O.M.G

SO exciting - hot off the press.....

This will sooo change the look of the front of the house.  The porte-fenetre is being made by a carpentry workshop in the next village.... cant wait to see what it will look like when its installed.

Thierry is to to the left of this picture and is the person who opened this up for us :-)

In the picture below, you get a true picture of the height we are looking at.....Thierry is same height as Simon - 6ft 3 inches.........

 Below is the view from inside.  When the window is installed (and all the rubbish cleaned up) imagine that there is a courtyard in front of you, which is walled on three sides........ filled with sun in the summer and winter.

Amy had a particular song playing when she came to stay - white wine in the sun...... It will be the perfect place for it :-)   I'm sooo happy :-)

Turning the Corner

We have returned from another two week stint at the house and this time, it feels like the house is actually turning the corner.  Simon, Amy and I  arrived early evening on 1st September to beautiful sunshine and about 25 degrees.  Bearing in mind that this was the day that we saw the first blue sky for weeks, we were all in high spirits.  It was interesting that the cloud bank actually lasted as far south as Tours!  

When we arrived, Mme Benchereau was outside her house and after the usual bisous, her first words were 'you have 4 cats living at your house'.  Where had they come from?  We were a little worried at first that there would be fur flying, as George hates cats with a passion.  Luckily, after about 36 hrs they decamped.  I found out much later that they hadn't gone far, only to chez Bernard, about 100m away.  I hope that when we left, they returned to their earlier residence.....you'll find out why later!  

Within an hour of having arrived, Simon bumped into Mon St Michel (formerly Michel le lip) in Bellenaves.  Michel told him that Annie has closed the pub permanently and so Simon invited Michel, Annie and Will (We met him on a previous visit) round the next night.......  We hit the ground running socially!  Luckily the supermarkets were open on the Sunday morning, so whilst Simon got us organised at home, Amy and I went and got the necessaries.  We had a lovely evening with Annie & Co., as usual, ending in an impromptu invite to the Chateau for a late supper.  Amy, Simon and I had eaten at lunch time at La Belfoi in Charroux, but an invite to the Chateau couldnt be turned down, so the party decamped to Veauce and we carried on in Annies kitchen.  Visiting the Chateau for the first time was AMAZING.  Annie has a white peacock, which we think she said was called Cedric.  It was roosting in this massive tree which is in the courtyard of the Chateau and is visible over the castlated walls..... The evening ended in the early hours of the morning, having been treated to roast chicken (carved by Will....but really it looked like a bomb had gone off inside......I think we had all had rather a lot to drink by this time!).  Apologising to Annie for eating and running, we ended our first full day back at home - and what a day it had been :-)  

The next morning being Monday, Michel (le Pierre) who does all the stone work for us arrived at 8am as promised.  Simon and I had been up early thanks to setting the alarm.  This was our holiday and we were setting the alarm to get up for work!!  Whilst I went off down to Cheze with Michel (le Pierre) to order sand etc., Simon started to collect stones to build in the opening which we were hoping to enclose.  Michel was amazing - Cheze said they couldnt deliver until Friday and Michel said not good enough, I need the sand today.  Its amazing to me that he was able to 'demand' the sand and cement be delivered urgently, but as a Frenchman, I suppose he knows what he can get away with.  I would have just looked like a rabbit in headlights wondering what I was going to do, if I had gone on my own!!  We went home and Michel said he would be back after lunch, the delivery was due until apres midi.  

Amy - pointing up where our new windows have been installed.

To back track a little - about 2 weeks before leaving England, we had tried to order a window on the Lapeyre web site.  As our house had not been inhabited for about 30 years previously, it does not show up on data bases, so we could not manage to use this facility.  So I faxed the Vichy branch with a picture and dimensions and said that I had sent them a cheque but as we were unable to use the online facility could they please order a window for us to collect from 2nd Sept onwards.  Before I tell you whether we were successful, ask yourself this.  Would it have been successful if a local builder received a fax from someone in France ordering 1 window??  We had checked our postbox that morning to find a letter from Lapeyre in Vichy confirming that our window would be ready for collection from 2nd onwards.  An additional bonus was that the price had gone down from that advertised on the web, so we had sent a cheque for over 50% - yeay!!  So back to the story.......

