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....... 

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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!