Monday

Busy day at work so nothing much happened on the house today. Matt did spend some time this morning putting our details on what seems to be the equivalent of ‘Find a trade’ however, which seems to have been oddly successful as we have already had a couple of responses – by phone rather than email of course, that’s the French way. I do rather wish that he’d told me though as I had no idea what was going on when I picked up the phone the first time, [I was probably still sleeping though so maybe not.]

Later Matt did went to check the plasterwork that he did yesterday but unfortunately there were still quite a lot of damp patches so not ready to sand down just yet. We have however taken a whole box of tomatoes out of the freezer to defrost overnight ready to make some homemade passata!

The painted panel didn’t come out quite as expected, it still seems very white. You can see the difference if it’s up against the white walls of the kitchen but it wasn’t as grey/pink as I’d thought it would come out. Maybe it’s one of the rubbish French paints we’ve heard so much about that need like 6 coats to do anything. So I spent the time we watching a movie looking at a range of potential wallpapers etc and have decided that this colour will still work with a wide range of options but that it will need another coat. Hopefully it will go a bit darker but if not then I can work with it and a bolder wallpaper at the top.

[17 January 2022]

Tuesday

More work today. Another surprise call from a company about getting quotes for some of the renovation work, it would be much easier if I ever caught which company they were from at the start, or just generally expected it; I’m still not confident in my French being ready without warning, I like to warm up and ideally have had a drink before. Unfortunately also missed a call from ANAH (the people that do the grants to help improve the energy efficiency of your home) so will have to call them back tomorrow to try to get them booked in. Matt has however oddly bought the paper today, apparently it was due to the reports of the recent flooding and he’s going to practice his French – I’ll let you know when that actually happens!

It’s time to put the tomatoes on and start them cooking before my last call at 6. I’ve never made passata di pomodoro before but it’s pretty much just cooking down them down as far as I can tell. They’re going to take quite a while though as they’re still mostly frozen. It did take hours, about 4.5 to be exact, but we now have a good amount of pasta sauce ready to freeze again.

[18 January 2022]

Wednesday

Busy preparing to busier tomorrow, plus the added bonus of doing my personal self-assessment for HMRC – yay, tax returns! Also two of my tenants have moved out (leaving one the originals), thankfully they were good enough to line up replacements before they left so I’m now ready to get new contracts done so that’s hopefully another 6-months without too much stress. Don’t fret mum, I’ll be dropping in on them next time I’m back to check everything’s ok and as it should be and the remaining tenant has already been there for over a year keeping the place nicely and paying rent on time.

Matt however has done some more excellent work attaching up the hot/cold for the new bath in the pink bathroom. I’ve also helped get the board cut that goes behind it. Since Matt is planning to do a lot of sanding we decided that it might be sensible to move to Room 1 for a bit as there is going to be a lot of dust while we get this bit finished. First however Matt needs to cut the hole for the plate but we’ve got it measured up and so I’m leaving him to finish that off while I get back to it. Unfortunately the plaster still isn’t dry enough to sand so no dice today.

Before I finish work Matt needs to drop down to Luchon to get a couple of bits and pieces but he needs to be there before 6. He’s soon back though and seems to have got what he was looking for. Apparently these are the new bits for the kitchen sink. It seems that he’s bought a small unit to go under the sink to provide hot water when you turn the hot water tap on… Blimey! Must have only taken him minutes as next thing I knew he had it in and I hadn’t even had a chance to take pictures. Pressure is a bit rubbish but it’s hot water without waiting for an hour for the boiler. What kind of dark magic is this?!

I took the opportunity to empty the compost bins and rubbish from yesterday’s pasatta escapade and then filled up all the wood stores so we can have a nice warm house – yes ok, kitchen – without having to go back outside. Tonight however we are having chicken pasta with some of the fresh new sauce. It was pretty good!

