We are De-Pinked

In the living room, at least. It only took 6 coats of white paint to rid us of the ghastly color.

Today I have all but finished the walls in the 2nd half of the living room, just have another coat around the top of the walls below the ceiling, some ceiling prep to go before starting that, and then Voila! Fini.

The biggest item to remove in order to paint, was the heavy mirror that goes over the fireplace, such as it is. That's an electric fire in the hole.

 We will keep these nice mirrors as they seem to go with the Shaun de leers nicely.

In the process of prepping the living room, the old vacuum kicked the bucket, so we went in search of a new one. That isnt strictly correct, coz I had forgotten to put it on the shopping list....but there are wonderful promotions each week, and this being Thursday, these vacuums were half price. Not bad for 40 euros! Its a real sucker too!

I could have had pink, blue or purple! How original. Pink not being my kind of color, nor purple, so this is what we chose. Bagless and HEPA filter to boot.

Just to digress somewhat....we are so enjoying all the stone fruits right now. We bought these ones from the Bio store, and they taste like sunshine.:)
Waz particularly enjoys the Flatto Peaches.

The garden  (such as it is) is literally abuzz. We delight in watching the goings on, on the lavender out front. The scent is lovely now, and the bees of all kinds and particularly the Humming Bird Moths are wonderful to watch.

Look at that proboscis!

With all that rain the tomatoes are growing like Topsy. We have some little ones ripening, and many more on the way. They aren't expensive in-store right now, and we are enjoying the cocktail tomatoes most of all.

I fear that the shallow boxes are too small for the plants in there. Too late to transfer them now. They are fruiting, so we will see.

We welcomed the window guy on Thursday. We desperately need to replace all the windows and doors for double paned ones and more secure. Ones that dont leak, in other words. I dont want to spend the winter running around the house mopping up floods each time it rains, and I certainly dont want to spend the winter in the house with all the shutters down because that is the only way to keep dry inside. This is the scene at our front door, currently. You think we are renovating?? I sure hope he wasnt offended, lol.

Spending so much time indoors, right now, makes me a little stir crazy, and it is so good to go outside in the late evening and survey the property and our surrounds.

I hadn't looked at the garden with much interest in the last two weeks, and I enjoyed what I saw last night, as the sun was going down, around 9.45-ish.
What a welcome surprise to find this daylily in bloom so late in the day.

 That thunderhead cloud was pretty with the last of the sunshine on it, but someone was going to get thunder, not long after this.

 I dont know the name of this, but the shrub is pretty, if a bit unruly, right now. I will tidy it up after I have finished painting.

 The hibiscus is lovely during the day, and then the sun disappears, and so do the blooms.

 Hmmm...lots of pink in this garden! Whats with that?

 Our grape vine is looking pretty healthy thanks to Waz's ministrations. He is determined that we will get the grapes to eat before the wasps do!

 No idea what this PINK and purple flower is, but look how complex it is.

 Roses are still blooming their heads off...I should pick another bouquet to have inside.

 The view is gorgeous in the soft light, dont you think?

 Out on the roadside, the wisteria is getting well...wisterical! It is a bit over the top??lol

 I crossed the road into the vines to see if I could spy any more random orchids, but none to be found. Just this cowslip? Another complex flower.

 The vines have been trimmed recently, and the huge amount of fruit hanging close to the vine is amazing.

Back on home turf, and my little Echeveria is blooming. It put out a rather phallic sprout, and this is the end result. This pink is just fine, thanks:)

 The sun had disappeared over the hill, but I sat on the front step and just listened to mother nature making preparations for bed, all around me. The stillness was wonderful and a lovely end to the day. I looked past the large bowl of lavender, through the gates to the vines across the road still with some residual sunshine on them.

Waz is going to paint the gates a pretty green and make all the details - spikes etc, Gold! :)
So, back to the painting.... Getting boring, but needs to be finished so Waz can watch the finals of the World Cup Soccer. We have been enjoying the games so far. Poor man has been reduced to standing in the middle of the living room, watching the TV in the same place, while I  paint around him.
Yes, it was cool after all those horrid storms, hence the sweater.

So you see, I have some real incentive to finish, and soon.
At the end of today, one finished wall...the TV wall...just have to do the ceiling tomorrow and we can move the TV back.

