Friday

Builders are back again today, well a builder is, just the one. Matt and I need to head up to Noroauto to go get the beast looked at. It’s another roll of the dice to see if another diagnostics and cleaning will get it through the CT (MOT), or even better, fix her.

Had another project to get in today so some of my jobs were rather more delayed than I’d hoped. However the terrible weather cleared for a bit so Matt cleaned out the car while I investigated the corrugated iron situation – we had a few pieces that were stashed in some bushes, and considerably heavier than I had initially anticipated. I pulled out all the ones that were there though and dragged them over towards the new ‘wood shed’ ready for Matt to measure up and see if we had enough.

With that job done, and emails sent, I managed to find a bit of time to finally mulch up a few of the plants have, so far (possibly) survived the weather. With -8 coming soon and months of ridiculously warm weather I really should have done this a long time ago, but while I’d like to think of myself as a keen gardener it doesn’t mean that I am a good one. Still, something is better than nothing and we’ll see how they go.

Matt made beef wellington for dinner, I was just on veg – yummy!

[13 January 2023]

Saturday

It was a bit of a late start we’d been up later than planned testing wedding wine. We were still up around noon though and had a message from Cress that they were dropping by with friends. Since they were new people we’d promised a quick tour (as standard) so I was off opening all the shutters when they arrived.

Unfortunately we’ve now missed the before lunch visit to the Brico so we’re going to have to spend some more time planning what we need and progressing with what we have. That means that Matt is up in the Room 2 ensuite working on the plumbing while I’m in the basement doing the insulation of the workshop (under the seating area of the kitchen).

The other thing we need to do is get the Beast booked in at Noroauto to get the Turbo changed, as apparently that’s what wrong with her. So we call them up, are exchanged through about 3-4 people before being told that we had to go into the shop to pay a deposit – apparently he’d told us this yesterday when we there but not something I remembered, although I’m not overly familiar with the term.

Time to go to Luchon to get more insulation for the cave. We love a bit of insulation and we’d tried to book online to no avail. Matt wanted to take the beast and trailer; but since she’s sick, we have no idea how much they have (probably a max 3 rolls – which we can fit in the Tesla anyway) and not wanting to make things worse for the beast so we went straight down.

Time for a quick run by the Garden Shop – they don’t have the seeds I want – then to Lidl, not much to speak of there either, but got a couple of things to test.

Back at home and very sadly I’ve now missed the gardening opportunity, so once the car is unloaded I’m off to the basement to finish the roll that I’d started earlier while Matt is up to work on the plumbing.

[14 January 2023]

Sunday

Breakfast and then making more channels in walls. I’m starting to wonder how much wall we’ll have left. Toulouse brick isn’t made of much so all this is bound to be making it worse. The walls are already paper thin too. We may end up having to change our minds and adding another layer.

[15 January 2023]

Monday

It’s a pretty miserable day and since the new wood store extension doesn’t have a roof yet it needs to be covered to prevent rotting. We also need to bring a load in as the wood that we got for this year we got very late so the moisture content is far too high.

Finally after work it was back to trying to get the bathroom finished.

[16 January 2023]

Tuesday

More work and more grey weather – to be expected for this time of year I guess. It was clear enough however to get back out into the pottager to get the mulch down before it gets really cold. Also, rainbows!

[17 January 2023]

Wednesday

Exciting day today as we are off up to Toulouse to get the new tow bar fitted to the Tesla! Ok, maybe it’s not that exciting but it will be good to be able to move more stuff around without having to take the beast, particularly if we need to take it any distance. It was exciting enough however for Rane to come and join us.

We had a look around 4Murs and got a load more wallpaper samples and had a quick look around Leroy Merlin at bathrooms and then it was time to head home. In addition to the stuff we saw in Toulouse I’ve scoured the internet and looked at over 2,000 wallpapers, 3,000 mural type designs, ceiling mouldings, cornicing and various other things.

Sausage and Mash for dinner – yummy comfort food!

Time to update the blog and go to bed.