Simon and I said to Amy that we would go to Vichy  and pick up the window and be back before the end of the lunch break, so she would not be alone when the delivery of sand arrived. Guess what - it arrived about 30 mins after we left, so we had sand by 11 am that morning - amazing.  Michel had said that he wanted the camion to back into our courtyard and deliver there as barrowing from the Impasse was hard work (in temperatures of 25 degrees plus.)  Poor Amy, she has little French and isnt confident to use what she has, so we ended up with the sand dumped behind the car which Henri & Dominic have rusting in front of their garage.  Needless to say, they weren't too amused at 3 ton of sand sitting where they usually put their garden table!  Amy was good as gold and started shovelling.  When we returned from Vichy with the window, she had already moved quite a substantial amount into our courtyard and remembered that Michel had said that we should put the polythene down which he had bought previously...... so was loading the sand onto this.  We had a quite bite to eat and Simon set to in earnest, moving the sand.  Michel arrived and work on blocking up the old animal entrance, which will become the window over my sink, began.  (By the way, whilest at Lapeyre, we saw the most amazing sink..... it comes under the category of I.W.O.T and as it is 400 euro's its a good job that Simon totally agrees.  In fact he spotted it, so that's deal done.  Just need to get to the part where we can buy it and install.  May have to buy it and ask someone to look after it for us.   under the ladder, you can see the hole which we were about to start work on, building in.  To the right, you can see the finished product.  The window fitted for width, almost as though made especially...  This will give me a view over the courtyard when finished.  We'll put trellis around, to soften and are planning to 'plant' an oak beam over the surface of the concrete lintel which was there when we bought the place.  The wall being what it is, we didn't want to mess with it by taking out the lintel.

Whilst Simon and Michel were working on building this wall up (2ft thick of stone!) Amy and I began pointing up the end wall of the barn.  Simon and I had often sat looking at this wall and saying what beautiful stone was in the wall, how regular it all was and how it wouldn't take long to point because of that.   This is what it looked like when we started....

and this is what it looked like after about 10 days of attention....... 

Add caption

We had previously had a problem with how the end of the barn roof had been left, balancing on a piece of wood which stood on the outside edge of the wall.....  We had asked Celine & Pierre (of Atelier) to secure the roof for us.  When we arrived, we could see that work had been done internally but the external looked just the same.  When we asked Thierry (who had done this work for us) about it, he told us that the roof was nailed to this piece of wood, so he couldn't remove it, as I had suggested.  As we were nearing the top of the wall with the pointing (more accurately, I was) we had to find a way of making this look good and getting the guttering up and the roof over this part finished.  (Another bit of the roof which still was unfinished!)  Thierry came up with an ideal solution, practical and aesthetic :-)

I'm so proud of this wall.... I now want the same effect along
all of the front of the house!  You can just see our new window
too, which when we spoke with M. Mazeau a year ago, thought
was 'bizarre'  I dont think it looks that bad and it actually looks
like its on the same level as the one on the end of the barn.

Next, Simon decided to rebuild the steps to the door which is used as our front door..... Thierry offered his advice, which at first, Simon was dubious about, but following his suggestion, was pleased with the outcome - as was George.  He loved how cool the stones were to lay on in the sunshine.  Its now safe to sit with a chair and there is room to pass by.

Thierry worked with us for about 3 days and in that time, what he achieved was phenomenal.  if we could only have him for the whole of the three weeks when we go next year.....  We'll get a lot done but it does come at a price!  Any how, the best news of all, is that we have now got the roof finished.  After 3 years of battling with it, we have now finally sealed it..... IT FEELS SO GOOD, to finally be moving on passed the bloody roof!!!!!!

In this pic, you can see the port fenetre which was put in last October and also the two windows which Michel le Pierre has done for us during the time between our last two visits.  You can also see where Amy has been pointing around the windows for us.  It is certainly starting to look like a house in the making.

The shadow being caste by the tree over the windows was gratefully received by Amy whilst she was working in that area.  Below is the same picture, taken from the edge of the land which we also bought last September.  It gives you some idea of the distance between the barn and the edge of our land, just by how small the barn looks in the picture.  The trees mark our old boundary.

This pic shows where Simon spent a couple of days dealing with a couple of issues which had been concerning him.  Both Michel and Thierry say that we have no worries, there is no movement on the walls.  This work will definitely show if anything is moving - when we arrive next year, we will be able to measure this pic against what it looks like then.  As you can see, that back corner, which was always a worry to Simon has now been filled with cement to make sure that its secure, along with where the walls meet in the corner.  I dont this was ever properly tied together and the water ingress over the years of neglect did the rest.

