One of the earliest "Grand Designs Abroad" (and one of our favourites) was the story of Doug and Deni who lovingly restored a HUGE five-storey French maison de ville, open to the sky.
We saw the program again the other evening and yet again we were in awe of the task they took on and also admiring of their evident joy, enthusiasm and stamina - working 12-14 hour days over months and months, often just the two of them.
And here we are grumping about our six-week / six hour day DIY task. Ah, but ours feels like a duty and a burden. Just goes to show how miracles can be wrought if there is joy in the task.
I spent yesterday cleaning the filthy living room vinyl tile floor - hands and knees, scrubbing each tile with a nail brush soaked in a grease remover, then rinsing off the swirly filth, then drying. Took me an hour to do the first row of tiles.
Mind you, I did speed up when I stopped trying to clean off the pattern. It's a kind of streaky smudge (meant to be a type of marbled look I think) and I thought it was dried in paint. Only another ten hours of lounge flooring to go.
A mere nothing! Doug and Deni persevered for a month lifting eighty flooring beams in place.
Links:
Doug and Deni's B&B
Grand Designs Abroad
Saturday, 6 April 2013
Monday, 1 April 2013
March Mementos
March departed yesterday "like a lamb" and for the first time this year, in the early evening sun, we had supper on the cottage terrace.
The days have passed in the seemingly endless drudgery of cleaning walls, ceilings, floors, bathroom tiles, light fittings, repairing, filling holes (dozens of holes!) and painting, painting, painting. Too tired in the evening to do anything except eat, watch bad TV and then go to bed.
It was good last night just to stop for a few hours and breathe in the green spring air.
My few memories of March:
Vita, Tod, Bertie sitting on the sofa, intently watching Crufts.
Bertie charging across our neighbour's field tail wagging frantically, nose buried in the thick luscious sward of spring wheat - saying: "no way am I coming in, you haven't been here and now I'm having fun!"
The steady stream of people through the door of the boulangerie (including Easter Sunday and Monday) where I stop on my way in, to buy pain aux raisins for the workers. Each time the door swings a murmured "Bonjour messieurs-dames".
Bertie and Vita sitting waiting at the entrance to our drive - waiting for one of us to come home.
The sound of the Saturday market in full swing below the open window as I paint the wall of the back bedroom.
The front garden of the little old lady who used to own sheep, a riot of colour as I drive past each morning into town: blues and pinks and whites of the dozens of fat hyacinths and brilliant reds and oranges from the hundreds of tulips, all planted through a river of mauve aubretia.
I return in the evening to find one tulip blooming in our cottage garden, the rest still tightly furled green buds just poking above the earth.
We're late this morning - Easter Monday and the clocks have gone forward - time to get back to the painting. Not for much longer, we're nearly there and the result will be worth it.
[And a PS - an early April memento - this morning's bored mischievousness in our absence: a whole pack of rye flour spread over the kitchen floor and Vita's muzzle, mixed with plenty of water from their drinking bowl. It's sticky and hard to get off (dog and floor). We're about to find out whether Vita's diet should or should not include raw flour!]
The days have passed in the seemingly endless drudgery of cleaning walls, ceilings, floors, bathroom tiles, light fittings, repairing, filling holes (dozens of holes!) and painting, painting, painting. Too tired in the evening to do anything except eat, watch bad TV and then go to bed.
It was good last night just to stop for a few hours and breathe in the green spring air.
My few memories of March:
Vita, Tod, Bertie sitting on the sofa, intently watching Crufts.
Bertie charging across our neighbour's field tail wagging frantically, nose buried in the thick luscious sward of spring wheat - saying: "no way am I coming in, you haven't been here and now I'm having fun!"
The steady stream of people through the door of the boulangerie (including Easter Sunday and Monday) where I stop on my way in, to buy pain aux raisins for the workers. Each time the door swings a murmured "Bonjour messieurs-dames".
Bertie and Vita sitting waiting at the entrance to our drive - waiting for one of us to come home.
The sound of the Saturday market in full swing below the open window as I paint the wall of the back bedroom.
The front garden of the little old lady who used to own sheep, a riot of colour as I drive past each morning into town: blues and pinks and whites of the dozens of fat hyacinths and brilliant reds and oranges from the hundreds of tulips, all planted through a river of mauve aubretia.
