Sunday, September 29, 2013

Time to Leave

It's always sad to pack up and leave somewhere you love.  But this is a particularly annoying pack-up as we need to move as much as we can from the ground floor to the first floor - that includes carpets, pictures and cushions.  I must have mentioned before that the ground floors of these old stone houses in France have a damp problem.  That is probably one of the understatements of 2013 actually, as our Ozzie neighbour sometimes has puddles forming on the flagstones when it's partcularly wet outside!  One of the problems with the houses is they have no foundations to speak of and certainly no damp-proof course!  The original floors in our particular house have been removed or tiled over but still without a damp course so salt peter oozes through the exquisite French tiles making white patterns all over the ground floor!  We also have a granite staircase leading to the first floor and the first 4 or 5 steps of this become dark and slimy-looking in wet weather but as soon as the rain stops and the weather dries they go back to their nice pale grey colour.
With only 4 days left to go I got a sudden bee in my bonnet to try to get more sunshine into the field across the road.  There is an ancient stone wall all around which was hidden by thickets of hazel and beech.  When we arrived I loved this and thought it gave us "privacy" - but you don't need privacy here, so yesterday I began clearing them.  After three hours and on the verge of stopping for the night, OAP came out to give a hand and between us we cleared the whole of one side of the field.  It looks so different and hopefully the morning sun will now pour in and dry the grass and encourage the summer flowers I planted this year to grace us with as pretty a picture as was on the VERY EXPENSIVE box!   Our compost heap is now 6 feet high and is nothing a little petrol and a match won't fix!  But seeing as we are on the edge of a forest it will have to be a wet day that the deed gets done - our neighbour has promised to do it in November, the time fires are apparently allowed here.
So it's off back to Switzerland on Wednesday morning and from there a flight home to the family and our house in the bush and another titanium knee for OAP.  After all the heavy work we've done here there can't be much of the old one left!

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Roof maintenance in the Limousin.

And having filled the barn with firewood we needed to make sure it was watertight.  This is Arjan, a Dutch builder living in a village nearby-ish who had this nifty set of ladders:  on two of them a scaffolding platform fits so that he can stand and take the tiles off.  He cleaned off the moss (which grows on everything here) which looks charming but is the cause of most roof problems as it spreads between and under the tiles and then in winter freezes and expands and finally shifts the tiles out of place.  Then he replaced some battens which were rotten and finally replaced the tiles.  This is just a temporary repair as the whole roof needs to be taken off next year and timbers repaired, replaced or just treated for woodworm.  As they build mostly with oak woodworm isn't regarded as a huge problem as the worm seldom gets deeper than an inch into the huge oak beams.  But one needs to keep a close eye on it and we all have tins of deadly poisonous stuff that we are supposed to paint on any dubious looking wood! 

Oh I'm a Lumberjack and it's OK!

Our wood for next winter was delivered!!!  Now OAP just had to move it into the barn and stack it neatly!  It took 2 men 2 days but they did it (both OAPs) and amazingly OAP's back was better AFTER than before!!  This pile is 10 cordes - 6 ours and 4 Peter's (which he is storing inside with ours as he has no barn).  It is now neatly stacked against the back wall in a triple row and looks great.  We keep going in to admire it!

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Lost in a Cloud!

We woke up this morning to discover that we are lost in cloud - this prompted a lusty singing of "Lost in a cloud, can't look back, la la la la la la la, babeeee"  and then an argument about whether that song, which I am sure was sung by Elvis, was lost in a cloud or lost in a crowd.  Anyone know?  I tried to Google it with no luck.   This weekend is the medieval reinactment of the capture and imprisonment of the muslim Prince Zizim by the Knights Templar.  He was brought back to Bourganeuf and imprisoned in the tower in the centre of town where he apparently lived a luxurious life and eventually became a celebrated member of Frenc society!  They named the tower after him and the main street that runs through town.  But yesterday it rained all day and this morning is a thick mist so I think we'll give the celebrations a miss.  Our neighbours also decided to give it a miss and went elsewhere for their shopping where they found fresh mussels being brought into the poissonerie by the ton.  They bought a huge sackful and came home and invited us to a moules and frites evening.  This was great except for the fact that I am (or was years ago and am reluctant to see if I still am) allergic to them.  No problem, Carol whipped up two lamb fillets for me and I loved the frites and the company!  The others had a HUGE platter full of mussels which they despatched with no trouble at all.  Lots of wine was drunk - actually OAP and I had begun with a glass of wine at 12 noon while I was Skyping Middle Dearie in Oz.  She was ensconced in her camper van somewhere in the wilds of the Australian East Coast in freezing weather and having a glass of vino before going to bed so we thought it appropriate to join her!  I've found a wine I can drink at least two glasses of - Pamplemousse rose (hmm cant get the accent on the e) which is a speciality of the area.  No-one else likes it much as it's slightly sweet and they tend to serve it locally as an aperitif - rose with added grapefruit liqueur - but mine is ready made, cheapish and bought from Aldi!  You know, if I lived here all the time I may just become an alcoholic in my own pathetic way!!