 The opposite wall looks pretty good, after 6 coats of white to cover the pink.

Our window man told us to go into the show room and choose our doors and shutters and look at the brochures...no he didnt bring any with him. He couldn't take the time to stand around and discuss that with us, it was the job of the lady in the show room. So, we went into Barbezieux to the office and looked through our choices of doors. They will quote on PVC and Steel for the entry doors. We have chosen PVC windows in the same style as are there now. They are the original windows and suit the style of home. We didnt want anything too modern for a 1950's house. We also decided to put two new windows in the Pink Room, designated the Bureau (office) by the window man. Most of the windows are the same size, so we will follow that model and have a same size window added to the west wall, and a sliding window added to the south view wall. Im quite excited about this, but it will mean we need a mason to make the holes in the concrete walls, put a header in and then finish them off once installed.
We chose solar powered volets (shutters) which are pretty neat. They have their own battery in the header. All will be in white because of the sun and heat. The house will look so much better with all this renewal.

We now need a quote for a new septic tank, which was always on the cards. By law we have 12 months to comply, after purchasing the house. We knew the septic needed replacing, and also the windows, so this was budgeted for.

After dinner Waz installed another outdoor light, with me holding the ladder underneath. He has been sneaky though, and been up there without me holding the ladder, I notice.:(

He was a busy beaver today, and in the heat...finally admitting that it was too hot to continue.

The lawns got mown and the hedge trimmed, well about 2/3 of it along the south side.
We ate our three meals on the terrace today. Glorious!

 The 'pile' in the middle of the lawn grows. We will go out this week and buy a trailer. It is taking time to figure out our needs in this department. With four sides of hedging, we figure it will be put to good use.

Well, that's the end of another day...Saturday to be precise. The Tour de France began today, and it is the busiest day on the roads in all of France because it is the beginning of school holidays. I think we will stay home for the next two months:) Most of France is on vacation in August.

With that in mind, our new windows wont be ready to install until October...Merde! Better late than never I guess, and the weather will be settled at that time of year, and before the big cold. We hope!

Time for me to enjoy the last of the sun and the view before turning in.
Hope your day has been cheerful and positive.

A Demain.

Hunny, It's raining inside AGAIN!

This is the third violent storm in the past 4 days. Yesterday was a respite day, and we enjoyed the calm before the...storm!

I somehow made the mistake of not closing one of the upstairs windows properly, and there was a river running inside the room on the wooden floors. Oh joy! 

This being a North east/south west storm, meaning it is blowing from the north east, all the windows on the northern side of the house are under siege. These windows are original to the house, which I think I said before, is about 80 yrs old. New in the scheme of things, and we laugh when French people see the house and exclaim that it is a 'New' home! lol. Relly!

We were in Barbezieux when we heard the first thunder. We had originally just gone down to the bar in Lignieres for a Grand Crème and a catch up with Celine, and to ask if she knew anyone in the neighborhood who might like to cut our 3 hedges....and posted a couple of letters at the same time....and as she wasn't able to help us, we made a split decision to go to Barbezieux to look at some trailers we had seen one other time. This is all with a view to cutting our own hedges and disposing of the debris ourselves. No fires allowed, anymore.

We got to BZ...well, we didnt actually....we were looking for what we remembered as a Paysagiste (pay sar zheest), on the way to Archiac (Are shee ack) some 9kms away. We got there in a roundabout fashion as we turned prematurely down a road we thought would take us there, but didnt immediately, and enjoyed the gorgeous scenery on the way, with sunflowers just starting to bloom, rolls of hay outstanding in their fields, short stalks of wheat where the tops have been harvested, numerous tractor units on the road moving between vineyards, cutting the wayward tendrils, top sides and bottoms et al. Phew...long sentence!:)

Well, we arrived at the place we thought we might find Hedge Help, but alas, it was the wrong kind of help. Hmmmm….where to next? Back to BZ (Barbezieux) via a route we hadn't take before. There can be only so many ways to get into a town, right? Well, I think we have done all of them getting into BZ, now.

Found the trailer place. They sell all manner of garden, yard, tractors/trailers, and VOILA! THERE!!! that one. Outside the main doors was a double axle trailer with a cage around the top. Exactly what we are looking for...or are we? Inside, we ask the desk attendant how much for the trailer with the cage. I should have known that all the parts cost something else. 