I return in the evening to find one tulip blooming in our cottage garden, the rest still tightly furled green buds just poking above the earth.
We're late this morning - Easter Monday and the clocks have gone forward - time to get back to the painting. Not for much longer, we're nearly there and the result will be worth it.
[And a PS - an early April memento - this morning's bored mischievousness in our absence: a whole pack of rye flour spread over the kitchen floor and Vita's muzzle, mixed with plenty of water from their drinking bowl. It's sticky and hard to get off (dog and floor). We're about to find out whether Vita's diet should or should not include raw flour!]
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
I feel as if ...
... we are living in the film "The Shipping News", which by the way if you haven't seen I can thoroughly recommend. Kevin Spacey is on top form as a slightly bemused man who, with his young daughter and aunt (superbly played by Judi Dench) goes back to the family home on a remote cliff top in Newfoundland.
The old Newfoundland house is held down by guy ropes to keep it from flying off the cliff in the high winds and at night creaks, groans and sighs, keeping the occupants awake. For the last twenty-four hours that's what it's been like in the cottage. Bertie, Vita and I got little sleep last night as I resorted to a duvet and the sofa in the lounge. The constant thrumming of the aluminium drain pipes and the shrieking of the wind through the shutters kept all three of us on edge - while Tod slept blissfully through it.
Debris is all over the garden and a couple of the dead elms in the small copse behind the cottage, covered in ivy where the small birds nest, are now snapped in two and doubled over - as is a brand new concrete electricity pole up on the ridge behind us.
I found the plastic greenhouse that I bought from Lidls tilting precariously to one side, all the contents in a jumble on the floor. So taking a tip from the film, the greenhouse is now held down by an improvised guy rope stretched across the roof and tied on one side to a wooden pallet and the other to an old plough.
Although the high winds are still with us, I'm hoping that I'm tired enough to be able to sleep through the noise tonight. Tomorrow is the Big Day - Tod is demonstrating making his sourdough rye bread and I want to be wide awake for it. But more of that anon.
Link:
The Shipping News
The old Newfoundland house is held down by guy ropes to keep it from flying off the cliff in the high winds and at night creaks, groans and sighs, keeping the occupants awake. For the last twenty-four hours that's what it's been like in the cottage. Bertie, Vita and I got little sleep last night as I resorted to a duvet and the sofa in the lounge. The constant thrumming of the aluminium drain pipes and the shrieking of the wind through the shutters kept all three of us on edge - while Tod slept blissfully through it.
Debris is all over the garden and a couple of the dead elms in the small copse behind the cottage, covered in ivy where the small birds nest, are now snapped in two and doubled over - as is a brand new concrete electricity pole up on the ridge behind us.
I found the plastic greenhouse that I bought from Lidls tilting precariously to one side, all the contents in a jumble on the floor. So taking a tip from the film, the greenhouse is now held down by an improvised guy rope stretched across the roof and tied on one side to a wooden pallet and the other to an old plough.
Although the high winds are still with us, I'm hoping that I'm tired enough to be able to sleep through the noise tonight. Tomorrow is the Big Day - Tod is demonstrating making his sourdough rye bread and I want to be wide awake for it. But more of that anon.
Link:
The Shipping News
How very French!
I peeled off my pink Marigold gloves and, with aching shoulders and feet, staggered downstairs to Tod saying I'd had more than enough of stripping flocked jungle paper off the back bedroom walls and please could we go home for lunch.
Up a ladder in the lounge, surrounded by strips of bright orange wallpaper, he agreed. So, locking the front door, we set off home in our two cars (extravagant I know, but we'd been running different errands).
As I turned out of the side street I met a queue of traffic crawling through the town centre, every other vehicle a white van. This was unheard of. We never meet heavy traffic in town - particularly not on a Monday when most of the shops are shut.
Then I happened to notice the clock on the dashboard. Three minutes past twelve. Ah! The Frenchman's rush to get home as soon as possible for his two-hour lunch.
And we're doing the same! We've gone native!
Up a ladder in the lounge, surrounded by strips of bright orange wallpaper, he agreed. So, locking the front door, we set off home in our two cars (extravagant I know, but we'd been running different errands).
As I turned out of the side street I met a queue of traffic crawling through the town centre, every other vehicle a white van. This was unheard of. We never meet heavy traffic in town - particularly not on a Monday when most of the shops are shut.
