Deux Australiens fous en France...

Printemps c'est ici??

2012-03-08T23:53:00.000-08:00

Yes I am very late with my blog. My apologies to my two readers ha. It is late for several reasons. One, we have actually had a bit of a life lately and been out and about to some social events meeting some locals. Admittedly mostly expats of one form or another but still it has been nice. The weather last week was amazingly good. If you're not a farmer anyway. It was clear skies and positively balmy with several days getting up to 18 and 19 degrees. The area needs rain though so luckily this week we have had a little. It has been back to pretty normal chilly days again now. Makes you happy that spring is on it's way though. I have some bulbs sprouting in my garden that look like they grow a couple of centimetres every day - and my wisteria has shoots on it. Everyone seems to be planting new fruit trees and the vegie patches are all getting worked on so we think it might be the right time to get some more fruit trees and start a little orchard going.

We have also been doing quite a few journeys in our now trusty van. One involved carting some outside pavers for our friends that we worked out to weigh quite a bit over a tonne - Paul was like wheel standing down the road and it was a very cautious
slow trip home. We did have a little hickup a week or so ago when Paul had disconnected the alternator and forgot to reconnect it before we left and so when we stopped in for supplies at our local Lidl it wouldn't restart. It wasn't embarrassing at all push starting it down a quite busy street in Gourdon!! Lucky for me Paul could manage to get it to roll without me getting out so I just sat (or hid) in the front seat and laughed at him.. good times.
We have got some cool stuff for the house from our trips out and about. Including these lovely old doors.

We got them from about 2 hours North of us - a couple of days apart from private sellers. I had seen them online so off we chugged for hours in the van. Lucky they are worth the hassle. The couple we bought some new front doors from were very lovely and wanted us to come and have a coffee with them but it was getting late and Paul finds the language barrier a little scary. He has found a new hobby or interest here that may help with that though as he met some English people who spend their Thursdays volunteering at a local tractor museum - fixing tractors. There are lots of French guys doing it too so hopefully he will start to pick up some lingo from spending time doing something that interests him. They all eat together and have a wonderful very French meal that has been prepared by the president of the museum. Him and his friend Yves went and checked it out last week - didn't do any work but had the cheap lunch and had a great time. He is off early tomorrow so it might turn into a regular thing by the sounds of it as he is very much into that sort of thing.

We also went to another vide grenier or brocante market looking for stuff for the house last Sunday. Lucky we had our French speaking Belgian friend Kathleen with us to help do the bargaining. Although I did lose out on a particularly amazing item because a. I was too tight and b. I was too slow. It was this fantastic antique clock that would have looked great on our kitchen wall but after the seller had told me how much he wanted (150 euros) I panicked a little and went to find Kathleen
so she could help negotiate but when we got back someone else was buying it - for 100 euros! Damn it. Oh well - I could say we'll find another one but I have never seen anything like it before and don't think I will again. Lesson learned..
We did get quite a few other things though.

I am writing this from the familiar comfort of the une petit lit in our caravane. My parents are currently here from Australia so we have made them stay in the attic as we didn't think they would cope too well with the cold French weather - understandable since they have come from extremely hot weather at home. Mind you it is very cosy here in the van with a heater going well it would be if we didn't have a pair of cats coming in and out all night! Mum and dad are well and truly earning their bed as they have been flat out helping out around the place. Dad has been helping Paul finish off the sub floor on the second floor ready to start putting up wall framing. Here is the floor pretty much finished and ready for the next stage.

We did do some touristy things today and I took them to Domme and Beynac castle - the menu du jour at lunch nearly did them in though - four courses can do that sometimes. Dad had a goose stew which was a bit heavy for him - I hadn't tasted goose before and it wasn't bad actually. Lucky we had a pretty hard core up hill walk after lunch up to the castle.

I have finally succumbed and admitted that my jeans aren't just a little bit tighter then when we got here - they are now unwearable! So hence - no more yummy stuff for a while. Not fun when we have vistors but it has to be done. I am also going with mum and dad on a coach tour for a week in Switzerland next week - good luck with staying with the regime then..

Retour en France..

2012-02-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

So we can finally say we have been at our house during a snow fall. We arrived home last Sunday night to a reasonably chilly minus 8. This is after three weeks in Western Australia where is was over 35 degrees for most of the time we were there so just a little bit of a difference! Mind you it seems we have managed to miss the worst of the wintery weather here as the neighbors had a minus 19 on their car temperature gauge while we were away. We thought we had drained our pipes of water before we left but no unfortunately we had only turned the water off and should have spent a bit of time making sure it was all drained out. Consequently we got home to pipes that had frozen solid. Not just the pipes mind you - both toilets bowls and cisterns had frozen and I went to get my hot water bottle from my bedside table and it was also frozen - hard for us to even comprehend how cold it must have been here. So no water for a few days and we had to spend many hours with all sorts of techniques trying to get the pipes to clear. This included pumping with a bicycle pump - warming with heat guns - and other more radical methods such as just unhooking the original pipes and bypassing them with new ones. This ended up being how we got it to work again with the old pipes only defrosting and clearing today five days later..

From this on the Friday night at a beach in Perth - about 30 degrees with daughter Gabs.. to this two long days later!;

Lucky our friends had come over and put the heaters on in the attic so we could sleep in our own bed - who needs water and showers in this weather anyway hey??

This is a pic of Paul with the offending pipes - if you look close enough you can see the core of ice coming out.

Will, having a run around in the snow after spending a few weeks at a cattery. They both have put on weight from sitting around eating all day but they haven't wasted any time catching up on the mousing since coming home - I am a bit over them bringing in both live and dead mice through the cat door at all hours to show off their bounty - gross...

So most of this week has been taken up with the plumbing issues but yesterday we went down to Prayssac to the salvage yard to get some more 'fer cornier' or angle iron that Paul is using to make brackets for the floor. We asked about some doors they had there too but from what I could understand they ended up being a bit out of our price range - they also needed a lot of work to be usable too so will keep looking. Here is Paul today working on the floor in what will be our bedroom and ensuite.

Only a couple of weeks until my mum and dad arrive for a visit from Australia - hopefully the weather keeps warming up for them. We are trying to get back to the snow at some point before then too. Not sure if it will happen though - the days just keep rushing on by... and we do still have a little bit to do to the house...eek..

Le 18 Janvier

2012-01-18T02:17:00.000-08:00

All packed up and ready to go - we are off on the train to Paris this afternoon for our flight tomorrow headed towards Australia - with a pit stop in Bali to break up the flight and have some r & r.. we really are not looking forward to the 13 hour flight but oh well it will be over soon enough. Haven't seen our daughter Gabi for 6 months so looking forward to catching up with her and the rest of our family in Aus.
We have had a busy couple of weeks with some small but important achievements. We finally found the oak beams we needed which Paul has now installed. We went to a reclamation yard near us and bought and loaded the huge beams in the pouring rain with Paul and the owner wrangling them onto the trailer.