Trailer is 1.328,00 euros... mille, trois cent vingt huit euros! I got that. If you want the cage, it is another 400 euros! We asked for a print out. The print out had added 300 euros in tax! merde! So, now we have a trailer with cage costing us almost as much as a van with 168,000 kms on the clock that we would use to put same debris in the back, AND use as a multi-purpose vehicle besides. Made us walk away from that 2k euro trailer. Phew!

Next up is the car yard...well, the van yard. Some of the vans had seen better days...well, most of them had, to be honest. We are looking at a Citroen Jumpy. Not too big to fit under the height barrier at the supermarket!! important point that:)

Anyway...back to the thunder...We first heard it while in the Intermarche supermarket where we had gone for lunch supplies. This included a baguette cereal.......oh, and they had some desserts, just by the by.

Passion mousse on the left, and something or other on the right...he wasnt too impressed with the something or other, but I was in heaven with my passion thing!

By the time we exited the supermarket, there were drops of rain on the windshield. Mostly, BZ gets it before we do, but all the way home we hoped the rain wasnt coming in the house through all those windows we had left open! Merde.

Exit the car, dash into the house with our bits and pieces...we had stopped for some fruit at the Bio marche first....and then the rain started in earnest. 

Meanwhile, I had returned the black bucket from our neighbor with a box of muffins I made this morning for just that purpose, thanking them for their generosity, giving us all that lettuce! This was about 10am.  As the rain started, we raced down the road and retrieved the bucket et all, surprised that said neighbors wife wasnt home. It was after 1pm, and someone is usually home about then.

Neighbor arrived home not ten minutes later, and now the rain was really coming down. Armed with an umbrella, I hopped in the car and drove the whole 100 metres down the road to deliver. Frank was sitting in his car when I stopped. I had the brolly up, and it was now pelting down. I delivered the goods, and retreated, hoping he understood my thanks, and to "look in the box", mate, as I shook out the brolly and got back in the car.

Got a bit wet getting from the car to the front door, shook out the brolly, and left it open on the front terrace. FOOL! It was raining hard when I took this photo...umbrella communing with hedge that needs cutting. Good thing is wasnt cut, or the neighbors down the road might have inherited one nice golf umbrella!!

The owner of the trailer shop spoke reasonable English and called someone he knew who cuts hedges. We cant afford a huge amount to get someone professional, as they say, vs an odd jobber, if you know what I mean, hence the trailer or Van quest. If we do it bit by bit, we can accomplish this together. Not high on the priority list, but it needs doing. The hedge will just continue to grow! And we will need to cut it in half, no matter what height it gets to in the meantime.

So, racing around the house now, towels in hand ready to mop up any more streams running inside. 

Corners were full of water where the rain had entered at the corners of the old windows, and oozed through some of the glass corners. The glass ALL needs re-puttying.

Dining room...puddle in the bottom left corner was a small lake.

The wallpaper under the window is like this for a good reason...rivers!

 Wait for a lull in the rain and rush to close the shutters before the rivers running down the wall gets any bigger.

 Outside, the wind had rearranged the furniture. My poor tomato plants were literally being blown over in their pot.

 This bamboo sticks were not helping, unfortunately.

 you can see the waterfall down to the painting tray that I left outside last night to dry out. We have a few holes in the spouting! hmm...another thing to 'fix'.

 Meanwhile...out back...

It is dark inside the house with all the shutters closed, but better that than rivers running down the walls. The laundry has just finished, so I will go and hang the towels up. They should dry well, as it's warm inside. Waz put his sweatshirt on to put the trash out, just now, that's the northerly storm temperature change.

Well, dinner time, and its a light one tonight, after our sweet treats for lunch. 

Au Revoir.

Renewal.

I will tell you in the morning if it is 'right', but we are a bit over it all at this time of day...10pm. Too late to be changing things around, but what the heck, we wont have to do it tomorrow.

Voila! Our new white room!

Book case has a new lease on life, and I think we have the room sorted. Like I said, tomorrow I will know for sure. We still have a wall unit (coming) to put on the right hand wall (you cant see that one) and then it will be complete, and hopefully somewhere we will want to sit...if we ever sit down, that is. Note to self.....