Then I happened to notice the clock on the dashboard. Three minutes past twelve. Ah! The Frenchman's rush to get home as soon as possible for his two-hour lunch.
And we're doing the same! We've gone native!
Sunday, 3 March 2013
The Turn of the Seasons
Paul phoned. To say the cranes had just flown over them and would be with us shortly.
I rushed downstairs, grabbed a coat and the dogs and I tumbled out of the front door. And there, sure enough - the first I have seen this year - a great black V, coming out of the western sky, stretching wide. Too distant still to count individual birds but close enough to see how the group ebbed and flowed, broke and reformed.
They followed the ridge on the other side of the valley and I quickly counted, guessing ten, fifty, hundred, two hundred, three, maybe four hundred of them. Vita barked at their cries, uncertain where their unsettling sound was coming from and not thinking to look above her head.
And then, as I turned to come back indoors out of the cold, I saw another line, this time heading straight towards us, bird after bird after bird, right over the cottage, driving forwards, on, on north and east to their summer haunts.
Tonight I will sleep with the window open and even through my dreams will hear the sound of their cries as they pass in the dark.
I rushed downstairs, grabbed a coat and the dogs and I tumbled out of the front door. And there, sure enough - the first I have seen this year - a great black V, coming out of the western sky, stretching wide. Too distant still to count individual birds but close enough to see how the group ebbed and flowed, broke and reformed.
They followed the ridge on the other side of the valley and I quickly counted, guessing ten, fifty, hundred, two hundred, three, maybe four hundred of them. Vita barked at their cries, uncertain where their unsettling sound was coming from and not thinking to look above her head.
And then, as I turned to come back indoors out of the cold, I saw another line, this time heading straight towards us, bird after bird after bird, right over the cottage, driving forwards, on, on north and east to their summer haunts.
Tonight I will sleep with the window open and even through my dreams will hear the sound of their cries as they pass in the dark.
Thursday, 21 February 2013
A small, green tree frog ...
... clutches at the stem of a plant whose name I can never remember, watching me balefully.
I'm strimming between the shrubs that are growing on the bank which was covered in tired mounds of mallow when we first moved here and he's not impressed that I'm clearing his territory.
My approach to the garden is Jekyll and Hyde - part of me wants to leave everything weedy and overgrown (as the bank has been for the last umpteen months) so that all the birds and insects (and tree frogs) thrive but another part wants it all neat and tidy - clipped box hedges and not a weed in sight. The latter me is winning at the moment, spurred on by having watched three episodes of Monty Don's "French Gardens" on the BBC. How do the French keep those vast parterres so impossibly neat?
Bertie is doing his best to create the "natural look" further along the bank - bottom skywards as he frantically tears a hole between lumps of sandstone and old roots.
The bank needs more shrubs. Those that I planted (what? three, four years ago?) some have thrived, others are struggling and judging from the gaps as I strim back the dead thistles and tall grasses, not a few have died. A trip to the tiny, elderly lady who runs a nursery behind the prison in Villeneuve is called for - her prices are half those elsewhere.
The weather is idyllic for planting - weeks of rain, so the ground has been saturated, followed by mild sunny days. And everything is springing into life - hence the need to strim. I'm itching to get on with pruning all the roses as they are already smothered in tiny red leaves but winter hasn't completely released its grip, we're promised sharp frosts for the next few nights, so I'll wait a few more days.
It's time for the cranes to start flying north.
The plant whose name I can never remember silhouetted against the evening sky
Link:
Monty Don's French Gardens
I'm strimming between the shrubs that are growing on the bank which was covered in tired mounds of mallow when we first moved here and he's not impressed that I'm clearing his territory.
My approach to the garden is Jekyll and Hyde - part of me wants to leave everything weedy and overgrown (as the bank has been for the last umpteen months) so that all the birds and insects (and tree frogs) thrive but another part wants it all neat and tidy - clipped box hedges and not a weed in sight. The latter me is winning at the moment, spurred on by having watched three episodes of Monty Don's "French Gardens" on the BBC. How do the French keep those vast parterres so impossibly neat?
Bertie is doing his best to create the "natural look" further along the bank - bottom skywards as he frantically tears a hole between lumps of sandstone and old roots.