We have also bought and got home a lovely old wood stove that will be perfect in our massive fireplace in the kitchen. This is very heavy and we had a few scary moments unloading it from the van but didn't end up with any breakages to anything or anyone so all good.

Paul has nearly got the floor ready to have boarding put down on the second floor. And the weather has actually been fine for about a week after what feels like months of rainy days. We have been very lucky as far as winter goes though as it has been very mild and we haven't found it too bad at all. It was minus 4 a couple of nights ago but it's pretty toasty in the attic as long as you have a few layers on!
Last week we went to a birthday lunch for our friend Yves - they are lucky enough to have a very nice friend and near neighbor who owns an awesome traditional bread oven that he has renovated and since the weather was so lovely it was great to be able to eat alfresco in the middle of winter. It was a very multi-cultural occasion with some French, Belgian, us Aussies, a couple of English people and even a Dutchy there - three languages being spoken at one point or another. It definitely helps with your French being in situations like this! Both Paul and I are in total awe of Yves and Kathleen who are pretty much fluent in all three languages - I would like to just be able to converse in two thanks!
Here are some pics of the oven and hut and the lunch..

We were lucky enough to get invited back this week by the owner for a traditional regional lunch he and his friend had prepared in the oven - ie Confit de Canard - Foie Gras etc yummo... Again the weather was great so work can wait ha.
Anyway - will be a few weeks before we are back so no blogs for a while.
Hopefully then there will be some quick progress on the house as our first visitors arrive in March! The caravan may be getting some use again perhaps..although I don't think I could do that to my mum and dad!

Here is the house as of today - doesn't look much different from when we first got here from the outside - hopefully it will start getting a face lift in the next few months..

Janvier le troisième

2012-01-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

So that was Christmas! We had a great time down in the Pyrenees - the weather was perfect for the week over Christmas with clear sunny days. We stayed in a catered chalet which is nice as it means you get to meet other people as you all have your dinner together in the evenings. It was a pretty good mix of French and English families with lots of little kids running around. We even had a visit from Santa on Xmas Eve although one of the kids was hilarious when he announced 'that's not Santa - he was in the kitchen cooking'! As it was our first cold white Christmas it felt quite different for us Southern Hemispherers but is a lovely change and having the traditional mulled wines by the fire after a day in the snow was great. We had the room with a view over the valley - here is a shot I took from our window one morning of the sunrise.

The three of us had never skied before so on the advice of a few people decided to first try snowboarding as it is meant to be easier to get started in a short amount of time. Not sure if this was wise but we sure had a lot of fun trying. We had a couple of hours lessons the first day then just kept trying after that. We all provided the ski resort in general with loads of entertainment and laughs as one by one we had major, extremely ungraceful stacks from the ski lifts. Chelsea even had a nice Frenchman say "stylish" when she managed to get tangled up in a chair lift dismount and get wrapped around the supporting post. I often would manage to get going initially on the pull up lifts, only to get a bit of the way up and then get all off balance and have to let go. One time they had to stop the whole thing as I was obstructing it by laying in the path and doing a good impression of a turtle on it's back waving legs in the air! Not embarrassing at all! I think Chelsea just about fell off laughing at me that time.. We did get the hang of it more by the last day although I would take a good while getting down the runs as my legs were so sore that I would have to keep stopping and giving them a rest.
Here are some fun in the snow shots..

This was the ideal place to be on the snow - unfortunately a lot of the time it was more like this;

Paul and I have decided we have to try to go back soon (once all our sore parts have restored back to normal) so we don't lose all our new found skills - although I want to give skiing a try next time and see how that goes!

So a couple of days after Christmas we headed back to Toulouse to put Chelsea on her plane back to Chicago. We won't see her for nearly 6 months so wasn't fun saying goodbye - it never is - but c'est la vie I guess!

Since being back Paul has continued to do some work on the beams for the next floor. We have been finding it hard to source the beams we need to replace a few that are either rotted out or too short to cover the span needed. John came to the rescue with one that Paul initially thought might have been too far gone as it had been outside for a few years, but after lots of wire brushing it cleaned up fine. He found an interesting method yesterday of getting it into place which involved loading one end on the van and backing the van in towards the house - very unconventional and probably dangerous but it did the trick!

I have been sanding back some of the windows that we took out from the second floor. We had been going to replace them with double glazing which I have talked about before but when in the snow we noticed that the chalet had the same old french style single glazing and we were still getting hot at night and having to turn the central heating off so we have decided we are going to try and repair the originals - they look so much better and we would much rather have a more traditional look. Plus with shutters as well as drapes from my research they should be more than adequate. Time will tell I guess - it has taken me a couple of days to get one window ready to putty so will take some time but hopefully will be worth it.

We are going out today to try and find some more reclaimed timber. There are a couple of architectural salvage yards not that far from us which we have been trying to avoid using as they generally pretty expensive compared to buying privately but we feel a bit like we are in limbo waiting for something to come along - so we will see how it goes!

Ok - so update on today. Have hopefully got some timber via the website Leboncoin and the local sawmill and have done the deal on the very old wood fired stove at the salvage yard we have been looking at for a while. So it's back down there tomorrow to pick it up in the van. We had a lovely lunch at an Auberge near the river at Prayssac that had been recommended to us by our friends then on the way from there to the yard we found my next renovation project!

Strangely enough Paul's not that keen!!

Bonne fetes!!

2011-12-22T08:30:00.000-08:00

So unbelievably it's only a couple of days away from Xmas - this year has gone by so fast although I am pretty sure I say that every year! I have to confess that I don't really do Xmas - sorry but I really hate spending money on buying stuff that no-one really needs and just fills the world with more packaging etc - bah humbug ha. Having said that having our first wintery xmas is going to be fun and it's been nice driving through all the pretty little French villages with all there lights and decorations up. We went to Sarlat last weekend to show Chelsea as she hadn't been there before - it's one of my favourite towns in our vicinity - a lot less crowds too in the winter - the last time Paul and I went there for the Saturday market it was total bedlam!Here's some pics.

They had a little ice rink set up in the town square which looked like lots of fun for the kids..

It was one of the few days it hasn't been raining - I think it has rained nearly every day for several weeks now - the Dordogne and Lot rivers are both looking very full now which must be a good thing for everyone. Mind you it gets a bit tiresome as far as getting up and going in the mornings. We have (or I should say Paul has) removed the floorboards on the first story now - this makes the walk upstairs a little interesting as if you did fall off it would be pretty ugly!

Paul has also manhandled the two huge beams we bought a few months ago into their new positions - consequently he has a very sore back now - hopefully it's just muscular and won't be too bad in the long term.