Our lovely windows from the inside.....  They will look amazing when its all done.  The light which they let in now is making such a difference.  Bearing in mind that the colour inside the barn absorbs any light which comes in.

Thought this pic would also give you a better ideal of how it will look, looking through the porte fenetre of the barn, out onto the garden, which will have a terrace onto a raised area and then the vegetable garden.  Thik we'll have to put some kind of attractive hedging up.. maybe.  

We had several lovely evening with people in the village, but there was a bit of bad news.  Mr Benchereau, who has always been so lovely, encouraging and kind, has been taken into hospital, seriously ill and I am afraid that he won't be there when we come back next year.  

On a lighter note, when Gareth and Ruth came for a visit, they told us that the cold snap we had experienced in April had meant that there were very few trees in the village with fruit this year.  They were amazed when they saw just how heavily laden our plum trees were.  It is something that will take me several years to become immune to the pure pleasure of picking a plum off the tree and eating it, warm from the sun.

There were so many on our trees though, that we couldn't eat them fast enough, so we made jam.  My bread maker has a program for jam making and so all I had to do was buy some preserving sugar and off we went.  It was so successful that I think Simon and I must have picked 10 kilo's of plums without making much of an impression on the tree- all of this I turned into confiture, giving Annie, Michel (Mon St Michel) Mme Benchereau, Dominique a la Mairie, Gareth & Ruth a pot each.

 First batch, standing on top of the armoire we bought from the Brocante at Charroux in April.  Ruth and Gareth have also offered us a couple of self sewn Cherry trees - I cant tell you how much being there makes me smile, 'strokes' and soothes my soul and fills me with a peace.  I love making things and as I said in my previous blog, it always feels just the right place to be - baking bread, cakes, making jam, craft work - you name it.  I can't wait until I'm there for good to be able to vent that part of me.

We have left the house with reluctance, except for one thing....I mentioned the kittens earlier.  The reason for hoping they come back is some of the 'wild life' which is in residence.  One morning, having heard scrabbling all night, I saw a mouse sitting in the corner of the room, just looking at me.  He/she wasn't a bedraggled, sick, horrible looking thing, it was actually very  lovely and only the thought that they constantly piddle everywhere made me want to do something.  Fortunately for him/her, they disappeared before I or George could do anything, but I do hope that the kittens move back and deal with this for me.  I have read that cats urine cuts down the breading ability of mice - three cats, predating would sought the problem out, I hope!

And the Wheel Turns.......

As things start to go better in France, then the wheel turns and things in England arn't so good as it looks like my job will cease to exist past July.  Thankfully, Simon's job, which pays the bills appears secure!  We think that if the worst happns and I am layed off, then I will go to France for a while and progress the work#

It is a case of watch this space!!

Transformation takes time!

When we left the house at the end of June 2010 we were happy that the roof was going on.  In between time, as you have seen, there has been much work done and little by little our house is turning from a pile of stones held together by shear force of will to something which will stand for many more years to come, certainly see us out.  As you can see in this first photo, the end wall above the bread oven was looking decidedly sorry for itself.  In April, Simon and I made our annual 'pilgrimage' to start the ball rolling for this year. 



As you can see below - thanks to team work and Simon being prepared to sit on 3 pieces of wood over the bread oven, balanced on the top of ladders which were either side of it, the wall now looks a whole lot safer and less at risk.   We also finished the front of the Bread Oven and discovered that the door at the top of it (far right of the pic) was actually a pidgeon coop where the pidgeons were kept warm in the winter by the warmth from the oven!

I have to admit, we could have done with some warmth this time.  The house was like a meat locker when we arrived!  I'm sure that 30 years without habitation or heating may have something to do with it but that first night, Simon and I clung to each other for warmth and the first thing we did the next morning was buy a convector heater.  Within a couple of days, the room was lovely and warm, but the weather didnt improve at all - however we  did manage to get work done, as you can see.  We also arranged with a couple of local contractors for work to be done and fingers crossed, by the time we return in September, the first floor will be in in the barn and the fosse will be in.  Luc Faure came to meet with us and said he had been passing our house and wondering how he would be able to get his machinery in to make the fosse (the shared access problem).  He also confirmed that the Mairie have asked him to quote for clearing/making the Chemin to access our property and he asked if we owned the land in between.  Beaming, we were able to say that we do and he was happy about that too.  He said 'now there is no problem, your fosse will be in by September'.  Which will be great for us - we can actually attach a toilet  to save us having to go to another village.....Yeay!!

