Printemps c'est ici??

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..

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

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

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!!

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

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

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??