Painting of this room took just about a week, with many interruptions and days off etc. I finished the ceiling this afternoon and decided that one thick coat was sufficient. Frankly, I didnt have the wherewithal to do another. Pooped!
The chandelier had a clean too, while I was up there taking the paper shroud off it.
Now lovely and sparkly!

 It needed some fixing too, so I was able to attend to that while on the ladder.

Along the way we ate lunch on the front terrace and sat in our comfy chairs out there enjoying a cuppa before getting back to our various projects.
Waz is installing new outside lighting, and of course it is in a really challenging place on a slope (under the ladder legs). Being safe is always uppermost in our thoughts, and he spent some time figuring out the best way to approach the ladder/slope issue. I was roped in to hold the ladder. No easy way to do this one.

The more challenging part happens tomorrow when he will have to climb up to that nick out of the corner of the building, about where his right arm is in this photo. See it on the other side of the downpipe? That is where the old light was, and they took a real chunk out of the corner of the concrete. Some repair work needed there.

It didnt get done today because it was nearing time for me to put the duck breast on to cook. I also had some sweet potato begging to be cooked in Duck Fat! Yes, they literally cried out for it! Honest!

It is a while since we have had a fully cooked meal. Mostly I opt for cooked meat and cole slaw or salad, but duck breast needed peas and ...you get the picture....well, actually you do...below!
The duck breast is resting before being sliced and served.

 Dinner is served! Very yummy, but I overcooked the duck...sheesh! 20 mins at 180C, after searing the fat, I thought I would be getting a nice pink inside. Nope! Better luck next time. We buy it on special, so I have another one in the freezer!
We were both starving! We had seconds on the sweet potato...soooo good!

Main meal was followed by dessert of Fraise (strawberry and Lemon) and Citron Sorbet....Very refreshing. There's that lavender again! Picked from our own bush!

 This was something new for us, and on special...2 for price of one.  Bio  (Bee oh) means Organic in these parts.

I dont especially go looking for organic foods as they are usually more expensive, and being on  retired persons budget, we buy what is on special and what is seasonal, normally.

The lovely view to the north of us, as I was closing up the house around 9pm

Most of the vines around us have had haircuts today. This is the machine that does it. Pretty tricky!
The vines are growing like topsy right now. Our own vine is being pruned by Waz, who makes sure there are no new shoots growing, as we want the vine to put all it's energy into the grapes, right now. They are coming along nicely.

We managed to haul this old thing up from the garage/basement and I vacuumed all the debris/dust/spiders out of her before installing her back in the newly painted part of the living room. She still needed her drawers and doors. The new back Waz nailed in looks 100% on the previous back.

 Before the final change around of furniture.
 I was still figuring out where everything should go while Waz reinstalled the curtains.

 Poor man is reduced to this! Sitting in one of our comfy outside chairs in front of the World Cup Soccer on TV. Everything will be more or less out of here tomorrow as I start prepping this part of the living room for painting. I might take a day off, but really cant afford the time.
With our next container coming around the 11th of the month, I'm on a mission. Our NZ furnishings will go in this part. We can literally hand the sofa's over the windowsill, which is what we did when Michelle and Richard came for the pink sofa et al. Worked well, and no silly corners to negotiate.

Well, I'm all done in, so I'm going to hit the sack. It isnt as hot tonight as last night, fortunately...Oh! I needed to report that our new black-out curtains work really well. :)

A bientot.

Hunny, It's Raining Inside!

I dont know if you have ever experienced Sheet Lightning for hours on end, but we 'suffered' a second night of torrential rain and sheet lightning with accompanying thunder like a continuous drum roll, last night. What a show!
Midnight, then 1am, and the rain was pounding the windows on the south side of the house. Our bedroom and the living room directly underneath us both have windows in a rather tenuous state. They are the original windows in the house which is 80+ yrs old. The wood has shrunk at the corners where the opening window closes against it's frame, and that is where the 'rain' was spirting and washing down the walls under the windows. Many towels later (which I have just hung on the line over the terrace, in a slightly vain hope that they will dry, in the damp air) and we returned to a now very hot bedroom, because the electricity had died. No fan to keep air flowing over us, just 29C of heat. Bah!

We went downstairs to turn the computers off and unplug their mains power, and briefly considered the implications of having no power when we have house guests. We would figure that one out in the morning!
Unable to offer our guests beds in the house (we just dont have any...yet!) they provided their own. They stayed the night in their 'van', parked in our yard. At least we can honestly that we provided 'entertainment' (a well lit sky!) along with dinner, laundry and bathroom facilities!
Who were these guests?