We discovered that one of the chimneys was leaking a bit as the stones inside the attic have become a bit damp - Paul was not too keen on getting up on the scaffold but our friend John didn't seem too bothered so was roped in to do the job - here he is today fixing it up.

It's not looking like it will be a white xmas here like it was last year but we are actually headed to the Pyrenees for a few days skiing and it has finally snowed there last weekend - the weather is meant to be sunny but cold so should be perfect! Here is a pic of our house that John and Aileen took last year on xmas day - hopefully it will snow here soon!!

Le neuvième de Décembre

2011-12-09T04:39:00.001-08:00

This will be a quick post this week. We have been cruising along the past week or two - putting finishing touches on the attic apartment and just generally enjoying life in general. Paul has spent the past couple of days helping out our friends who are doing a similar renovation but they have a gite business and have actually already taken some bookings for the house so have a very definite deadline! We, on the other hand have got a bit more time on our hands although it will be nice to have the next floor done by March when my parents are due to visit. But all the major jobs in the attic have been done and we are pretty well ready for Chels' visit in a couple of days time. She will be sleeping on a fold out bed borrowed from the neighbors in the store room at the side of the kitchen so not exactly ritzy but will still beat the barn :) Here are some more 'finished' shots of the attic.

We are still on the lookout for a couple of finishing touches - an armoir for our coats etc to put at the entrance and a tv cabinet or something that we can use as one. We have also got to do the shelving in the store room but will probably wait until after Chels has gone back to school so she doesn't feel too cramped in. But all up we are both pretty happy with how it has turned out. So far it has been easy to keep warm with our standard oil filled electric radiator heater - but having said that we have had very mild weather lately so hasn't really been tested yet. Hopefully the weather does get more wintry in the next couple of weeks as we are booked in to go skiing at the Pyrenees for Xmas. Well I say skiing but since none of us have actually done it before I think there might be only a slim chance of actual skiing happening but it will be fun trying.We did spend a day or so installing the satellite dish which nearly ended in divorce due to each of us thinking we knew which way to do it best. Hmmmmm this seems to happen to us a lot - both a little bit arrogant perhaps - haha who would have thought!! Both of us spent time up the ladder - in the rain - trying to use our iphones to align the dish to what we thought was the right direction. There is probably a very good reason most people get a professional installer! I ended up finding something on the net that uses google earth where you can actually click on the exact spot the dish is and it gives you the direction the satellite is in - this turned out to work much better and so we finally got the dish tuned in and we were away. Or so we thought... three days later Paul was woken during the night with bright lights coming on the box - mildly creepy since it was turned off when we went to bed but after a few minutes they all went off - well next day the stupid thing wouldn't boot up at all. So that took care of a morning while I researched what could be wrong with a brand new 'you beaut' Humax!! After a few calls and emails to the place in the UK that we had brought it from they emailed and told me to pack it up and send it back! Great... anyway we told our neighbors about it and they told us we could try to use one of their old boxes - quick clean - plugged it in and away she went. So we still have some English tv to watch which has been handy since it has been raining pretty much all week. Although unless you like X Factor or Dancing with the stars there aint that much to watch to be honest! (sorry Aileen!)I went riding again last week - was very lucky and got to ride a lovely young Friesian - I am now pestering Paul constantly about getting some fencing organised and maybe a little stable so I can have my own. However whilst I am now on the lookout for a horse Paul has been scouring the second hand websites for a motorbike - so is all fair. Here is a pic of me looking very happy with myself!

Dimanche 27 Novembre

2011-11-27T07:46:00.001-08:00

Ok, I guess it had to happen eventually. The cold, grey drizzle has finally hit our valley and I guess it means it's only just the start of a long cold winter. Luckily we have now moved into our cute little apartment in our attic. We have been sleeping here for about 5 days but it was only yesterday that we got the shower working along with the electricity. What luxury! This means the heating can go on and with only max of 5 or 6 degrees trust me we need it! We are having a bit of a lazy day today watching some downloaded tv on the computer and doing some cooking. We did venture out this morning to a brocante/vide grenier that was at a village about 20km away. Only came home with some cupboard handles but we had fun looking. It is nice to take a bit of a breather as it has been pretty hectic the past month or two - particularly for Paul who has been grappling, literally, with the French plumbing fittings as well as the French way of wiring. As far as the plumbing goes he tends to be too strong for his own good as often a leaky join has ended up with a broken fitting due to some over zealous tightening. Has been very frustrating though as just as it seems all the leaks have been sorted another one rears up. I wanted the toilet in place before we moved in but only after a couple of days Paul noticed there was a leak on the boards under it - after much investigating he worked out that the 'new' toilet had been patched on the underside and one of them wasn't holding. Pity we had bought it from Brive otherwise we would have taken it back but we have decided to try to fix it - will see how that plays out. In the meantime we have been tripping down the stairs back to the barn to use the loo. There may also be a small bucket involved for the night time ha.

Anyway here are some before and after shots - the afters will be added to next blog as there is still a few things to do but is a massive improvement on our camp in the barn!

Last week we had to head back to Toulouse as I had managed to pick up some wrong pieces for the kitchen cupboards in Ikea - so frustrating but it meant we could also drop our friends off to their flight to the UK so was all good. We also discovered an amazing charity shop with tonnes of secondhand stuff for really cheap prices. Two bedside tables of solid timber with matching marble tops that I am in the process of sanding and painting up came to the grand price of 10 euros. There was lots of nice furniture there but we only had the car - might have to see if the van is up to a return trip!

Note the bed that Paul has made us out of one of the oak beams that was left after the roof had been done and some of the floorboards from the attic. Recycling at its best!Other news is that I have finally been horse riding here. My friend Kathleen happened to mention that she had been getting lessons with her hubby who has managed to cut his leg with a chainsaw - ouch - anyway I said I would go with her and it was fantastic. Nice lively horses and we rode for over an hour around our lovely little valley - makes me want to get a horse here even more now much to Pauls distress! We went on one of the days that we have had most of November of - chilly start but clear sunny days - was all very nice. We have also been taking our neighbors dog for walks - well actually he tends to take himself and we just follow along hopefully behind him. I took some pics on one such walk.

