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Warning: kitchen under demolition

March 7, 2021 by Chantal Chaney

Wednesday

They must have been happening for the past few months that we’ve been here and not noticed but definitely heard the monthly warning siren today. I think the guys that operate it had a lie in as they are meant to be at 12noon but they were 11 minutes late. Figured you’d probably like to know what on earth I am talking about so here you go, this is what it sounds like:

Interesting thing is that the siren (or at least the notification of the monthly alarm) is in Luchon. It was definitely louder when facing down the valley towards Luchon but that might be that I was taking it from the salon window.

Next question I am sure you are all asking, is why? Well it seems that it is a national warning system (no prizes for guessing that one), it’s a hangover from the second world war (no surprise there either) but it was essentially about a toxic gas release or imminent social harm. There are also specific measures that you should take if you hear the ‘real’ alarm – which sounds for 1 minute and 41 seconds waving in and out (ok, I’ve no idea on the choice of that timing) – you should: head for a closed area or room without windows or air-conditioning, block up any gaps round doors and air vents and switch on the radio to hear France Inter, France Info or local stations. We currently don’t have a room without windows, even in the basement. However, Matt reminded me that we will be creating a closable, loackable cellar at the end of the basement corridor (aka the future wine cave). This is now also going to be our bunker and must have an emergency waiter’s friend (corkscrew and bottle opener), should probably also have a radio but we’re both more keen on the corkscrew, you know, priorities!

By the way, we will know that the lock-in, sorry ’emergency’, is over once the siren sounds constantly for 30 seconds. Doubt we will hear it though as it might be pretty sound proofed down there, and we might be a bit pished by that point.

Work, work, work; boring, boring, boring. Matt got a brief break though and has been making quite a mess in the kitchen again, so time to call the help in to clear it up. I seem to be the help, and pretty good at this; I hope my mum is proud.

Some pictures of the holes. Matt is pretty worried about the quality of the joists and having to replace them but Pete’s not too worried yet. I foresee a video conference to review this in our future, once the full beams are exposed and Pete can also see them from the basement. Granted, a few bits of the joists do seem to be ‘flaking off’ but let’s just wait and see on that one.

Once we got the 9mm OSB in it turned out that it wasn’t 250mm long as Matt thought but 280, cue repeat to widen it up a bit more. Since it wouldn’t end on a joist we decided to leave it in for now, just a bit more safety to stop us unexpectedly ending up in the basement, and more importantly French A&E.

Looking good now though, so time to clear the scaffolding back into the dining room and pack away the plasterboard lift (don’t ask why that’s been up this long…)

We reckon one board is about 17% of the room. So, not much left to go then. Ah! But, then there’s the stuff that comes out of the hole…

Clearly, we have quite the haul already, and we’re only at the dechetterie yesterday. So taking it out doesn’t take so long, but getting rid of the waste is definitely going to slow us down considerably. Without that, I think we could probably have cleared the whole floor within a dedicated week – and some serious bubble baths to soothe the aches and pains. At least this way I don’t have to clean the bath.. bleugh!!

Time for some more work before dinner and then some TV. Seems that there is another SpaceX launch today though. It all went really well, until… it didn’t. Had Matt captivated.

However, it is now 1am so time for bed. All the best to you all xx

[3 March 2021]

Thursday

Ugh, morning. I hate mornings! Matt made me get out of bed before 8am (I work on GMT to save confusion and missing meetings). He wanted to get up to St Gaudens to collect the extra rubble sacks from Chausson so that we could finish the kitchen sooner. At least he made me tea before we went so I could have it for the journey.

While we were up there we may as well stop in at Noz. Not too bad, notably managed to get [24] full sized cans of Asahi for under €18.

Next, Action. If it hadn’t been so early I might have been a bit more restrained about which ones I needed. Ok, so we all know that is rubbish, of course I would have wanted far more, but at least I would have known what sizes to get. These are very important questions to be considered and my brain wouldn’t be working for probably another hour yet. I therefore got a small selection of sizes, after all I do have a load of compost which needs to go somewhere…

Off to Chausson to get the rubble sacks. 21 more, so we have basically doubled our existing count. On the way back Matt asks me if I charged the French phone (which of course I did, after I realised it had run out – at some point before). However, when we got back I may have noticed that I forgot to log into the damned thing which needs the phone and sim access codes – I hate this bloody phone! Suddenly it turns on and surprise, surprise it starts binging. Someone from Cierp Gaud, probably the window company, and bloody Castorama, god I wish that woman would speak slower.

Well, the whole thing got me a bit pissed off to be honest with you. Why can’t the French just use email, what’s with all this respond to every email with a phone call rubbish?! Work calls first then off to Intermarche and dropping by the windows place on the way. It was them and they have the quote, apparently only for the aluminium though not in wood. Matt isn’t keen, will look fine from the outside but very modern and potentially jarring on the inside. It’s also really not cheap and 4 of the doors have accidentally been undersized…

Ooh, bin find! Not sure what we will use it for or where, and no doubt it will get replaced with something of much higher quality in the fullness of time, but for now it is recycling at in its purest form and we do have a very large house to fill.

Back to work. And then a break for some gardening, I’m too cross and annoyed to work so the only way forwards is to do a bit more on getting my plots ready. It gives me time to think, to work through challenging conversations in French, and get out my frustration. After an hour I’m ready to tackle Castorama (aka B&Q) customer service about our missing kitchen. With a set up of phones, speaker and laptop, I think I’m ready. I’ve been through 2 different numbers and 3 departments but we are finally there. Or somewhere at least.

They don’t have the dishwasher we ordered – that I knew – but we can’t swap it out for the Bosch we wanted. In fact, they basically don’t have anything. They do have one Beko that’s a bit more expensive that they are willing to swap in free of charge (the kitchen was due in Jan so I should bloody well think so). No idea actually which Beko, seems that there are two but it doesn’t really matter. Now that is agreed they should be sending the updated paperwork and new kitchen in the next 15 days. At least I hope that is what they said, not just that we will have the paperwork in 15 days but I’m not entirely sure! Ah, France is fun.

Time for back to back afternoon meetings. Thankfully, the paid work is actually the easiest thing we (or at least I) have to deal with. As we are about to close up Meow comes to visit. She’s still incredibly timid but it seems that she is fiend for old stale Mini-Crepes, and Matt’s belly rubs. She was also transfixed by the TV.