I had been messaging Marc, one of the young men aboard this kiwi-crewed old camper during the weekend, and when they were  in Brittany on their way south to pick up 2 more crew in Bayonne, and passing our neck of the woods. We invited them to stop over for the night if they could make it this far. After a few 'interesting' events on the way here, they finally drew up outside our gates around 7.15pm.
Black Betty is a camper van that has seen better days, but is fully kitted out for camping with a young crew onboard.  She lacks bathroom facilities and some of her other features are a bit  um...iffy?? but for the most part, she gets them where they want/need to go, and some.

I celebrate their adventurous spirit, and continuing the Kiwi OE, or Overseas Experience that was so much a part of my young adulthood, and for so many of my generation of Kiwis and Aussies too. They aren't exactly doing their OE, which involves working while travelling, or staying in London and travelling for fun on weekends, to far off plane-ridden places. These young men have a University education and several years of work experience/savings behind them, and are spending this time enriching their lives with travel. The University of Life, in other words.

 Marc is the middle child (2nd son) of kiwi friends who used to live on Maui at the same time I did. He and his younger sister were born there, and I have known Marc since he was newborn, basically. At 25, he is a credit to his parents, as are the other two young men. What quality people they are, and what a joy to entertain as guests.
They left Black Betty (yes, all kiwi-owned vans have names!! This one is a rather long story....) on the roadside while they came inside, grabbed water (they had run out, somewhere along the way, and were parched!) and we sat down to dinner. Somewhere around 10pm, we were still sitting outside, having finished off most of the Saucisse Toulouse (Toulous-style sausages), cole slaw, vine tomatoes and hard boiled eggs, finished off with Tarte citron meringue (Lemon meringue tarte), and decided that they should really make the most of the remaining daylight and move BB onto the property. The bottom of the hill was almost flat, so that's where they spent the night.
After a night of light shows, thunder drum rolls and torrential rain, this was the scene that greeted me when I opened the windows at 7/30am. Damp, and foggy.

 I was given a quite look inside BB, which was all I really wanted, lol. Typically male environment! Say no more:)
I took this photo this morning before they left. David on the left, Marc in the middle and Sam on the right.

 BB and her crew cleared our gates, and Marc is saying Au Revoir. I think David was driving, so that must be Sam's hand waving goodbye!

 She gathered some small measure of speed as she went back down the way she had come, back to the N10 to Bordeaux.
Love that kiwi Flag on the back. Reminds us of our large kiwi flag on the back of our boat, while we travelled. Proud of our kiwi heritage, for sure.

Following their departure and  having eaten a breakfast of baked beans with left over sausages and poached eggs with strong coffee besides, we hopped in the car to visit the bar at the bottom of the road. Do they have power? Big question answered in triplicate as we cruised through town to find all 3 commerces shuttered and barred. No power! bah!
Onwards to Barbezieux (Bar bez yer)  for some lunch, then some ceiling paint...mat, this time...some black-out drapes for the bedroom....now installed, and very effective too, I might add...those wrinkles will hang out in due course. They are a natural looking linen-type of fabric with an insulating backing. Good for hot and cold weather. We will put the white net curtains back up for filtered light. No real privacy needed in this room.

...but we were a little early for lunch which meant that we had to wait 2 hrs for every store we needed to visit, to open at 2pm. So, we went for a walk, as you do, climbing the hill towards the Chateau but not actually reaching it.
The Eglise Saint Mathieu in the middle of the old town is an imposing building that has been well preserved in some aspects, and not in others. Fairly typical of the age, being 12th century, much of her façade is very degraded and discolored due to air pollution, but her inside has had some restoration work. We stopped inside as we heard organ music. Suckers for such things, we went inside and sat down, listening for quite a while, trying to figure out if it was canned music or had a person behind the pipe pedals. As it turned out, a real person was practicing and there was much stopping and restarting. Sombre music. I wondered aloud why so much liturgical music is so sad and gloomy.

A slow walk around the soaring interior, inspecting some of the reliquaries and we left to walk up the hill further.

 It was pretty challenging to figure out what the figures used to be. Sad!