I appear to have finally killed my orchids that I’ve had for years and bought over with us – it seems that on the top of the fireplace without water while we were in the UK and poor attention since may not have been the best thing for them. Orchids are resilient but not sure they are that good. Dying leaves on the top is not a good sign. I’ve now sat them in water for a few hours and moved them so fingers crossed. Matt was also under the impression that the basin unit was white, it’s not, it’s a very pale grey. I think that he put it together in the dark and it is quite subtle but I’m very happy with it, and particularly that it isn’t plain white.

[Image of orchids]

Usual story – TV, Matt to bed and blog updates. I also caught up on the local news – there wasn’t anything of significant note but Meow and I were taking it pretty easy.

[19 January 2022]

Thursday

Crazy day with back to back meetings, I managed to squeeze in a piece of toast and a packet of crisps. Thank heavens for mute and camera off, I’m still in great fear of the day that I think I turned both of these on and missed one though as it will no doubt end up being a full on Board that knows they went to the toilet with me.

Matt has thankfully been feeding me tea all day, I certainly couldn’t have got through without it. He also made pizza for me as soon as it was finished. Having had some quite interesting interviews (for 5 hours) it would usually be time for a de-beer-if, the virtual version really doesn’t cut it but Peter managed to find his way to the pub and I went upstairs so we could chat through the day. Definitely one of those things that I really miss, it’s really not the same.

It’s been a very long day so time to relax and try to cut off.

[20 January 2022]

Friday

Challenging morning, but for very different reasons. It seems that the French phone was silenced so missed a couple of calls and Matt was grumpy with me. The 11am meeting to quote for the ventilation system arrived at 8mins to 10 (when my weekly meeting with the Prof Sir RL is). I covered what I could but then had to throw Matt into the deep end and leave him to it. Goodwill and Google it seems are key, and rather successful.

[Matt description]

Our 10:30 became 11:30 due to me not answering the phone. This was then accompanied by quite a bit of them getting lost in the village somewhere, it was all quite confusing. We managed to drop a pin though and they finally found their way to us. A really nice couple and lots of chit chat as well as checking out the house. The guy seemed to have a concern about something when he was in the attic and it being too small for the size of the house but I couldn’t hear very well – and my French is a bit rubbish. I was in the hallway chatting with the lady, however was soon over niceties, and had exhausted my repertoire – the only thing I had left was describing my weekend trip to the Royal Pavilion in Brighton which I’m not sure she’d have been interested in. [Incidentally I’ve never actually been inside the Royal Pavilion it despite being close to it regularly during my school year, I do however have a very well rehearsed description of it that was key to getting an A in my GCSE French oral many years ago.] I therefore did the only polite thing possible, I fibbed and said that I was very tired due to working very late on a big project and made my exit to speak to Matt instead. We expect the quote to come back early next week.

Work was much lighter this afternoon but interspersed with more calls in French, the website thing [find my builder fr] seems to be very successful so far. Also had a call from Anah. Managed to get hold of the chap that now has our file but needed to call another number to book the meeting on Wednesday. I tried but after 15mins of no answer I gave up, I’ll call back on Monday.

Some more work and then just time to relax this evening, it’s been a busy week. I’ve been looking online for the flooring that we chose however it seems that the only way to get the one I wanted for the pink bathroom is to collect it and it comes on a 4m roll – not ideal when the room is only just over 2m and 4m is quite difficult to move/collect. I suspect it would be best just to entirely rethink this one. I’m starting to also reconsider tiles for this one as there will be underfloor heating and it’s a pretty small space.

[21 January 2022]

Saturday

The windows guy was meant to be here at 11, I was awake and dressed and Matt had been up for ages – largely due to an annoying small fluffy thing scratching at the door – I remained in bed however as the bed was warm so why go anywhere else?! Good thing too as at 11:20 I got a call from him to say that he was in Bordeaux and wouldn’t be making it today. It was a very odd call as he’d ask me when I wanted to meet and then tell me he wasn’t available on that day. Why he couldn’t just tell me when he could come I don’t know. Matt walks in as I get off the phone so now the question is what to do.