Well the plan for the next week or so is keep going with finishing off up here - still have overhead cupboards to go in and the little storeroom/utility room still needs some plastering once the wash basin in the bathroom has been installed. Sanding of the stairs - plenty to do. Hopefully we may get the windows for the second floor and they will need painting before Paul installs them too. We have debated at length what to do with the windows. Initially we wanted to keep them the traditional French style similar to those that had been in there but to get them made from oak and double glazed, which is pretty much a necessity here, will cost nearly a grand a window and the ones we have seen didn't really look that great. We can get very cheap double glazed ones at the 'dodgy' brico which are single panes - benefit being once you paint them they should look reasonably good/unobtrusive and the second floor has really nice views so it will maximize those. Anyway since they are so cheap if down the track we decide we should have gone the artisan option we can always do it at that stage. In the meantime getting the rest of the building as airtight as possible is pretty crucial. It is quite strange walking through the first couple of floors that look like bomb sites to arrive here in the clean white freshness at the top of the stairs. Can't wait until it all looks this good! Oh and by the way Geoff if you are reading this the product on the floor is something by 3v3 called Huile Blanc - yep white oil! We didn't really follow instructions as it wasn't as white as we wanted so didn't remove the excess off with a clothe after painting on. This meant it did take longer to dry but seems to be holding up ok.Last pic is of some 'mushroom/fungi' growing on some of the trees around here. Apparently it is 'cepes' or wild mushroom season but we wouldn't know what was edible or not so just choose not to go there. This lot certainly doesn't look edible but who knows??

Mardi - le seizième de Novembre

2011-11-16T05:17:00.000-08:00

Ok - well instead of sitting around watching paint dry - literally - I thought I would come in and do my blog now. I think it has been about 10 days since the last one. We are so close to getting the attic finished but still so far! I am in the middle of finishing off the oiling of the floorboards. Here is a photo taken about an hour ago - the coat I did last night is still a bit sticky but I think another hour or two and I should be good to go. You can see where the second coat from one end has already been done a while back. Yes I am doing it white. I am not sure if this will haunt me later but I figure this space will end up really only as guest overflow so shouldn't be used that much. Since it is oiled too it doesn't take much to give it a quick sand and re coat if it starts looking too grotty. Paul was dead against it until the drama with the floor shrinking then he said I could do what I liked with it - I think he may be regretting it now but too late ha.. I think it looks great - so much nicer then the yellow piney color and I didn't want to stain it dark as there are only very small windows up there.

Work in the attic has been slowed down due to Paul having to shift to getting the bottom floor ready for the concrete crew to lay the concrete. I have kept going though - and have pretty much now got it all airtight as I have now mudded up to the plasterboard and also the floorboards - very messy job but does finish it all off nicely.
Here are some pics of Paul getting the bottom floor ready. He has worked his butt off this week - most nights he was still in there shovelling and digging in the numerous conduits and wires etc until really late.

But it has been worth it as yesterday Arthur the concreter came with a couple of workers and they have left us with this!

Front door

It's going to be so good to not have muddy, dirty floors to constantly track upstairs! Unfortunately Paul is now spending the afternoon chipping away some of the concrete at the front door as is too high to fit in the underhoor heating system plus tiles etc. He was concerned when it didn't look like the levels were being checked when the floor was going in and rightly so. It is not too much of a drama as we can always reduce the amount of insulation we put in but still not fun to have to redo something.

Looking from the little snug/tv room through to the living room

On Saturday we went back to see the couple we bought the beams off who are renovating a cottage about an hour or so away. The weather has been really nice - surprisingly since November is traditionally very gray and miserable or so we are getting told. So going on jaunts in the van is a treat with the sun shining and everything so green again since we have had some rain. We went back to buy their fireplace from them after letting them try to get more money for it. As we don't need the stone to use in the fireplace, I just want to use it in my island bench in the kitchen, we didn't want to pay too much for it. But they didn't get any takers so we got it for a bit of a bargain. Here are the stones - as you can imagine Paul had some fun removing them and loading them into the van and out again.

Stones for kitchen bench..

I also went to the local Brocante (junk shop) and bought an old singer machine to use as the base for my washstand in the attic bathroom. Paul found me a plank of oak (or walnut we're not sure..) to use which I am half way through sanding up to use in it also. I saw an old chair in the brocante that I really want now but will have to take Paul back with the van to get it. It is an enormous old carved armchair that needs a lot of work but is awesome. Might have to see if I can get the price down first though!

Sanding the plank for my wash stand


40 Euros from the Brocant - lucky only want to keep the base as the machine is not too flash!

Well I think I should go and do my second coat of floor oil. With any luck by Friday morning it will be dry enough for us to start transferring the kitchen from the barn to the attic. Going to be a big job - it's amazing how much stuff we have managed to accumulate in such a short amount of time. I can't wait to have a proper kitchen and bathroom though. Hopefully I will have some real before and after shots for you next time!!

One of our barrels cut in half to make a pot for my bulbs!

We took this shot during the week from our house - if you look closely you can see a balloonist in the sky - you can see them all the time much further to the North West of us but this one must have got off track as was much closer and more to the South.

Le 6e Novembre 2011

2011-11-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

I know - I'm late - I keep getting hassled by everyone but I have been waiting for more exciting news. But I finally have some. We have moved out of the caravan - woo hoo - I could not stand one more night in the extremely dodgy bed made out of the van 'lounge' cushions - it was crampy for me and I am only 5 foot nothing - not sure how Paul has coped for the past 5 months or so! But wait - don't get too excited for us as we have only moved a few feet or so - out the door. We have bought a mattress and have put it on the floor of the barn for the past two nights. Luckily it is not too chilly here at the moment so it has been fine. I had been hoping that I could report that we had moved into our lovely attic in the house but that is still another couple of weeks away I would think. The past two weeks haved seemed a bit like groundhog days but we are getting there slowly. The plasterer left after the ten days he had alloted to the job but unfortunately him and Paul had not been able to have the couple of walls up and installed by then, which meant Paul has taken on the job of plasterer since then. A solid week or two of rainy days has meant plaster that just refuses to dry out and so it is taking much longer to get it done. But hopefully today was the last day of actual plastering and now we can finalise the painting etc. We have done a lot - sanding - painting - wiring etc. Here is some shots of the attic - probably not much different to last week!

Yes - I do work sometimes - I just usually have to take the pictures - here I am sanding the beams..

We have done some other stuff other then being stuck in the attic. I have experienced one of the local delicacies that I was determined not too! We had dinner a couple of weeks ago at our new friends Yves and Kathleens house and her little pre dinner snacks looked like yummy little pastries - as I am naturally a bit of a pig I dived in as they looked like spinach and cheese. After a couple I started to wonder about the meaty chunk at the bottom of the pastry so stopped eating them. Yes - they were escargot!! They were definately edible but I wouldn't rush back for more.. We had a great night though - good food and great company - they are Belgian and bought their house from the same people who sold us our house. Theirs is a different kettle of fish though as it is HUGE and for the most part renovated. It also has a couple of 'gites' or self contained accomodation - they now have also bought a run down house right next door to theirs and are going to renovate it for a bed and breakfast.
We also have been doing some long runs in our old van. In the past two weeks we have driven it to Brive, Cahors and yesterday drove to Figeac. It hasn't missed a beat but it has a problem with the alternator so the couple of times we ended up driving in the dark Paul was concerned we could end up cooking the battery and have no lights etc. But we made it. We went to Brive to get the bathroom bits and pieces - Cahors on Friday to buy a mattress and yesterday to Figeac to buy a lovely table that I had found on Leboncoin - a French website I am mildly addicted to - the table was only 70 euro (included 4 chairs) so was worth the hour and a half drive! Good for me to practise my French too as it is very easy to get away with only speaking it rarely - and then only the basics for buying the shopping etc. I actually wonder if I am getting worse as I have not been learning or practising at all lately. I am meant to be getting some lessons from a local soon so hopefully that will eventuate.

