Doors are really starting to open for us in France..
The paraffin space heaters were a find! We had a warm night in a proper bed.
Matt is still on leave as he had so much built up during Covid. I however (as a contractor) was back to work in earnest and balancing that with the occasional requirement to speak to French people. (It won’t be long before Matt can do this but not just yet).
Beautiful day today, felt really warm and very sunny so good opportunity to air the house out, particularly our room as paraffin does have quite the smell to it. Matt went on a tour around the garden to get some good photos of that and the house.
[Matt] Another trip to Intermarche and Lidl – I suspect Lidl may become our new Poundland, it’s nowhere near as convenient or cheap though. Sad times. You will likely be asked to bring us some lovely poundland goodies when you come to visit as I miss it already; can’t beat Poundland value!
Trimmed the tree and couple of hedges in anticipation of the fuel delivery, and to make the exit a bit more manageable. Matt has been suitably cautious when pulling out, I can only imagine how fear inducing that will be for me as part of my French driving initiation.
Lunchtime, and time for my break. Not fully established with work and the constantly changing time zones so think I’ll stick to Coca-Cola for now. Just about finishing up as the French phone buzzes… It’s the fuel delivery for our heating. Well that created quite the level of anticipation!
So we wrapped up lunch and waited, a French 5 minutes is somewhat longer than a UK one. Wait, who’s this… well they’re in a car so it’s not the fuel guys or something went seriously wrong in communication of what we needed (there was no way that 1,000 litres of heating oil was in that car!)
A lady and a child get out (while blocking the driveway). I do hope that they aren’t lost as this conversation isn’t going to go too well.
Of course, it’s Lynda from the local tourism board! I didn’t realise that being British (and Kiwi) was that exciting, maybe it is in rural France. Nope. They are doing an article about the house as it used to be a maternity hospital and would like to take some pictures. Her daughter (I assume) duly went to take some pictures while I did my best to work my GCSE French, while also getting her to move the car so my fuel delivery wouldn’t be blocked. Seems that she was born in the house (well everyone was from 1954-1975). I then offered to send her some of our pictures in case she wanted to use one of those instead, got her email and she was off.
Well that was exciting and unexpected.
Yay, the fuel guy is here! Simple follow round the building and point at the tank housing.
Had a look at a few of the wild flowers while he was ‘filling’ it. One is a cornflower, not entirely sure what the other is so please let us know – it comes in pink and purple in our garden but the purple is much more common.
He’s done, time for a chat as Matt wants to know a bit more about the tank. Not easy as it is surrounded by concrete and iron. Definitely not full and he looked somewhat more concerned than I would like. I am very glad Matt stopped me from running it at all. It’s not 1,000 litres, not even close. More like maybe 3,000. Apparently this is bad and means it is very old and hard to clean. It probably should have someone to look at it to ensure that it’s all ok. Bugger! That sounds expensive but the risk of blowing up the boiler, especially if we run it too low is a worry. But we have heating oil so we walked away rather happy.
Lunch over, back to work…
Done for the day(ish). Time to start breaking sh*t. The Caped Destroyer was ready for action!
Demolition done, that was very satisfying. Caped Destroyer for the win!
Time for the delicate work and not something I can be trusted with apparently, can’t imagine why?!
Well that is interesting, seems that the floor went in after the doors. This is going to make things more difficult than we had hoped. Seems we now need to cut the bottom of the door so it meets the floor and the existing door.
A long time later (and far more noise than we should be making at this time of night) but we have finally got the door out.
Job done, the sofa has finally made it into the kitchen and we can get the fridge in (once it finally arrives!)
Time to ring mum.
Don’t stress pumpkin, less than 1 month and you will have another pair of hands available… I do hope there is a warm room for the staff ?
I think we found just the room for you – we don’t seem to be able to turn off the radiator in that room so may as well be used!
Fancy it being a maternity hospital. Amazing.
1,968 children born here! So basically everyone that lives around here and is between 66 and 45 was born in this house pretty much. Probably the reason that the Tourism Board is doing the article. We’re keen later to try to dig into the history of the place and get local people interested in finding out more about it
maternity hospital – time to make some babies then?
Reckon we have a bit too much on our plates already to be doing that, and we’re exhausted at the end of the day
It’s common knapweed, considered a weed but is is a great source of nectar for pollinators. I’ve got some in my garden but it can spread too much if you’re not careful.
Thanks – good to know!