Pledges, Wedges, Sludge and Suds

The Pledge

I’ve done it I’ve taken the pledge! I’m not talking furniture polish here of the Mr Sheen variety.  I have no need of polish in my present circumstances but I am looking forward to the day when I will need to dust the furniture, for a week at least. And no, I haven’t pledged to abstain from consuming alcohol.  Given up drink, heavens no.  I have taken the pledge to cycle for thirty days.  Not continuously you understand and no specific distances stipulated, I just have to go for a ride every day for thirty days.  I may live to regret the decision and that is all I have to say on the matter for now.  I found the pledge at 30 Days of Biking.

Who Said Romance is Dead

Now my man is not the most romantic homo sapien, any mention of St Valentine’s Day and he goes all ‘bah humbug’ on me.  I have had one bunch of flowers from him when he came home from the pub at closing time but I think my brother knew the florist and she was selling them off cheap. 

Courtesy of Toon Pool http://www.toonpool.com

He buys chocolate quite often but for his own consumption and usually of the dark variety which I don’t care for. Lucky for him I’m a cheap date; I’m not a big drinker as I am always the driver, I don’t hanker after all the latest fashions, have no desire for a flash car (although I wouldn’t send a Mercedes Sport back if he bought me one) and I don’t have regular manicures, pedicures or hair dos (some think I should).  However, I must admit I’m no Liz Taylor but I have always had a desire for a huge ‘eff off’ solitaire diamond, but I’m not holding my breath for that.

He has however excelled himself in my books; he’s plumbed in my washing machine! What more could a gal want. No more visits to the launderette.  No more will I have to share a machine with a hairy arsed trucker who puts his flip flops and dog blankets in with their smalls.  Said machine is temporarily located in the downstairs loo.  I can sit on the throne complete with soft close lid and fill the machine in comfort.  The only downside is my drum will only fit about 5 kilos whereas the launderette had the 18 kilo machines.  Still, it’s a small price to pay.  Who says romance is dead!

Septic Tanks and Stink Pipes

We are not hooked up to mains sewerage here.  This means we have had to install a septic tank or fosse septique.  This requires a 4000 litre concrete tank that catches our pooh, pee and waste water.  The pooh settles at the bottom of the tank (the sludge layer) and the liquid goes through pipes to a 30 square metre filter bed and finally down a 20 metre pipe. A very nice lad from SPANC has been out to inspect and passed it.  We just have the 20 metre trench, a grease trap and a stink pipe to complete the process and be awarded our certificate which will take pride of place on the wall next to my 10 metre Swimming Certificate and the LGB’s City and Guilds Building Certificate.  The stink pipe has to pass through the roof and beyond the roof ridge line.  It does what it says on the tin and carries the smelly gases and thus the stink and throws it out through the roof pipe to be wafted away by a passing breeze and blown through someone else’s open window and in turn we get someone’s smells floating through our window.  There’s lovely.

I continue to paint as and when I am not needed by the LGB (the windows that is not amazing masterpieces).  I am looking for flooring for the ground floor.  Of course everything I like is hugely expensive so a compromise has to be reached.  The LGB wants to start the fireplace before the bad weather sets in so that we can get a wood burner up and running that means thinking of a design and ordering stone.  I am all for that, I don't fancy showering in 1.5 degrees again this year. Decisions, decisions.

Wash Day Blues

Hey boys, do you think I could renew my membership with you at the Wash Day Blues Club.  It’s just that after the LGB kindly plumbed in my washing machine I discovered the drive belt has gone on it and the drum won’t go round!  Would that be okay then? No, no ‘hairy arsed’ is an English term of endearment we endow on hard working macho truckers. Yes, really.  In fact I have my own hairy arsed builder at home.  So when you’ve finished washing your sweaty vests and y-fronts can I use that machine!

Gutters, Bad Bargains and Septic Tanks

We actually used last Sunday as a day of rest.  The LGB took it to the extreme and didn’t actually vacate his pit until nigh on midday!  His excuse was Dr Crochet had told him to rest his back (I didn’t begrudge him his lie in as he works hard and doesn’t often lie in).  I on the other hand was mooching around the vide grenier in Vitrac St Vincent about 8.30, munching viennoiseries with coffee.

Thought he might look good on the dining room wall, but nobody likes a bore at a dinner party do they?

 

It’s a lovely little village, and there was a good turn-out for the car boot sale.  I was, however, sad to see that the little bar was up for sale and the proprietor was selling off his chattels.  We have seen so many small local bars close in our time here.  I am not sure of the reason for the closures, but it is sad to see them go.

