the final process of formalising our visa although after re-entering France last night I am not sure why I have been so worried about it all - we had a stopover in London and no-one checked our passports - then in Toulouse there was only a very quick check of the the passport - quick stamp and we were in.  I guess we don't look too much of a threat to anyone!  Anyway Thursday entails of a medical interview and chest xrays and also an 'integration' interview which may or may not entail a language test.  If you fail that then you are enrolled to do 400 hours of language classes.  These are paid for by the government so may not be a bad idea but it depends on how long you have to do the hours - 400 hours within a year is a lot a week!  It will also be a pain if they don't offer them locally to here as I suspect they may be in Cahors which is about 40 minutes away.  Will have to wait and see.
Anyway I am off to bed.  Sorry not many photos this week - I took my camera to the US and took a total of 10 photos - pathetic. Ha - talk next week - hopefully with something to report re the renovations!