[18 January 2023]

Thursday

Early start to the day today as we are due to go up to St Gaudens for an appointment and we need to leave early as it’s been snowing. Thankfully it didn’t take long and we were back home ready to have a walk around the grounds, everything always looks so lovely in the snow!

Time to crack on with some work and then water the plants before we go up to Room 2.

Once again I’ve held up the wallpaper in different lights and places and I’m happy that this is what we want in Room 2. We do however need to confirm if we are having some panelling – we are – now to decided what height it is going to go, the spacing, the skirting boards, what we’re going to align it to… and many many options and decisions. We need to work out how we are going to divide up the wall for the wallpaper and paneling. Yes 1/3 and 2/3 are the standard but there’s a number of other aspects to consider, such as the natural lines already in the room – the fireplace, the windows/doors. So while broadly sticking to that rule we have marked it out so that the visuals should work in our space.

While Matt works out the width of the panels I’m cleaning up the tiles that we’ve laid in the bathroom. They are such a mess that it took quite a while but I think we’re there. Next job will be mounting the shower door and it’ll be ready to use.

Last job of the night is to start making yet more to do lists and sort through my seed box to see what I have for the spring. I feel like it’s never going to end but there’s just so much to do with the wedding, the house and the garden.

[19 January 2023]

Friday

Matt was up for work but since my new job doesn’t start till Monday so I took the opportunity to lie in. Since we’re currently squatting in the office he keeps waking me to tell me when he’s starting a conference call so I don’t get up at an inopportune moment, which isn’t overly conducive to my lie in.

Time to get up then and I have a big list of jobs. As I went to make my morning tea however I saw the mess of seeds and that there were a few things left to finish on the ‘Spring Watch list’ so that I know everything I have and what I don’t so the team and I can be ready.

Yet another list finished and I’m off to the Room 2 ensuite. More polishing of the tiles, first the dry go and then the wet scrubbing with a nail brush. It’s not a big space but it takes time constantly changing water and clothes so that you’re not just spreading the grout around but actually taking it off.

I’ve done all the lower layer that I can reach but with all the work on the house we’ve been completely forgetting about the wedding. Time to ditch the housework and head to the Marie. Of course I first had to spend an hour or so working out all the things I needed, putting them into french, writing them in my notebook and interrupting Matt’s conference call to check I had everything but I’m on my way. Ok, it was the second time, I almost got there and realised that I’d forgotten my tape measure which was a key aspect of the visit – to measure the tables.

It’s really cold so I decided to drive up the second time. Things were not as planned, the usual group of ladies weren’t there, but fortunately Andre was – he’s the Mayor. So armed with my book of questions I was taken into his office with his new guy and we worked through a whole host of possibilities and options. The major result however was getting the date actually written in the diary in front of my own eyes. We’d been assured previously that it was all fine but it was not in the diary, in fact he thought our wedding was Rane’s daughter’s in September – clearly the note on the booking diary said “English people marriage” so I had to explain that they were the family that had bought the Boucherie and it wasn’t us.

An hour later and after a discussion on the formality of signing, where it might happen, the salle de fetes, the table and chairs, make-up artists, bands and more I was finally on my way home feeling pretty exhausted.

I didn’t get as much done today as I’d planned on the house but an hour with Andre and his new recruit seems like a good use of my day. A shame that Matt wasn’t there but at least I could take the pressure off a bit in some way and Andre’s going to be coming round soon so they can catch up then.

Time for dinner, relaxation and bed.

[20 January 2023]

Saturday

Yay, it’s the weekend. The weather has been super cold overnight and doesn’t appear to be getting much warmer. There’s a good inch of frozen water on top of one of the buckets outside. Matt had noticed that my garden mulching appeared to be working as insulation and that there were gaps around the main feed between the pool house and the pool so asked me to mulch that too. Your wish is my command. I also took the opportunity to do another layer of mulch on the jasmines on each of the arches, it would be really bad to lose them and it’s going to be consistently -5 overnight by the looks of the forecasts. I also rewrapped the wood, yet again, it will be a relief once the roof is finally on this new wood store.