Onwards and upwards.
We stopped for a short time under the trees. Taking five was good for us after a few hectic days at home. It was also nice to enjoy cooler breezes, though the sun was HOT!

 What a fabulous meal sculpture!

 Instead of pushing ever uphill to the Chateau, we turned right and started downhill again past the Mairie (Mare ree). The new addition on the left has some interesting statues I shall have to visit next time we are in town and have a little time up our sleeves. This was good for us to just take time out.

 Old town Barbezieux, on the hill, is a warren (no pun) of skinny one way streets. There is NO WAY an opposing car could get up or down that!

 or that!
It was fun to hear conversations coming from apartments overhead. Some music, some laughter:)

 Back down the hill with it's summer foliage and flowers towards our parking spot.

 What the????

 In context!
Wow, that's impressive. The building was for rent, so I guess this guy was up there doing alterations of some kind.

It was 1.40pm by the time we got back into the car and made our way back around the town to the Brico...but first, Lidl is always open, so we went there for more water, some Gin!...yes...I have Indian tonic water in the fridge and I cant drink wine, so ...perhaps I can drink a Gimlet? Add lime and we are onto it!

Talk about wasting time in Lidl. They had orchids for sale...ON sale for 5,99 euros, so I bought two...white one and a pink one. I hate that most places stocking plants and flowers do not keep them watered, so they wilt in this heat and die! What a waste!!
I love to have real life orchids in the house. They should thrive in here.

We sat outside Bricolage in the heat with the engine and air-conditioning running, waiting for 2pm. Our next door neighbor must have seen them open the doors, coz he was in there light a shot. We closely followed.

Waz needs to replace an outside light, so that was his agenda, while I looked at ready made curtains, hoping not to spend more that 25 euros per drop. Fat chance! Because they are black-out curtains they were more like 39euros each. I didnt have to make them, so that was a bonus! AND>>we will hopefully have a really good night's sleep tonight...IN THE DARK!

I also bought two new door knobs for the book case in the living room, some mat ceiling paint...12 litres of it!!! lots of ceilings need painting! and some conduit. Phew!
At check out we discovered that our fidelity card had been rejected, which necessitated us filling out yet another form with our details, and bingo, a new card was issued.

We had been watching the storm clouds gather on the horizon, on the return trip home, and sure enough the thunder started and I was almost caught in sudden heavy rain. Having closed the house up, and taken the half dry laundry off the line, I was really peeved to find that the rain lasted all of 2 minutes. Sigh!

I was writing this blog when I heard voices...I thought. Got up to investigate, thinking Waz, who had gone for a snooze, was watching TV now. Wrong...then I heard rapping on the window in the living room. Poked my head around the corner to find a man with a bucket, on our door step.
Bonjour Monsieur! He held out the bucket which was overflowing with lettuce and a sprig of parsley on top. Very artful too, I might add:)

I was embarrassed, upon asking his name, to find it was our nearest neighbor Frank. Merde! I had only seen him once, and inside his car, when he talked to us last time, so my recognition software (Ok, I have to blame something!) was not working properly. We had a sort of conversation...he already knows how bad my French is:) but he told me he has a large garden...after first asking me if we like salad! Yerrrs, we do! I indicated that if he waited I would return the bucket...A plus tard, he said...later!  D'accord...ok! He handed me the bucket, indicated the approaching storm clouds. I told him that our windows had leaked inside, last night....like a river, actually, and he told me we needed to change our windows to double pane! I told him that a man was coming to give us a quote, on Thursday, and he was satisfied with my explanation. He said the windows on the house now, are original! This we knew!

Frank left me with the bucket of goodies, and I took them in to show Waz. I didnt anticipate what happened next....I picked up one of the lovely green things to show the Wazster, and it was almost still growing...earth, roots and all. It appeared almost as if Frank had sewn lettuce seeds in a row, and when they looked big enough, he just pulled them ALL up.

We repaired to the front terrace where I proceeded to detach the green from the dirt and roots

 All washed and draining. Too bad our compost bin isnt up and running yet....priorities, you understand...because there  was a lot of lovely stuff cut off that the worms would love.

We will be eating salad for the rest of the week.

Well, as we didnt get much sleep last night, Im off to shower and put my head down. I think someone else might feel similarly inclined.

So, it's night, night from me and him! A plus tard! Later!!