This week we hope to finish most of the painting, plasterering and sanding in the attic - although Paul has to down tools a bit as we have had someone come and give us a 'devis' to do the concreting on the bottom floor and he thinks he can do it next Monday - this means Paul needs to finish off his plumbing in the kitchen and also dig out the cellar to the same level as the living room. The cellar still has the old wine barrels etc in it at this stage. Talk about a sucker for punishment!! It will be great to have no more dirt floors though and we don't want to wait until it gets really cold as this can mean bad things for the concrete apparently.

The most amazing colour of autumn ivy - Catus - on route to Cahors

Cemetry at Catus - decorated with Crysanthemums for All Saints day

Lovely little walled garden in the middle of Cahors

Ok well I am off to go trawl on Leboncoin - currently emailing someone with a nice 1920's bedroom suite consisting of double bed - armoire (wardrobe) and bedside table for the grand sum of 150 euros!!

Lundi, Vingt quatrieme Octobre

2011-10-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

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

2011-10-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

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!

La semaine douzième

2011-09-05T01:48:00.000-07:00

Well bit late on it this week - usually blog on Sunday nights but had a game to watch so it didn't happen. Is a bit miserable here this morning - low cloud - chilly and light drizzly rain. Good time to stay in my jammies, drink several coffees and sit on the computer and sort out banking stuff and do the blog!
I am actually struggling to remember what we did this week but think I have got it now. Monday and Tues we were going to start doing the new flooring but then Paul decided he needed to finish doing all the water blasting so the house could start to dry out - there are issues here with wood getting 'champignons' - french word for fungus funnily enough - makes sense - and we have been making the perfect environment for it - water and warmth - so Paul has been having to spray a chemical to kill them as they pretty much just eat away at the timber leaving a light shell of rotten wood - not what you want in your house! But before he could water blast in the last area to be done - our 'living' room - we had to finish digging down the floor to the level we need for the underfloor heating. This took quite a few hours of both of us either using the crowbar or shovel. We have ended up filling in the old duck pond with the dirt and stone - I wasn't sure if this was a good idea but it was a bit of a nesting place for mosquitoes so it's probably for the best. Will be a good little area for a herb/kitchen garden. Anyway we finally got to the end of it and Paul did the spraying, then on Wed Paul started doing the setting out for the flooring. It took a while as it looked quite level when the old boards were on but once the stringlines had been set up it became apparent it wasn't so level after all! We have nailed timbers to the beams that the boards can be nailed into to even it all off. Paul is now just putting the last few boards that we have in this morning - the merchant didn't have enough and aren't getting anymore in until tomorrow so we will go and get the remaining 10 or so mtrs sq then.

Something else done- de nailed and stored this lot!

Nearly done

Duck pond - no more - future vegie patch

Paul doing last bit of water blasting in the living room

New attic floor from underside.

Getting there...

We had an adventurous day on Saturday picking up our beams that we had bought a couple of weeks back. The French couple selling them to us said they didn't want us trying to take them with our old 'Trafic'van so luckily we spotted that one of the local supermarkets hire small trucks and moving vans - so that's what we did. We had to do two trips (it was about 30km or 40 min away) but that was fine - it all worked out really well. We got slightly concerned when the boys lugged the first two big beams onto the truck and the front part of the tray made some fairly concerning cracking noises but we didn't break anything.

Cottage where the beams came out of

As the story goes as told to the couple with the cottage by their neighbors, the beams came from the village chateau which would have been dismantled during the revolution - all the locals used the stones and timbers to build their own houses - this is actually quite likely and happened all over France during this time. The beams have very old mortice and tenon (spelling??) joints in them so have definitely been in another building at some time.

Very heavy - according to Paul anyway ha

Nearly in place - well not quite..

Had a lovely lunch on Friday at our local Auberge with our friends and neighbors - Don, Anne & Aileen & John - such good value - four courses of really great food - 12 Euros a head including wine - thanks to John & Aileen was even better value this week ha.

Ok, well I better get organised for the day - not much I can do in the house when Paul is flooring - I will be in charge of the girlie stuff like oiling them later on today... I did make a heap of fig jam yesterday - our fig tree is loaded and neither of us really like them a la natural but don't mind the jam - I didn't use a recipe as I don't have scales - just figs sugar and water into the slow cooker for several hours - looks ok to me so we'll see!

From this...

To this...

La onzième semaine

2011-08-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

Yep 11 weeks in - sometime is feels like we have been here for longer but then again the weeks are just flying on by! We have had a bit of a strange week weather wise here in the Lot. Monday was extremely hot - about 40 degrees but by Friday it was absolutely freezing - with a max of 18 and drizzling. It's good because it keeps everything so green but a little bit too extreme thanks! Here is a shot I took on Thursday night of the storm clouds brewing behind Jouanicou village.

We have managed to get some beams finally to replace the large one in the living room downstairs which had been hacked by a previous owner to make a new door. We needed to get old oak ones and not new ones so they all kind of match and stay with the theme, so to speak but we have been having trouble getting ones long enough as it is a span of over 5 metres. Well we found some for sale on "leboncoin" - kind of like Gumtree in Aus - for 50 euro each - which is very reasonable - the problem is they, at the time were still in situ - in a very old cottage lodged in the stone walls. We went to the place to have a look at them early last week and came away thinking we might not end up getting the lengths we need, due to the sheer amount of effort it was going to take for the couple renovating and selling them to get them out in one piece. We are only going to use two of them in the living room which is lucky as we have now heard from them that they had to cut two of them short. The other two will be used somewhere along the way. We are surprised they managed to not cut them all as they are about 25cm square and weigh roughly 400 kg each. I couldn't work out why they didn't want to keep them but they do look pretty awful now as they have the black soot build up etc from being in a room with an open fire. But Paul has been playing around with some of the oak beams that we have here and tidying them up to make furniture etc. They do clean up very nice with a water blast or planing.

Before

After

Paul also found a beam under our 'scrappy' wood pile he sorted out this week that he could use to replace a dodgy one in the attic - so a bit of a clean up and and away he went. Here is a shot of him putting it in and looking way too cheeky to be up to anything good!

Other reno things achieved this week include the fitting of all the little windows in the attic and Paul got stuck in today and pulled the majority of the floorboards out. It's my job tomorrow to denail them all. Maybe I should say - my job for the week!


