Speed Dating and Les Odeurs

These days seem so much calmer than those frenetic days last summer mixing concrete and lugging tiles and blocks around.  The LGB has been plumbing and I have been cutting and putting up plaster boards.  I enjoy plaster boarding; it gives the feeling that things are really taking shape.

Back bedroom

Front bedroom

Bathroom

Landing

                                                                

We've finished upstairs, just the returns around the windows to do.  So that’s it, we have four fully formed bedrooms, an en suite shower room and a bathroom.  If the LGB would only get the walls plastered I could sand and treat the floors and then ………………… dun, dun, dun, dun (drum-roll of excitement and anticipation!) I can decorate!!!!  What colour though?  Let’s not even go there.  No actually, let's go there.

These are the colours I have opted for for the kitchen units (this week!).  The dark one on the right and the middle one - I think!  The darker one actually looks closer to black in real life.  What do you think?

The colour on the right is the latest choice for the shutters and windows????  Yes or no?  

Having decided where the bath and sanitary ware would go in the bathroom we (the Royal we) had a complete about turn at the eleventh hour.  The LGB has now put the water pipes in so there is no way back.  That is probably a good thing really.  Perhaps he ought to get to the point of no return with everything then I would have no agonising choices to make.

Let There Be Lights

I bought a light and ordered three more lights for the kitchen from Bentalls department store when we were in the UK, but I've changed my mind!  I was granted a day off this week and mooched around the sales in Angouleme and…….. bought some different lights!  (It’s the LGB’s fault; he shouldn't let me out alone).  I haven’t shown them to him yet (or even told him in fact) so if I change my mind I’ll just bury them in the garage among the rest of our rubbish worldly goods.  

A day out wouldn't be complete without a visit to Emmaus and my favourite depot vente.  Naturally I didn't come away empty handed.  I just managed to squeeze two occasional tables into the car.  I am not sure where they are going yet, but I couldn't leave them there!  I think the LGB wishes I had.

They came as a pair!

Smelly Problems

We have to fit a system into the loft that extracts the humid air from the bathroom and kitchen and basically belches it out the roof.  It is apparently ‘obligitoire’ in new builds.  Just another expense I say.  The garb said it was suitable for 2 bathrooms and a kitchen (activated when it detects humidity) and a WC (activated by detecting a presence in the loo.  Not actually the presence of a pooh down the loo, but a person in the room).  First dilemma - they only supplied the outlets for one bathroom.  Second dilemma - we have a WC in both bathrooms so do we need the automatic WC extractor and the humidity extractor in each bathroom?  I was dispatched to Leroy Merlin to pose the question.  

Arrive.  Search for an assistant.  Try to explain the problem.  Go outside to get a phone signal to tell the LGB that we can use the humidity detector in one bathroom and the WC outlet in the other bathroom, just cover the thing that detects a presence in the room.  More questions from the LGB.  Back in. Smile at security officer with my finest I’m not a tea-leaf (thief) smile.  Find assistant.   Yes, the WC extractor will detect humidity (because it is terribly clever and knows hot air from a fart).  Back out to phone LGB, funny look from security officer.  Will the humidity extractor extract toilet smells?  Thanks Bren!  Wander back inside.  Avoid eye contact with security officer whilst trying to recall the word for smell or fart, but can only think of ‘vent’ which is wind in the meteorological sense.  Find the assistant I have been talking to but he’s with a colleague and I just can’t face trying to ask two of them about toilet smells (bad enough in English) so become intensely interested in heating valves and radiators until they have finished their tête à tête.  Will the extractor detect ……… (hold my nose and wrinkle it)?  Yes, it will detect les odeurs.  Yes, yes, yes (a Harry Met Sally orgasmic moment)!  That’s the word, odeurs/odours, no wonder I couldn't remember it!! Mission accomplished.

I partook in a kind of speed dating night last week.  It was an Anglo-French affair. I wasn't actually out to find a new mate or romance though.  The English all sat one side of the table and the French sat opposite us.  The French were prepped with a list of questions to ask us in English and thankfully we replied in English.  After five minutes the French moved around to the next person.  I answered questions from about three hundred French people (well it felt like three hundred).  I repeated to each one; I live on a building site and go to bed up a ladder; I’ve lived here years but still can’t speak the language;  I don’t have a swimming pool but we grow potatoes.  I refrained from telling them I pee in a bucket at night!  There is such a thing as too much information, says she writing it in her blog!  It was great fun and I met lots of lovely people.

We have a number of family members on our ‘payroll’ – son, daughter, nephews and a niece.  One of the above asked if they could have their birthday money early (nine months early) to pay for a holiday deposit.  A couple of days later we received a text to ask if the money had been ‘transfused’!!  Perhaps they have heard that getting money out of the LGB is like getting blood out of a stone!