The bank needs more shrubs. Those that I planted (what? three, four years ago?) some have thrived, others are struggling and judging from the gaps as I strim back the dead thistles and tall grasses, not a few have died. A trip to the tiny, elderly lady who runs a nursery behind the prison in Villeneuve is called for - her prices are half those elsewhere.
The weather is idyllic for planting - weeks of rain, so the ground has been saturated, followed by mild sunny days. And everything is springing into life - hence the need to strim. I'm itching to get on with pruning all the roses as they are already smothered in tiny red leaves but winter hasn't completely released its grip, we're promised sharp frosts for the next few nights, so I'll wait a few more days.
It's time for the cranes to start flying north.
The plant whose name I can never remember silhouetted against the evening sky
Link:
Monty Don's French Gardens
Friday, 8 February 2013
The Rhythm of Life
There was a meeting this week on how to restore old furniture to get that French "shabby chic" effect.
I was really looking forward to it. We've got one or two bits of tatty old dark furniture that I have been eyeing but not doing anything with. So this was an ideal opportunity to learn how to restore them.
I knew when the meeting was - first Wednesday afternoon in the month - because there is nearly always a meeting then - except through the summer when everyone has visitors and not in January when people are still recovering from Christmas. It's a bit like the W.I. and there are always interesting talks (not at all like Calendar Girls) and a chance for a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a gossip.
And then I forgot.
Not that I was doing anything more important. I'd decided that the fig tree alongside the cottage needed attacking so that any new growth (typically five or six feet a year) would be a sensible height for reaching the figs.
I suddenly realised I'd forgotten as I came back inside at dusk. And I felt quite disorientated and disappointed. Tod goes off to French lessons Wednesday morning and I'd watched him go - so at some point in the day part of me had realised it was Wednesday. And I knew it was no longer January. But somehow, this week had not transmuted into being the first week in February.
The same thing happened to Tod a few weeks back when he was really looking forward to going with friends to the excellent self-service Chinese restaurant in Villeneuve. I mocked when the day came and went without his noticing and now I've done the same.
It may be evidence of early senility. But it's also a change in the rhythm of our lives. So different from the hour by hour measuring out of all those years at work. Here, the days gently ebb and flow. We notice the change in the seasons (the lengthening of the days, the milder weather) more than the days of the week. And although there are routines - Monday morning rubbish day, French for me on Tuesday afternoon and Tod Wednesday morning, Friday my photography, his bridge - the weeks all too easily slip by without having dates to them.
It is not enough to put our appointments on the Airedale calendar that hangs on the wine rack in the kitchen. Because as like as not it still shows January. And here we are eight days into February.
There is an extra frisson to this increasing detachment from the day to day. Next month, at the same first Wednesday get-together, Tod is giving a demonstration on making sour dough bread. At least one of us had better remember on the day!
some of Tod's bread
I was really looking forward to it. We've got one or two bits of tatty old dark furniture that I have been eyeing but not doing anything with. So this was an ideal opportunity to learn how to restore them.
I knew when the meeting was - first Wednesday afternoon in the month - because there is nearly always a meeting then - except through the summer when everyone has visitors and not in January when people are still recovering from Christmas. It's a bit like the W.I. and there are always interesting talks (not at all like Calendar Girls) and a chance for a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a gossip.
And then I forgot.
Not that I was doing anything more important. I'd decided that the fig tree alongside the cottage needed attacking so that any new growth (typically five or six feet a year) would be a sensible height for reaching the figs.
I suddenly realised I'd forgotten as I came back inside at dusk. And I felt quite disorientated and disappointed. Tod goes off to French lessons Wednesday morning and I'd watched him go - so at some point in the day part of me had realised it was Wednesday. And I knew it was no longer January. But somehow, this week had not transmuted into being the first week in February.
The same thing happened to Tod a few weeks back when he was really looking forward to going with friends to the excellent self-service Chinese restaurant in Villeneuve. I mocked when the day came and went without his noticing and now I've done the same.
It may be evidence of early senility. But it's also a change in the rhythm of our lives. So different from the hour by hour measuring out of all those years at work. Here, the days gently ebb and flow. We notice the change in the seasons (the lengthening of the days, the milder weather) more than the days of the week. And although there are routines - Monday morning rubbish day, French for me on Tuesday afternoon and Tod Wednesday morning, Friday my photography, his bridge - the weeks all too easily slip by without having dates to them.