I looked down the Chemin, which will become our private access, as this goes no where but to what is evidently the old access to our property in times gone by.  When you first turn into the Chemin, you cannot see our house, hardly at all, so the idea will be that as you arrive down the Chemin, and the house appears 'out of the ground' it will entice you to come and investigate.  The wall on the right is the back of the Dr's property and the fence to the left is a property at which we have never seen anyone other the gardener.

Michel Williaume is putting in the windows on the ground floor of the barn, almost as I type this. We have put the drainage in at the back of the house and due to running out of time on this visit, it will be something to finish in September, when we plan to finish the pointing on the back of the house.  As you can see, we have started but the weather was not really very helpful.

Thankfully though, there are people in the village who do want to see us succeed.  Mr Bonchereau watches us from his patio door/veranda.  If the weather is a little warmer, he comes out and waves at us but we notice that he has become more frail since we saw him last year.  He tells us he is 86 in August.  One morning, Simon and I were walking to the car, talking, looking at the house and discussing what we were going to do that day.  It was a warmer day and Mr Bonchereau came out without us noticing and shouted to Simon - Bon Travail!  He had been watching Simon sitting on our make shift scaffolding over the bread oven, rebuilding the wall to the gable end and as you can see - it is certaily looking better.  He has asked me what we are going to do about the window at the back which you can see next to his lilac tree.  Someone has done a very poor job of fitting a window which is too large for the hole and butchered the wall to get it in.  This will be another job for our Michel. We shall call this Michel 'Michel le pierre', as he is our mason....!  He is going to help Simon to create the large window at the front which we have seen in many of the houses in the area.  It will need a large oak lintel which the porte-fenetre will sit under, with windows each side and  a small wall each side which will sit under these windows.  Beaucoups de lumiere !! :-))

Then we start on the inside.  As I say, we hope that the first floor will be in place in the barn in the next few months.  We have a price for French oak.  It's half the price of English oak and I'm sure that purists will say that this is because there is a difference in quality.  My answer to that is what is currently in the house has lasted for the last 200 years, so I'm sure that we wont have too much to worry about.  As much as I might like to live there for ever, it's not likely to be that long!!

Anyhow, progressing to the social side - Annie is her usual lovely, bubbly and irrepressible self.  We did have some fun, especially when she came for dinner one night.  I had invited Michel le pioche, (who is renamed by Annie my self as Mon St Michel) Annie and our new friend Denis for dinner and the gas ran out the night before they were due to come.  As it was a Bank Holiday in May the next day, I wasnt able to get any gas, so had to manage on a 1 ring gas stove, start the meal off and then put it into the 18 ltr oven which Id taken with me.  With copious wine, we had a ball !

One of many evenings and lots of hospitality - On the last Sunday, as we had made sure that we didnt have any food in the house as we were leaving early next morning, we had decided to go the the Auberge in Charroux for lunch.  Simon said I should go and book a table, as we hadnt managed to get in the week before.  Again, she was fully booked and I'm not suprised as they offer a very good meal at a good price. 

Consequently, I went round to another restaurant I know of in the village, which has a good reputation and the minute I saw it from outside, I knew it would be good.  Luckily the owner just happened to come out as I was approaching the door to see if I could book.  After a few moment chatting, it was all arranged for 12.30 - when I gave our name, he looked slightly puzzled and asked 'Etoile?'  when I said yes, he smiled.  I think he liked it.

Here is a link to the restaurant - if you are ever in our vacinity, we hope you'll stay with us and this place will certainly be worth a visit !   http://www.fermesaintsebastien.fr/restaurant.php .  Unfortunately, since we looked at the site after returning, I think some work is being carried out, as the video has been removed, but I will keep an eye on that and try to upload again later.

A Bientôt



The Art of Positive Thinking!

We're gearing up for our next trip over.

The plan is for more pointing, but also now have appointments with four different trades so that we can push the work forwards.  Each little bit of good news (just a response from the contractor) lifts our spirits and now I begin to feel that this is not just a dream but will become a reality.