Floorboards coming out - note the dust!!


New little windows mudded in and floor ready for new boards!

In to town tomorrow to get some new floorboards in the van that has finally been over the pits - not quite passed but as long as it's insured apparently you can still use it for a couple of months - it only failed on account of the hand brake not working so it should be fine! We also need to have a look at a little truck that we can hire to see if it will be sufficient to pick up our beams on Saturday.
Ok well, I am over and out - Chelsea had a big weekend playing in her first hockey games of the season - they had two big wins and she has 5 goals to her name already. Must take after me hahaha...Go cats!!

ps - whoops, almost forgot to mention - some of you that are more observant will notice that the name of the blog changed this week. Well it had been brought to my attention that I was using the plural feminine form of the word crazy - so thought I better sort that out - good ole Google translate strikes again :) hopefully got it right now but who knows??

Le Dixieme Semaine

2011-08-21T11:15:00.000-07:00

Will be quick post this week - we are currently sitting in the barn - the temperature sitting in the high 30's at 8 in the evening with no breeze - having a few drinks and listening to some music just trying to stay a little bit cool. Now planning to put in a "piscine" (pool) ha. Had a fairly uneventful week. Would have like to have got more done towards getting the attic ready but it's a bit difficult as a lot of businesses - ie timber yard are closed down for their summer holidays. Never mind - I needed a break from the hard labour anyway. Paul hasn't stopped however - he has started digging out the floor in the living room after we got some more info as to what we need to do to install underfloor water heating. It means the floor needs dropping by about 30 cm - he now thinks their must have been some animals or something housed in this room as it is extremely hard and I can vouch for that after having some brief turns on the end of the crow bar. He is probably nearly a quarter of the way through - I keep throwing out the idea of hiring a mini digger but I think sometimes the hard way is the only way for Paulie!

Earlier in the week he got sick of me having the washing hanging in the barn where he was trying to get into so he slapped up this temporary clothesline for me - not sure if it will be patented - I wasn't sure it would even fit one load of washing but it does easily and works a treat.

We have been doing a bit of research for bits we need - I have hopefully located some old oak beams that we need to replace some dodgy ones in our ground floor. However they have been advertised on a French website and I am having some communication problems with the guy selling them so not sure if we will end up being able to get them or not - we'll see. We had fun today - we ended up at the big 'Troc' fair in Cazals that we tried to go to last week.

Cazals - lots of "Troc"

It was pretty cool - we ended up going around about three times as we kept seeing more things of interest. We got some bargain chairs - 25 Euros for all six - Paul thought he wasn't reading the sign correctly. They have got some fairly dodgy looking vinyl on them but the wood is all in excellent condition and it will be easy to to recover them down the track if we get the urge. I also spotted a timber and material room divider which is perfect for hiding off the twahlett from the rest of our living room. The only other things we got were some lovely old cast iron shutter holders that you embedd in the stone. We did find a couple of building material reclamation yards earlier in the week but other than an iron frame for the front porch we didn't end up getting anything. One of the yards had some pretty nice front doors - for 3 thousand euro - maybe not!

Bargains...

Yayy - some privacy at last!

Paul and John took the van in on Friday to get it checked ie put over the pits - looks like he just needs to sort out some braking issues and it will be good to go. The wierd thing is his vespa three wheeler doesn't have to be licensed as it's considered a scooter so needs no registration or checking. Lookout Degagnac!
We went into Sarlat for lunch yesterday and they had their big market on - lots of the usual 'market stuff' which is not much interest to us - tonnes of people. We had our usual yummy duck lunch. As the regional speciality you really need to like duck - lucky we do!

Paul amongst the Sarlat market hordes

We checked out the beautiful church while we were there and got a special treat - three guys that were standing up the front when we went in started to sing - they were practising for a concert that night - the sound in the church was amazing - fantastic accoustics.

Church in Sarlat

Ok well that's about it for now - was Gabbi's birthday this week - we miss her although could still throttle her from the other side of the world sometimes as she has managed to lose her iphone during her trip to Melbourne. Oh well c'est la vie as they say....love ya Gabs.....

Semaine Neuf

2011-08-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yep another week over and another job nearly done! (well technically we have the whole ground floor to do but we aren't doing that until we have got the floor in so won't be for a while thankfully!) We did 6 days straight on the second floor and were only a bucket or so of mix off finishing yesterday. Paul was going to do another mix today and finish it and all the little bits we have missed or need to be retouched but I demanded we got out and did something else. My hand is extremely sore now - I have trouble straightening my little finger and can barely make a fist. This is a problem as Paul keeps telling me to harden up princess and I can no longer punch him with my right haha! Anyway here is a couple of pics of the walls.

This is the after shot of the wall from last weeks blog that was washed down ready to go.

We have decided that we are probably about the 4th lot of people to renovate this particular house. Would love to know the date the original building went up but it was most likely several centuries ago. You can see in the next photo of the last wall we did - there is two distinct marks from where the roof lines have been changed and added too. Most likely it was a tiny single story house then went to a double before someone decided to add the attic.
You can also see the wall on the far left has been plastered but not 'rubbed back' yet.


Before doing the last wall on the second floor - note the roofline marks on the left.


Sunday evening - so close to finishing - only small piece next to the chimney to do.

So yes another week of long days of slog. We did have a lovely evening at our friends house on Friday night. A very Aussie barbie on the deck with them and some other neighbors and their guests at the B&B. A guitar was even produced so we had entertainment too! We also had a small win on Thursday when we went to town and managed to buy more mortar mix, book an appointment for Pauls vans rego check, and bought two tyres for the van and all in French - amazing!
Today we decided to go to the Brocante fair that we had been told was on in Cazals - unfortunately though it's not on until next week which we discovered once we had driven there. Never mind it's only about 15min drive away. We did have a wander around a 'vide grenier' in Salviac - this is basically a trash and treasure french style. I have a shot of one of the streets - we didn't buy anything other than some books from some English people but was interesting.

After that we decided to have a bit of a "Sunday" drive - it is Monday here today but is a public holiday - not sure why and doesn't make much difference to us other than most of the shops including the hardware are shut. Anyway we went down towards Fumel - through Puy-l'eveque where we had a bit of a wander through the really pretty little town.

Puy-l'Eveque

Fumel, where we thought we would have some lunch, ended up being a bit dodgy or we couldn't find the nice part anyway so we headed for home. Saw a sign for a 'chateau' or castle on the way so went and had a look. It can be a bit like seen one castle seen them all but we spent a good hour or so exploring this one and it was pretty interesting. Had an awesome natural cave that it had been built on top of. We also had a reasonably nice lunch there which is of particular importance to us ha.