Meanwhile Matt has been working on the taping and joining of the pink bathroom so I’m now off to finish up in the Room 2 ensuite. Time to try to get rid of the last of the marks of grout from around the shower and other marks on the walls. It needed a couple of gos and half one of the walls being repainted but between I helped Matt with some of the taping in the pink bathroom. Eventually I was done so I went to try to work on the broken window in the salon. It’s been like that since we bought the place. I completely failed however as while I’ve measured it up for a cover I can’t actually get anywhere near close enough without the scaffolding or a really big ladder.

Time for me to have a shower and get ready to go over to JC’s for dinner. Rane is getting a lift with us but of course she arrived a few minutes early so I wasn’t ready and was sewing a button onto my trousers and Matt was only just out of the shower. Finally we were on the way to JC’s. Cress has been cooking up a huge piece of pork for hours and it’s looking incredible. It tasted even better, and the crackling – wow, yummy!! I could eat a bucket of it, but I settled for seconds to be a bit more polite. I offered to take the remainders off her hands but unsurprisingly she was ok to look after them herself.

Puppy cuddling time..!

Eventually it was time to leave them in peace and drop Rane back to the Boucherie. Before we can go to bed however we need to find all our ski stuff that we’ve not used for a year and see what bits and pieces we have that we might be able to lend to Dot & Oscar tomorrow.

[21 January 2023]

Sunday

After an incredibly late start to the season, not only has winter finally arrived but so has the ski season. Following a few days of good snow and the promise of sunshine today we’re off to try out Peyragauds. Rane’s been kind enough to run back to St Beat to pick up her skis, poles and ski outfit for Dot to borrow, and Cress has bought Dot and Oscar over to ours. How I wish I had a picture of Dot in the borrowed family ski trousers tied up at her waist. It so reminiscent of all those hand me downs that didn’t remotely fit, the hassle that went with it, and she looked hilarious!

Time to head off. The drive was pretty good in the main and should have been much quicker than it turned out to be. It would seem that for some reason somebody had stopped at the edge of one of the villages on the route up and blocked the road to put their snow chains on. This led to everyone assuming that there was a gendarme check point for chains (which are technically required by law here when it snows) and started to block up the road putting on their chains. I walked up and there was nothing, apart from an empty car park which was designed for people to do just this. By the time I got back though Matt had put the socks on the car. This was just before the gendarme really did arrive, but only to direct traffic as the stationary cars blocked one side of the road and those trying to get around them had blocked the other from the oncoming traffic. It was a complete sh*t show. but eventually we got up.

Up top the car parks were all super busy so while Matt found a space I took Dot and Oscar to rent some gear (turned out to be €10 for boots + €25 for the full boots, skis and poles; I’m not sure if they got that right as the €25 package seems very good value). A bit of a queue for the first lift up, as you’d expect, but it moved pretty quickly and we were pleased to be on our way.

It was pretty busy, more so than we would usual but it was the first big weekend with fresh snow so to be expected. After a few runs it was time for lunch. It took an incredibly long time for them to take our order, to the point that I went to go and speak to them to get them over, but then the food came quickly and was really good so they were almost forgiven.

Time to get back on the slopes and after another warm up blue we decided to start tackling the reds. There was a really lovely run that was mostly deserted and made for a great little track, the chair lift was a 3 seater so we had to go in groups of 2 but that was no big issue, and it was largely out of the wind so ‘quite warm’ – in comparison to some.

A few more runs and time to test out another of the mountain restaurants. This one was more like a canteen style thing but meant that service was much quicker and there was lots of nice cozy space inside. My legs had started to go on the last run and apparently the young’uns weren’t faring any better so we decided we’d head back up and take the long blue back to Agudes. I have to admit that my legs were starting to get a bit wobbly on that run and I was hugely grateful to come over the rise and see the bottom, I’m not sure I could have gone much further.

With skis and boots dropped off we’re on our way to JC’s to drop the young’uns back, have a quick catch up – obviously it’s been a while – and then to head home. Leftover chilli for dinner and time to relax. Very much needed. We also had a chat with Mumma Camp which was nice.

Matt’s off up to bed so a quick update for you before I head up too.

[22 January 2023]