My latest epiphany was regarding the entrance/driveway.  Simon likes Pink Lady apples, which are enourmously expensive and seeing as the ground there is so fertile and we have fig trees, apricot trees and there was a pear tree (but it died!) I dont think it would be too much of a stretch to grow a pink lady apple tree. 

Whilst I was awake in the night a few nights ago (I do that a lot.....think about the house and our plans in the small hours) it came to me that rather than just have a boring rectangle of space as a 'homage' to the car for parking, why not plant an apple tree in a raised bed in the middle of the space, with a lovely wall which will reflect the stone of the house/barn and the well and then the car/s can come in and progress around the right hand side (as we're in France) park along what was the old boundary between our land and our new land, and then they can continue around the circle to exit! 

Once the wall has been built on our boundary between us and Dominique, then the aspect of the house will turn around all together.

Simon and I have talked about having a water feature in this area (which will then become a courtyard) as this will provide white noise.  So then we thought that it would be nice if the water feature was actually part of the wall.

We just need to get things to move forward this year.........I need to turn into a terrier and keep nipping people heals!!

This isnt where the positive thinking ends tho!  I also have plans for my chickens.  Not just 'chickens' either.  I want to choose the chickens for the colour of the shell of their eggs as well as many other considerations!  When we have people staying, especially those with children, how lovely would it be for them to go on their 'egg hunt' and find different coloured egg shells??

News from Home

The news is that the cold spell we had from Siberia caused lots of burst pipes in the village and at the Chateau.  The Mairie emailed us and asked if anyone had a key so that they might go and check on our house for any leaks - how kind of them.  Luckily, (or unluckily depending on the circumstances) we only have a branchement at the moment, so the water does not come into the house.  If there had been a leak there, it would have caused havoc for the neighbours, turning the space outside their house into a skating rink, so I think we would know about it, if that had happened.

Michel (of whom I have spoken numerous times in these blogs) called us to tell us about the bursts pipes at the Chateau and in his house.  He also went to Charroux for us to see if he could speak with M. Mazeau and find out why he hasnt responded to our emails requesting Devis' for work we have discussed.  He was quite disappointed to hear that we have not heard anything from the builder since September last year.  C'est la vie!  We'll look for another route!

We're on a count down now until we go home - for three weeks this time which will be bliss even if we will be working hard.

We have made a pact though that we will not work on Sunday's!

We need to contact M Faure, who has a Devis with us to install a Fosse.  Now we have the additional land, access for his machinery will be easier, so we need him to come and have a look and confirm a date for him to start work.

We are going to a Menuiserie in the next village whilst we are there too.  We need a very large patio door making and I think they need to come and have a look at what we want. 

We hope to be seeing Bernard and his wife again whilst we are there.  Simon and I owe Bernard some very generous hospitality!!  Hopefully, I wont want to be site foreman again next day - I have suggested to Simon that we see them on Saturday night, so that if we are a little lethargic on the Sunday, it wont matter!!

Whoop Whoop - :-)

Well.....  progress on the house may be slow but we have now got a cooker for it!!
You might remember from a previous blog that we want wood fired to run central heating, hot water and cooking.  We looked into several makes - Esse, which I thought were beautiful but they could not produce enough BTU for our needs.  Aga - dont do wood fired and dont run central heating (strange really when Aga is the first range cookers everyone thinks of.)  Italian ones, you name it, we looked at it.  I looked at a company in the Midlands who would sell us a Rayburn (Woodfired) and export it for us so that we didnt have to pay VAT on it.  It would still cost us £4,200 including delivery.

Finally, just after New Year, Simon found a local business who reconditions ranges so we went along and had a look.  We looked at his showroom and he has so many to choose from of all different ages and prices.  He's also converting oil-fired to wood as he is finding that is what everyone is going for.  If anyone reading this is looking for a range - go and see this guy at AGA House, Scorrier, Cornwall....    The only additional item that we paid for (other than reconditioning) was to have two brand new chrome lids.
It's now finished and has a rap round boiler which has a capacity of 65,000 BTU - excellent!

And.....it looks fab.  Unfortunately, as it was only just finished and still in their work shop, my photography is not doing their work justice.  (BTW  we plumped for a matt finish, rather than the enamelled finish and I think that it looks more in keeping to go into a 200+ year old house - you be the judge!)

It'll be delivered whilst we are out there in a month or so - Sooo - we need the house to crack on now!!  :-))