Friday, June 28, 2013

Well here we are in the middle of a European summer in the rain!  I think we've had ab
out 5 days of sunshine since we have been here.  I don't mind but OAP gets a bit depressed and I daren't tell him that a friend has informed me that these crummy non-summers are forecast for the next 10 years!!  Poor OAP - we saw the house for the first time in sunshine, came back to show sis in sunshine and returned in September 2012 to sign the final papers in the sunshine, so he thought it was sunny at least SOME of the time!  Now, forgive me if I am wrong, but isn't it pretty obvious that if a place is as green and fertile as Ireland then chances are that it rains sometimes - MOST of the time?!!!!  I actually like the rain as I can have a wood fire and cook on it - see picture above!  I brought my Le Creuset pot with us and it is fantastic for cooking on top of the wood burner. 

When we arrived the house was damp, smelled funny and had mould growing on the furniture in the lounge where one of the walls has a damp patch bubbling through!  It was SO cold that we turned the central heating on as well as using the woodburners and within a week the house was dry and we turned off the CH as neither of us could bear the constant heat in all the rooms! 

Once we bought a TV we set up the Sky box and now pick up 80 english channels so have been able to watch Countryfile and Springwatch which informed us that this Spring/Summer is very unusual for Europe - hello?   Then we bought a bed, duvet and pillows for any guests.   Then it was a few bits of furniture and a weed whacker to tackle the invasion of nettles and cow parsley growing in the field across the road which I think is supposed to be an orchard.  OAP got stuck into the little forest at the back where he discovered an ancient rubbish pit full of broken glass and old tin cans.  He bagged them and hauled them off to the dump and we are now looking for someone to cut down a couple of trees that are not indigenous and make the forest dark so nothing grows there (except trees of course!).

Our final triumph is getting connected to the internet - the Tourist Bureau is going to miss our company as we normally parked outside their office in Bourganeuf and connected to their WiFi!

We have our first guests and they LOVE the house too - although she did give a pile of tumble drier sheets which are perfumed.  She said she takes them whenever they travel to put among their clothes and especially in musty drawers and cupboards - do you think she was trying to tell me something?!!  Anyway I accepted her idea with gusto as I have little bowls of vanilla essence everywhere trying to mask the musty smell in all the rooms!  That's not to mention the occasional whiff of the ancient septic tank which needs emptying!  No, I lie, not emptying but replacing, but at 10000 euros that will have to wait till another year.