The patron selling off the contents of the bar at Vitrac

The LGB wasn’t there to keep me in check, so I spent more than usual and came back with amongst other things an old wooden wine box and an old metal tractor seat!  Don’t ask, because I am not sure, but I will let you know when I know!

I lured the LGB out of the caravan with a hearty brunch and we spent the afternoon ‘gadding about’.  We visited Le Hameau de la Brousse which I shall write about in greater depth at a later date; for now I will say, perhaps we are just art ignoramuses (ignoramusi?), but we just didn’t get it!

The LGB was not impressed with the 'art work' at Le Hameau!

  

We came away from a Medieval Jardin in Dignac with some ideas and visited the ‘office’ (Quick Burger) in Angouleme for the football scores!  We are now chilling with red wine and a gourmet feast of peanuts and twiglets!

We have been doing the other side of the roof on the kitchen/terrace this week.  I have been more involved with this roof and enjoyed it.  We have also ordered the chestnut flooring for upstairs.  We had chestnut in our last home, this time I have opted for a slightly wider board.  We are buying it direct from a small business that brings the trees in (they may even grow them) and cuts and dries them.  So we are doing our little bit for the environment by buying locally.  We did have the opportunity to buy some reclaimed oak which I would have loved (and it would have saved us some money) but it would have involved a lot more work to relay it and at this point in the build we really don’t need any extra work.

We have bought the plaster board that was on promotion at Bati LeClerc and had our final delivery of tiles, after chasing up the order; I think Fourgeaud had forgotten – again!

The highlight of the week for the LGB has been the septic tank being placed into the hole in the ground.  The lad who delivered the tiles lowered it in for us.  As soon as he left the LGB scampered away to get his spirit level and was tickled pink to find it was spot on!  He was like the cat that got the cream!

The septic tank being positioned.

The eager beaver checks the level.....

Gives the thumbs up......

Feeling all chuffed with himself!!!

The building inspectors called today (the children from next door).  They had a friend in tow and had morphed into salesmen.  The friend, Pallas (pronounced palace – Brendan says she has probably got a brother at home called Buckingham) had made a little ‘bag’ and would we like to buy it.  When I asked what the money was for they said sweets.  Very honest, they could have said the down and outs of La Rochefoucauld or some other worthy cause; but when you are a kid sweeties are a very worthy cause.  Once I had parted with my 2€ the three of them then regaled us with the history of said bag.  In fact it had been hanging around for some months and as the stains would confirm it had been used for berry picking and in fact Felix had also spilt water on it.  They were in fits of laughter telling us this.   I teased perhaps they should have told us all this before the sale.  They said the company had been called ‘Bag Bargains’ but they had changed it to ‘Bad Bargains’.  More fits of giggles (us too I have to say).  They had sold one other bag with a handle at a discount price of 2€, the same price as ours with no handle. Duped by two eight year old and a nine year old, but it was worth it for the laugh we had.

Still wielding that paint brush!  Reclaiming the front garden little by little.  Nature has been behaving itself so nothing to report there.

We have put up a wooden fascia board on the kitchen and terrace.  I painted the first coat of one side today and then washed the guttering, brackets and downpipes.  The LGB says nobody washes guttering before it goes up.  I do!  One of my little foibles, and I have many, is that I hate labels being left on things (toilets, basins, guttering, pipes etc.) so they also had to be removed.  Why don’t companies use stickers that peel off easily?

Today the LGB put the guttering up on the front and back of the house.  It was quite a mammoth task for him as he was doing it from the ladder.  This meant up and down 30 times to fix the brackets, moving the huge ladder each time, then up and down to fix the guttering and moving the ladder again.  He was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day and there wasn’t even a beer left in the fridge!  I assisted by leaning out the upstairs window and holding one end of the guttering with a broom.  We have all the mod cons to assist us you know.

Looking a little disgruntled, having to take gloves on and off after I complained he was putting dirty fingerprints on my  clean guttering!

We were too tired to even think about something to eat let alone cook it, so out came the twiglets (again) and a bottle of wine!

Tiles, Tanks and Thrills

It has been a frustrating and infuriating week of ordering, buying and chasing around after things.  this all has to be done but inevitably takes longer than anticipated.  Internet connection would have saved us time and probably money, but we don’t have it and therefore have to do the best we can.