The sun is shining and it’s a very pleasant winter’s day. It seems that it is also a good time to prune apple and pear trees, so we are off to the garden to mess about in the orchard. Unfortunately I could have done a much better job at taking before photos so probably not very easy to see the difference.

I heard a car. Yay! Jonny and Cressida have popped over following their amazing trip to Norway to see the Northern lights. Sounds like quite the spectacle, definitely something I’d love to see one day. Sounds as though the storm that followed and 4 rubbish days however rather put a dampener on things but at least they made it home ok. It was so good to catch up with them and have a little cuddle. It would be good to see more of them.

Back into the orchard to finish off a few branches, finally get the large branches out of the hazel and hedge from when we cut the fir back in spring with the cherry picker, and tidy up the hazel. I’ve cut up some of the larger branches to dry out to use as future kindling. Matt is then off to whip out the chainsaw. We’d started to cut down one of the trees when mum and Tonia were here to provide more sun to the pool and it’s high time to take most of the rest out so it can start drying out (ok yeah, it’s a 2+ year process but everything in rural France takes time). It does feel, to me at least, as though it massively opens up the feel of that space though so I’m happy about it.

Since Matt has done the ‘hard work’ of cutting it down, along with a few other bits that came down with the old birches, it’s my job to get it all stacked up. I tried to explain that the best way to learn was ‘practice makes perfect’, he replies ‘yeah, but we don’t need two experts’. Strong response Mr Camp, well played. Also the fungi on the birch was incredibly beautiful.

With just one of the many outside jobs done we decided to call it a day. We’ll make a bigger push tomorrow. Quick trip to get rid of recycling, Intermarche for some beer, and pick up some more water from the Salle de fetes.

Amazon came while we were talking to Jonny and Cressida. It seems that Matt has bought some sort of automatic cat feeder with 32 settings and the ability to record a message that it plays to your cat when it puts the food out, because who doesn’t need that?! Will be interesting to see if this stops her coming upstairs in the morning and whether it will reduce the burden on Jonny when we go away. She certainly seems interested in it, and after seeing food come out of it was immediately trying to reach up inside to get more out, she’s definitely not stupid.

Fish tacos again for dinner this evening as we have a lot of tortillas to get through, and fish tacos are yummy. Once Matt has had his shower I get him to review some of the blogs while I have mine and then have a quick chat to Dodd. Also there was a really good joke on the TV show I was watching:

“Caesar walks into a bar and asks for a Martinus

Bartender asks ‘do you mean a Martini’

Caesar replies ‘if I’d wanted two I’d have asked for two”

Matt didn’t get it or think it was funny, and apparently neither did Dodd, so much so that he called me to tell me. There’s no accounting for taste, I thought it was pretty hilarious!

Anyway time for a bit of TV together before Matt goes to bed I do the next update on the blog.

[22 January 2022]

Sunday

Matt is up before me and has trimmed back the lower branches of the magnolia, it’s great, it gives so much more space and now I don’t get smacked in the head every time I get in and out of the car which is nice. His next job for the day was a bit more plastering on the ensuite. As usual my job was general tidying, sweeping, cleaning and getting the wood stacked in the kitchen to keep the fire running.

Time for a quick spot of lunch – eggs on toast – before we pop up to Estancarbon to see if we can get that cat lamp that I want. Unfortunately there are no cat lamps, I am very disappointed, I think it’s lovely and I want one but we’ve now tried at least 4 different places. Quick drop into a couple of other places while we are here and get a few odds and ends but nothing special. It was a pretty sunset drive home though.

I can’t seem to inspire Matt to do anything more on the house so I settle in to finish polishing the candle sticks, I find it incredibly therapeutic and very gratifying to see the difference it makes, incidentally it also helps things last much longer so triple win.

Dinner this evening is porc chops, dauphinoise potatoes, peas and homemade apple sauce, yum!

[23 January 2022]