Well tonight we might walk down to Degagnac. It is the weekend of their 'fete' - so far they have been going for two nights - and there is two more with a fireworks display tonight although it is at 11.30 so might be past our oldies bedtime. Not really sure what else will be there but I think it is the normal 'fair' type stuff along with some music. The last two nights have had a dj - we woke up about 2.30am last night and could hear the music - it did stop at 3 - eek - can only imagine what it would be like to live right in the village at this time of the year although I did hear that some of them go away for the weekend and am not surprised ha.
This week we hope to get some flooring sorted for the attic - have finally made contact with the plasterer but he is on holidays at the moment so that will have to wait. We also have been searching for some old oak beams to replace some of the dodgier ones in the house. I have found some being advertised but I am not confident at all on the phone - so Aileen is going to help us ring them and see if we can go and have a look. We also have been having some discussions about windows and shutters and colours etc - I love the French style of pale shutters whereas Paul likes how a lot of the English and Dutch have them - all varnished wood. Anyway we have come to a sort of compromise - I can have the grey/bluey colour for the shutters and he can have the timber look on the windows and doors. Here is a photo I took today to compare the colors with painted windows or wood to give you an idea of what I am talking about..

OK think that is about it. Looking forward to a warm week this week - we have still been getting days here and there of rain - it is so lush and green and the road sides look like English gardens with flowers everywhere. Will be nice when we have a garden and not a building site at the front door - oh well one day!

One for the 'before' album

Deux mois - enfin presque!

2011-08-07T12:16:00.000-07:00

This weeks blog is probably going to be pretty short and even more boring then usual - sorry in advance. It's just that we really haven't done all that much other than the 'crepi-ing' or repointing or whatever it is that we are doing to the stone walls at the moment. Other then a couple of quick trips to town to restock the fridge we haven't been anywhere or done anything else! We went to town on Monday morning only to come home and find the truck delivering the sand and lime had already been - they had said they would come 'apres midi' which is meant to mean after lunch but someone decided to come a bit early - luckily I had given them Aileens number in case they couldn't find us so she got a call and was able to come up and make sure they didn't dump it in the middle of the driveway or somewhere else inappropriate. It turned out alright as she got them to put it pretty much exactly where Paul wanted it.

Well, before I load on the photos I will describe the process for the walls. First you need to scrape out as much of the old mortar as possible - yep, did that for the past few weeks! - Then you can either sand blast or pressure wash the stone to clean it. We have gone the washing option. This is a cold and extremely messy job. You end up with mud and water everywhere - including all over the operator. Consequently I did it for about a minute - copped a couple of mouth and eyefuls of muck then left it to the professional - here he is now post pressure washing;

My poor washing machine is getting hammered at the minute! Anyway once you have done that the walls look a bit like this;

There was a repair to one of the lintels needed - so this is Paul with his safety gear on making a new one;

Mmmm - yes once the wall is ready then the fun begins. We are using a mix of four buckets of sand to two buckets of lime based product that is fit for purpose called Renocal - it all goes into the cement mixer - water added until you have a good consistency then we take buckets of the render up the stairs to be applied to the walls. I am saying we here but probably should say he as I can only carry about half a bucket full so it's not worth the bother. Anyway we then using either hands or trowels, get the mix into the joints as best we can trying to leave no holes or air bubbles. We patch the walls with stones along the way where necessary. It's actually quite fun although one of the most efficient ways of getting the mud to stick is throwing it - unfortunate side effect of this is it often cames back to get you - I have had several incidents of lime mortar in my eyes - trust me this aint pleasant. I know you are meant to wear eye protection but it is so hard to keep them on as within a few minutes you can't see through them so they just get chucked off. I haven't taken any shots of the walls after this first process - I will do some this week as we have got a few weeks of this to go, so there will be plenty of chances for it. But usually we are too dirty to be grabbing the camera at this stage.. Anyway once the mud has had a chance to go off - depends a bit on the weather but usually about three hours later - you come along with a wire brush and clean up the stone exposing the wall. You then brush with a banister brush to remove some of the harsher wire brush marks. This can be a bit tricky to get right and we definitely had improved by the time we got to the end of the week. Here is a some pics of the finished walls. It's hard to get a shot to look natural as the flash does strange things to the pic but here it is;

Couple of days after being done

We think they look pretty good - especially for our first attempt. The walls in the attic are also particularly dodgy - as in the rock work was probably never meant to be seen. The walls in the next floor down which we are starting tomorrow are a bit better. Paul has spent all day today getting the washing done in preparation for the next few days work.

Tomorrow's job ready to go.

He has also done a bit of pressure washing the stairs and where he has done it they have come up looking great. Water and wood aren't a great mix though so we aren't sure whether it will end up doing any damage to the timber. Paul has been very careful to try and keep the stairs as dry as possible during the wall washing process but it has been hard.


Underside of stairs post being cleaned

Well as I say other than that not much else is going on. We cleaned out the old style washing stand next to the cistern at the front of the house to make a bit of a herb garden. I did have some basil in a pot planted out but haven't been using it much lately after seeing Buddy our lovely neighbors dog christen it a couple of weeks ago. So it has been relocated now to a bit higher spot! I want to get some mint in there too - it grows wild here but most of ours was where the fosse septic has been put in so has all gone now.

Herb "garden"

The weather has been very mild again this week which was fine when we were up in the attic as it does tend to get warm in there. It's meant to be getting up to high twenties by the end of this week and no rain so that will be nice. Apparently we haven't been experiencing a 'normal' summer at all as I don't think it has been higher then 30 degrees for weeks. The area has exploded with tourists this week - Monday morning in one of the supermarkets in Gourdon last week reminded me of shopping on the day before Easter in Australia - it was ridiculous - every checkout was open and there was about 4 trolley fulls in each aisle - nightmare. There are a lot of summer holiday homes here and August is the traditional holiday month in France. Anyway that's about it - here is a final pic of Will sunning himself tonight on the pile of stone in our courtyard that will one day form our outdoor barbie room/area...

Semaine Sept

2011-07-31T13:56:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-04T00:10:00.000-07:00

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

Week Deux

2011-06-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

Ok well not quite a week over but I am thinking I should just write when I feel up like it and I have just woken from a lovely late afternoon nap and figured why not? We have been having a lovely time this week - not exactly kick back and relax lovely but busy and interesting but not really stressful in any way. On Monday we went to in to Cahors to sort out our Electricity and Telephone accounts. Thankfully our friend Aileen wanted to go to the market so they came along and helped with the small language issue we have.(hmmm) I think I could have managed without them but instead of being 15 minute visits no doubt it would have been probably an hour or so and a lot more drama in general - a lot of the time I can understand one or two words which is enough to get the gist of the conversation but some of the time I really have no clue at all - Paul says he has never seen me concentrate so hard as when I am trying to find the right French words. Even then 9 times out of 10 I walk away thinking 'damn - I just stuffed that up and I do know what I should have said but unfortunately it just takes me several minutes to get together correctly in my head. Never mind - I am looking forward to the day it all comes a little more natural!

