Busy day with work today. This afternoon however we have the pellet boiler guy coming from St Gaudens to scope it out and see whether it is an option. It’s not our first choice but the chance of getting a professional of any sort over the threshold is appealing.

For a house of this size we’ll need a fairly big one which means we’ll use a lot of pellets. We’ve heard that even smaller ones can use 15kg of pellets per day. We really don’t want to be manually lugging that much around every day to refill it, and that means we need a silo and some sort of automated feed system. Not sure how practical this is going to be but maybe access can be provided via the window next to it?!

Well that was short and sweet. After showing him the existing boiler, potential access and that our flues go up the side of the windows it was a flat ‘Non’. It’s not practical to feed the boiler, it won’t work as it should and will be super expensive as well as highly inefficient. He was out in under 10 mins.

After our rather disappointing visit I engage myself in a search of potential, local, geothermal heat pump providers and send out requests to three or four of them. Not convinced that any will get back to us but you have to keep trying right!

Quick walk down to Intermarche. On the way we drop into the garage as the car has been in for a week now and still no update. Looks as though it is the clutch hydraulic cylinder. Thankfully this is the easy one to fix and initial quote is pretty reasonable (just over 200EUR). It’s still under warranty so hopefully covered by the garage so I get a copy of the quote for the planned work to send to them. They are expecting the part in the next day or so, so hopefully we will have it back soon, just need to keep the French phone close (and charged).

More work but Matt also had a new delivery today, and this time is was actually quite exciting (for me at least). He’s bought a massive new blanket (this may save having to drag the duvets up and down the stairs but I do like a proper duvet day.) It’s a significant upgrade on my blanket so he’s not only going to have to share it but make space on the sofa for me too! 🙂

Anyway it’s getting late so I get some more of the blog updates done and off to bed.

[18 January 2021]

Tuesday

With the prospect of having the car back later in the week we focus on the paid work so that we might find some time to make use of it and get all those long awaited trips done (yes to the Bricos etc). Weather is nice so we take half an hour for lunch on the terrace. One interesting thing we did notice however was the weather vane on the top of the tower. It’s in pretty poor condition but is pretty awesome. Should we finally think of making any business or logo for this place the dragon would be great logo.

Back to work, get the washing done and put on some more ‘homemade’ bread for dinner. Bit of TV and blog updates to finish from the weekend before bed.

[19 January 2021]

Wednesday –

Another day woken by the female postie honking her horn – the chap that used to come and call me when Matt was away was much more polite. [Thankfully they are both called Pat.] It’s the main part of the lifting device to raise the plasterboard sheets up to the roof. We didn’t much fancy having both of us up the top of the scaffold trying to manhandle them into place. We haven’t yet received the extension part but I am sure that it will be here well before we are ready to use it.

What a day, felt as though spring had suddenly sprung. You wouldn’t believe the difference. Last week we were surrounded by about a foot of snow. Today I put my extra jumper on to go to the postbox, the wind was hard and fast and I expected to be met with a wall of ice cold air. Instead, as I opened the front door, it was like walking into a shop on the first day of the January sales with super warm blanket of air that descends on you all at once. I couldn’t quite take it in, it was so warm and comforting, and the temperature outside in the sun was just incredible. It was a shame that with one step backwards into the house it felt like a walk in freezer.

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I duly left the door wide open after me. Within about an hour the temperature in the hall had already risen by 2 degrees. To my surprise there was also a ‘gift’ in the postbox, it was for Matt of course and probably quite boring, I wish he’d start addressing things to me, just so it felt like Christmas every other day. I don’t care if they’re boring house gifts, it’d still be exciting.

Message from the garage that the car is ready to be collected – huzzah! [I expected them to ring during my morning call but seems the French phone was out of battery due to a dodgy charging cable – whoops!] Popped on some more bread before we went out, nothing like fresh baked bread.

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Internet is somewhat wobbly today but we’d manage to order some bits from Chausson in Luchon. So we take the opportunity to have a break and head down to collect the car and pop down to Luchon. Since Chausson is currently closed for lunch we pop into Lidl to see if there is anything exciting in their weekly collection. Well good news, there was. We managed to spend another 75bucks, mostly on clothing. Then on to collect our order and a few pictures on the way home – always watch out for those death angles!

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Back home, cue fashion show:

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One of the overriding (and sometimes overwhelming) things in France is the paperwork. This evening’s fun adventure is registration with the French health system. Hours later we seem to have amassed all the paperwork required – many duplications of all kinds of proof of address, identity etc. Looking at the cost of posting it to St Gaudens we decide that it’s more cost effective hand deliver it.

Exhausted by French bureaucracy it’s time to relax and have some swiss roll and custard.

Matt’s off to bed while I work on the blog but now the TV show has finished and I need to go now to be in bed and warm by 1am. Will catch up again tomorrow.

[20 January 2021]