The erection has started
Monday
Busy day working and another crisp autumn day. Would be lovely to be retired and able to spend some time off just rambling around but the house must be paid for one way or another. Seems Matt must have spotted grumps in the garden. Meow however is very much making herself at home as a house cat.
She’s melting…
[8 November 2021]
Tuesday
Off down to Luchon [no idea why we went], snow is definitely on its way. Hopefully this will bode well for the ski season this year!!
[9 November 2021]
Wednesday, Thursday
Sorry, it’s all rather boring, it seems we spent most of the time working. We did get a slight twist on the game of Matt, Cat and Mouse, for a round of Matt, Cat and Rat. The first time I think we have had one in the kitchen – Meow bought it in – and we ended up with the sofa propped up so it was exposed. This is our life now, and she seems pretty comfortable!
[10 and 11 November 2021]
Friday
Matt is still super busy with work but I decided that I would spend some of the later afternoon when I finished to crack on with the very large list of jobs in the garden. The first thing on the list was to gather up the large pile of leaves that Matt has left me and put them into the mulching bay. It’s one of those finishing jobs, Matt is great at getting most of the way there but rarely seems to finish, particularly if it basically equates to cleaning or tidying. I know this is something that my mother has commented on with us, but I would remind her of the dresses we ‘made’ when we were young. I don’t know what ever happened to them but they never got finished either!
The next thing on my list is rather more ambitious, and has no way of being finished today, it’s the large pile of branches that need to be run through the broyeur (garden shredder). Either way a start is a start. Digging them out of the ever falling leaves was a little annoying as you couldn’t see what was buried underneath – it was like a constantly settling layer of snow. The more flexible of the branches kept wrapping themselves around the blades which wasn’t ideal. It’s incredible to see the very small stack that the large pile I chopped up turned into, but with the vast number and layer of leaves I guess you can hardly tell.
Maybe a quarter of that pile done (and there are plenty more dotted around) and I am over it. Time to head inside and see if I can coax Matt away from his work. I failed but couldn’t face the garden work again, maybe we need to get Tonia over again!
[12 November 2021]
Saturday
We had to go up to the Brico at St Gaudens today to go and get a whole load of plasterboard so we need to take the trailer. Since we’re going up we may as well drop into Emmaus to see if there are any great things to offer, and we can get big things today with the trailer. The first thing we saw was another chair, and this one has a lounging mode. At €25 it was an obvious choice. A less obvious choice was a metal thing, no I have no idea what it is or what it should be used for (the chap at the desk also asked me if I knew what it was), but it is pretty, will be easy to clean and look good in my kitchen. The other thing we saw was an old French bed. At some point it could possibly do with some freshening up of the upholstery but it’s not in bad condition and is already a colour we like. The pretty flowers were continued on the struts at the side and at €30 it’s worth it.
It made a pleasant change and before we head to the brico though there was some time nip into Action. On mum’s insistence that the bedside tables for her room needed a good lamp you could read a book by we finally found one we thought would work. We also picked up a sparkly box that you could see into so hopefully she will notice before leaving her jewellery behind again. Room 2 [the mums’ room] is going to be a bit softer and a bit more glamorous so sparkle is going to work there. We do still have the original glass chandelier in the basement too which may go back in one day. While at the brico I was more interested in the tree that had a lovely Christmas tree shape, we also picked up some more insulation, you never can have enough!
Back at home the job was to bring everything in. Hopefully we have a very immediate use for all of this – or at least that is why we ordered it. In which case why drag it into the shed when we need it to be in the house. We’ve therefore decided to create a ‘bed’ for the green board in Room 1, close to Room 2 and the (no longer) pink bathroom, where the boards will be going up.
It’s not overly easy to get 2.5m long boards up the stairs and with 8 up Matt looks a bit fed up. Slapping the white boards on top isn’t going to help as we won’t be able to access the ones we need when we need them. We do have a lot of space in the dining room currently though, it’s right by the door and I’m sure it is about to drizzle.
A few palettes down to make things easier to move and out and it’s done. Just the new furniture to throw in now. Bed may as well be propped up with the others and the chair into in the salon for now. Matt seems to think that it is pretty comfortable.
Seems that Meow is getting more pushy all the time and if there is pastry to be had we know where she will be, she’s very French.
[13 November 2021
Sunday
It may be Sunday but as always there is little rest for the wicked, and I’ve no idea what we did but it certainly wasn’t good! Job 1 was to look at what was behind the little plastic cover on the wall, and cross our fingers that what is hidden behind isn’t too terrible – and that we might be able to work out what it actually links to of course. It doesn’t actually look too bad, where it actually links to I’m not entirely sure but hopefully Matt can work it out. Surely a process of elimination will work but there are a lot of things that they could be attached to and potentially test as we disconnect one at a time. As such we’re going to save that little bundle of joy for another day.
On my hit list for today is to make progress in the Room 2 ensuite. Flooring first, of course. Since we seem to now be using Room 1 to trim down some of these things then I’m making sure the bed is protected, nobody wants sawdust, a splinter or worse in their bed. At risk of blowing my own trumpet, I am surprisingly good at spacial awareness (and puzzles), knowing how to make the most of the boards and dove tailing them together can save a lot of effort and money. [The green board is special board for managing water/leaks so it doesn’t immediately come apart. It’s not cheap but obviously a good investment for bathrooms and ensuites.]
Next job was to start putting in the railings. It’s incredible how quickly these things start to take shape at certain points and the difference it makes.
We have to quit for the day though as there is a talk up at the Salle de Fetes for the community about the passage of some middle class woman through the Pyrenees and they are displaying a very old drawing which is supposedly the first one recorded of our village. It’s a bit random, granted, but I’m sure that Pete would enjoy it. There were some great pictures of the villages, although I’m not sure that Matt really appreciated the talk – it was very difficult to hear, and of course it was in French, but at least the boards had been in English.
As you’d expect, the mayor was there, and he was sat right in front of me. With my bright lime green ski jacket on not only am I likely to make it into the background of the newsletter photos, you’ll be hard pressed to miss me if I am. After the talk there was a lot of chatter about a community project to map the history of a number of things which we were very happy to listen to, particularly as one section may include the history of the buildings of the village so hopefully will help us to learn more about the history of our house. Although not entirely obvious how we might be able to get involved, there may be a way to help as some of the old accounts were written in English (by wealthy English people doing their “Grand Tour”). Either way they are going to put a call out in the local newsletter so will have to keep an eye out for that.
We lurked around a bit afterwards but predictably the Mayor was constantly speaking to people so we said goodbye and left. Much to our surprise a man ran out calling after us. It seems that it was the Mayor and he’d been speaking to one of the ladies that checked us in [when she checked our Covid passes I’d dropped in that we were the new owners of Les Bengalis – the old maternity hospital]. He was keen to come to see us and hear what our plans are and we were apologetic that we hadn’t approached him already to introduce ourselves – it’s really not a common thing here but in France is a bit of a faux pas. Clearly he’d also got some confused messages and wasn’t sure if we were English or Kiwi, obviously one of each but also that there has been some local chatter about us.
After a brief chat in the rain we were back off home. Apparently it was too late to get any more work done so time to reward ourselves with some wine and dinner.
[14 November 2021]