Paul & Chels walking towards the market in Cahors

Anyway back to Cahors - this is a much bigger town then our 'local' Gourdon -and it is about a 45 minute drive away. And this drive is lovely with some great views but VERY much up and down round and round lots of hills on some pretty tiny roads at times - French drivers tend to be quite happy to take up the centre part of the road at any time including coming around corners at 100 km an hour so it can be a little exciting. The only saving grace is all the cars are tiny by Aussie standards - mostly due to the high price of fuel here I would think - it's a little less scary when its a Barina sized car passing another Barina sized car! But I have been having to drive all the time here as if I don't about 3 minutes in I am feeling extremely car sick - apparently I will get used to the roads but I haven't yet! Well anyway we ended up having a quick look through the market as it was nearly closing by the time we had done the phone and electric stuff - bought some yummo nectarines and apricots - super cheap compared to what we are used to - roughly 2 euro a kilo and great flavour. Then we had a 'plat du jour' lunch - see happy family pic - just missing the Gabster: :(

As far as the work on the house goes Paul has pretty much been going non stop trying to get the plumbing and electrics going in for the barn so we can move in. We are about to be evicted from our lovely room at the neighbors B&B as funnily enough they would prefer to have paying guests haha. Actually big shout out to John and Aileen - we most definitely would not be doing this little adventure without their involvement. If you don't know the story we came to do a cycling tour with them last September as a treat for my fourtieth birthday - it was while we were having such a good time and oohing and aahing about pretty much everything that we got to talking real estate with them and the whole idea just snowballed from there. But seriously it was a fantastic way to see a country (or a very small but beautiful part of it!) and I can't recommend you do it enough. If you're not into cycling then just stay at the B&B - as long as you make sure you have at least one meal here as Aileen is a seriously good cook!! I will add a link to their website if you want to read more about them :) http://www.lotcyclingholidays.com

So anyway here is some pics of the work going on at the house - note the big cement thing in one of the ground floor rooms - well it is actually an a wine vat that has been made of reinforced concrete which has proved extremely hard to remove. We thought it might have been as a previous owner had already had a go at smashing it down but not made much of a dent in it. We did buy a jackhammer drill but even with that it has taken Paul (& Chels) quite a few hours to bring down a couple of the walls of it. Paul wants to put a power box behind it so he wants it gone. As of today we now have water in the barn - and during the week I bought a fridge and washing machine online and it was delivered two days later which was great. I got what I wanted to go in the house so they aren't small - this barn is starting to fill up real quick. Check out the fancy shower - this was actually the cheapest one you could get but looks quite good we think!

Potential materials transportation!

Paul also went to another English neighbor who is trying to clean out his barn to check out some of his garden tools - I was a little concerned we would end up with everything from their barn in ours after only one week here but Paul did try to restrain himself a little. It is the most beautiful old stone barn with two stories - the top one comes off the road and the lower level you come into from their amazing English style garden. He did find something in there that he really wants which I can't really tell you about but lets just say it's old and involves a type of motorbike so anyone who knows Paul will understand. Will see how that story plays out but it could end up with me have a bargaining chip up my sleeve if you get my gist! ha. This same couple also have an old van that Paul wants to get going - so off to Gourdon tomorrow to try to get a master cyclinder for it - could be interesting trying to translate that but if we bring the old one along it should be ok. Here is a pic of the van where it currently sits - there was even a resident rabbit in the engine!
Late breaking news - it's now Sunday afternoon and it's about 36 degrees - yep it does get hot in France - Paul still trying to break down the stupid concrete thing - lucky it's an inside job as the stone walls are still lovely and cool at the moment.

View across to Lantis from our barn window

Week 1

2011-06-20T23:16:00.000-07:00

After weeks of completely frenetic activity we were very much looking forward to getting on the flight and just sitting for a while. Not sure why as it got old about 3 hrs into the flight to KL. 16 hours later we landed in London feeling mildly shattered and ready for a sleep. Lucky I had booked into a local B&B only about 5 miles out of Stansted which was fantastic as we could just collapse into a nice bed within about half an hour of landing. Next day we met up with our daughter who flew in from Chicago and then spent a couple of days in a very rainy London - so much for doing some touristy stuff. We did go to see the Lion King but Paul and I kept falling asleep which was mildly embarrassing but the jet lag had really started to kick in so we were both in struggle town. Friday and it was onto the incredibly cheap but amazingly good, flight from London to Brive - after a pretty major stuff up with the hire car we finally made it to Lantis late Friday afternoon. A quick hello to our friends who we are staying with until we have made the barn moderately habitable, then off to see the house. We had actually bought it after seeing the inside for only about 10 minutes back in November so we were pretty excited about seeing it properly. And a little bit nervous too if the truth be known... but it is awesome - some of the rooms I had thought to be quite small are actually very large - particularly the kitchen. We have realised the flooring on the first and second floor will need replacing and there is alot of work to do but the potential to end up with a great space is definitely there. We had a few interesting finds too - an old cloth doll in the attic that looked a bit creepy and a trunk of old clothes. We also saw the caravan we have bought with the house for the first time - what a cool little blast from the past - we think it's from the eighties but is in pristine condition and looks like it's not been out from under the covers much at all. Will be an ideal sleeping pod in the barn until the house is ready.

Dream kitchen?

The great caravan unveiling....

The walnut tree loaded with nuts - we also have some pears, plums and grapes - neglect obviously hasn't done them any harm!

On Sat afternoon our English friends suggested we go to a little get together at the local village to meet a few of the other expat neighbors and the local "marie" or mayor. This turned out to be interesting and awkward at the same time as I am fast becoming of the opinion we are going to be known as the local nutters amongst the expats - apparently the English are of the opinion Australia is the land of endless beaches and full time summer, mmmm sort of but not quite haha - so for us to want to move to rural France they all think we are quite strange. Interesting how perceptions of places and the realities of them can differ so much. What will we think about our current perception of life 'en france' in the months to come - it all seems to be pretty good for now - perfect weather (I know - the winters are terrible...), rolling green peaceful countryside, cheap amazing local food, the seemingly friendly but reticent French people and the wonderful local architecture,history, rivers blah blah blah... Will we start thinking we are somewhat "fou" also? I am already realising my extremely limited French doesn't go very far in most situations - thankfully we have been able to drag our lovely long suffering friends and neighbors along to the important meetings to translate for us. Although after our three hour trip to the Brico (hardware store) today in Cahors we have enough to do for the time being to just put our heads down and bums up so to speak for a week or two. As long as the baguettes, brie and rose are still in plentiful supply I think we will be quite fine!