View from the bottom of the 'garden' after the farmer had cut the grass

We registered with a new doctor as our lovely doctor retired in December.  We have found another delightful man who spent a good deal of time with us.  He commented on Brendan’s meagre two pages of medical notes and because he obviously didn’t want to waste a file said he would file them with mine!  However, the LGB still managed to come away with a prescription for a tetanus injection, ibuprofen, twenty sessions for his bad back with the crochet sadist (read the old post on Crochet Hooks), a pair of surgical stockings and a partridge in a pear tree!  Ok, I’m lying about the partridge. When the doctor asked if he needed anything else the LGB had to fight the urge to ask what was on special offer or not moving that he could take off the Doc’s hands.

I also had my blood pressure taken, thyroid check and tummy pummelled and then when I jumped off the table he said ‘Now wee please’.  I thought it was a bit much with both him and Brendan in the room and no receptacle to be expected to give a urine sample.  I said ‘Pardon’ and Doc said ‘Wee there’.  I looked into the corner where he was pointing expecting to find a door, little potty or porta-loo, but there was just a weighing scale.  Ah, weigh there!  Mystery solved, but it irked me somewhat that he obviously thought I was a podgy little porker who needed weighing as he hadn’t asked the LGB to weigh himself!  The diet starts Monday – again!  Brendan said it was a good job there wasn’t a kiddie potty there; I would really have been in a quandary!

This years sunflower battling through the weeds

Years ago I used to get a thrill when I bought a new pair of shoes (that was before I met Brendan of course).  I delighted in many a thrill as I had a vast number of shoes in every colour of the rainbow stored in labelled boxes with matching handbags (sad I know)! These days the work boots and fit-flops get chucked into an old fruit box and I now get my thrills in the wonder of nature.  You get little clues that life’s delights are changing when you start looking forward to the Chelsea Flower Show on the BBC.

Those of you who have read the blog from the start will remember my sunflower photo and how it had grown all alone on the mound of earth that had been heaped up from digging the foundations.  When it had died off I picked it and hung it on the terrace to dry with the intention of planting the seeds. I went to collect the seeds to discover the greedy birds had devoured every last one, despite the fact that I had been feeding them.  However, once again this year I have not one but two sunflowers growing on the heap and battling with many more weeds than last year.  What a thrill!

A bit tatty around the edges!

Hammering the Point Home

Sometimes I get the urge to use my hammer on something other than a nail head.  Today I dropped two lots of fascia boarding.  I say ‘I’ because I got the blame for not holding onto them.  I think sometimes the LGB has a thought in that little head of his that he thinks he has transmitted to his mouth and therefore I will have heard it.  Not so.  I have many talents but mind reading is not one of them.  Hence, if you let go of a three metre length of fascia and I only have hold of the first two inches it goes without saying that the counter balance will send it crashing five metres to the ground.  Perhaps a little ‘tap’ on the head with the aforementioned hammer will remind you to put those thoughts into words, Sweetheart!  The hammer is hanging safely in the shed and the urge has now passed.  (Since reading the draft for the blog the LGB has taken to wearing a hard hat!)

We placed our order for 2,700 Romane-canal terracotta roof tiles in the colour of Vieilli Castel.  We made this choice because as the name Old Castel suggests they don’t have the modern look of a solid colour of tiles.  These are multi-coloured and some have an aged look.

Materiaux Fourgeaud told us the roof tiles would be delivered at the start of the afternoon on Wednesday.  You can guess this hour and a few more hours came and went.  At 17.45 I called Fourgeaud to be told they would investigate and ring me back ‘tout de suite’.  I always thought ‘tout de suite’ meant straight away.  Silly me, I now know it means ‘in the morning’!  The next morning I was informed the tiles would be with us the start of the afternoon.  A feeling of déjà vu swept over me, but true to their word half the delivery arrived.  Where’s that hammer?

About 17.45 the other half arrived with the septic tank.  When the driver had finished unloading I noticed the tank was a 3000 litre and not a 4000 litre tank.  He muttered a few words and loaded it back on the lorry saying he would be back ‘tout de suite' with the right size.

Back to the depot with the septic tank

The most exciting, amazing, wonderful and thrilling thing to happen all week is the ride on mower is working again after a year out of service.  I can’t remember if I had written that we were quoted over 600€ for a starter motor; we finally got one with Alan’s help sent from the USA.  The cost including postage was 121€!  The grass has been cut again.  We’ll give the neighbours across the road with a lawn like the top of a snooker table a bit of competition now.

Have I mentioned the building work?  Next time then.