It is not enough to put our appointments on the Airedale calendar that hangs on the wine rack in the kitchen. Because as like as not it still shows January. And here we are eight days into February.
There is an extra frisson to this increasing detachment from the day to day. Next month, at the same first Wednesday get-together, Tod is giving a demonstration on making sour dough bread. At least one of us had better remember on the day!
some of Tod's bread
Thursday, 31 January 2013
By nature, I'm a saver, not a spender ...
... unless I'm in a garden centre of course.
So the Scrooge in me was quite happy to go to Agen today and wander round clothes shops and come back without spending a penny.
But I have this problem. In fourteen days we are going to a Valentine's ball, and I've nothing to wear! Well that's not strictly true. I've got this satiny deep orange evening jacket that I bought aeons ago and I have this image of a long, under-stated, but slinky black evening dress to wear underneath the jacket. (You note that I have this misguided mental image of looking like Helen Mirren on the catwalk.) Many years ago, I had such a dress, but I made the mistake of washing it and it fell apart, or shrank, or something (well I did only pay about two and sixpence for it in House of Fraser).
This being France and the home of the LBD (the little black dress) I thought I'd have no problem in finding something tasteful. Unfortunately this year the LBD is not much larger than a curtain pelmet. If I put the jacket on, you won't see the dress.
And I'm somewhat disconcerted to discover that my modest "on a good day, holding my breath and pulling my stomach in" size fourteen, is designated LARGE in France. And that my "feeling relaxed after a good lunch want to wear something comfy" size sixteen is designated EXTRA LARGE. And most dress rails only have two things in size sixteen right at the back - both of which are a strange purple colour and look like a dressing gown - and nothing larger.
I now understand why it is that our robust, start at size eighteen local farmers' wives when dressing up for summer parties choose to do no more than put on a clean pair of dungarees.
So I turn to the internet. And yes there are long slinky black dresses to be had. And a few even are to be had in LARGE and EXTRA LARGE. But which size to choose? Go for the tight across the hips, can't eat too much and may not be able to sit down look? Or the baggy, there must be a set of boobs in there somewhere look?
And interestingly, black doesn't photograph too well, so I can't really see whether the neckline plunges to the waist or stops demurely under the chin. Maybe I'll do what I did all those years ago in the House of Fraser - go for the cheapest. Just remember this time not to wash it.
So the Scrooge in me was quite happy to go to Agen today and wander round clothes shops and come back without spending a penny.
But I have this problem. In fourteen days we are going to a Valentine's ball, and I've nothing to wear! Well that's not strictly true. I've got this satiny deep orange evening jacket that I bought aeons ago and I have this image of a long, under-stated, but slinky black evening dress to wear underneath the jacket. (You note that I have this misguided mental image of looking like Helen Mirren on the catwalk.) Many years ago, I had such a dress, but I made the mistake of washing it and it fell apart, or shrank, or something (well I did only pay about two and sixpence for it in House of Fraser).
This being France and the home of the LBD (the little black dress) I thought I'd have no problem in finding something tasteful. Unfortunately this year the LBD is not much larger than a curtain pelmet. If I put the jacket on, you won't see the dress.
And I'm somewhat disconcerted to discover that my modest "on a good day, holding my breath and pulling my stomach in" size fourteen, is designated LARGE in France. And that my "feeling relaxed after a good lunch want to wear something comfy" size sixteen is designated EXTRA LARGE. And most dress rails only have two things in size sixteen right at the back - both of which are a strange purple colour and look like a dressing gown - and nothing larger.
I now understand why it is that our robust, start at size eighteen local farmers' wives when dressing up for summer parties choose to do no more than put on a clean pair of dungarees.
So I turn to the internet. And yes there are long slinky black dresses to be had. And a few even are to be had in LARGE and EXTRA LARGE. But which size to choose? Go for the tight across the hips, can't eat too much and may not be able to sit down look? Or the baggy, there must be a set of boobs in there somewhere look?
And interestingly, black doesn't photograph too well, so I can't really see whether the neckline plunges to the waist or stops demurely under the chin. Maybe I'll do what I did all those years ago in the House of Fraser - go for the cheapest. Just remember this time not to wash it.
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