RAIN

My daughter phoned to see how we were as there was a UK news report of flooding in the Var in the South of France and she could see that the meteo was showing a large swathe of blue across our region of France. She knows we don't have television and so alerts us as and when necessary.

I have not been measuring the rain fall over the last 2 weeks other than reaising that empty buckets in the garden are filling rather dramaticallly. It's not the weather for camping!

am glad that we ate not at river level anymore. Our previous house was in flood plain. We're lucky, so far,and even though. I feel for the terrible experiences that flood victims endure. Lives have been lost due to the force of water and mud. This is a BBC link to the video.

It looks awful.

Who is a normal human being?

I wonder if there are any persons in normality?

If so, what constitutes normality?

OR better still, how does one identify anormality?

Normality will be resumed shortly

I am just too exhausted with trying to blog at the same time as renovating property. I'm not feeling relaxed, there are too many tensions and decisions to make, there is shopping to complete and it's all go, go, go whilst I have help and assistance and attempt to face the problems that choosing a house be it the right one or the wrong one throws at normal life. The decision was made and I have to face the consequences of my actions which were taken for the very right reasons.

Life seems to throw me several lessons all at once just for good measure! I appear to be a slow learner and do not learn from experience so sometimes have to have several lessons before I begin to take heed. Repetition though is part of the learning process as I used to tell those I taught. Awareness and observation, courage and confidence all help!

Please forgive the lack of postings on the airwaves until I feel that I can produce something of value to those who read this public blog of my personal life.

Nature's Poetry Standing under the old oak tree

The following is intended to be read slowly.

Captain S saw a fox two evenings ago,

on the triangle of La Balade des Plaisirs.

At dusk, as the bedroom window closes, a hare,

a grey shadow in the twilight, looked up briefly

before he sped from the gateway to the vines beyond the hay-cut field.

A special moment.

Yesterday evening, the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

delighted us whilst landing high on the telegraph pole.

Snails venture out to the rain filled puddles

and probably to the surviving lettuces!

Standing under the old oak tree,

still, silent, listening, absorbing, being, living.

To the right, an open field

where goat manure is piled high each year before muck spreading.

To the left, a stone wall

marks the boundary of the field we lovingly call the Triangle.

Be part of a world that time has not changed.

Yet, anew the kennel dogs create an awful din.

My complaint mounts in my head.

However, I have not yet done any more than two or three years ago

when their newly presence sounded unacceptable.

Sounds of dogs barking, yelping,

screaming all day and night is still unacceptable.

Two new lambs have been born to the fold of fifteen.

So young, they make merry with their elders.

Bleating behind hedgerows is a comforting sound.

The cuckoo cucks and coos and cuck coo coos

as it begins to change its tune for June.

Pigeons are no match for their cooing.

Walk a little further and black rooks caw their cacophony

to match the incessant song of the grasshoppers and crickets.

Stand still and silent.

Listen,  to the sounds of tranquillity, but not of silence.

Be alone, but not alone.

Be comforted, but not take comfort.

Nature provides poetry,

yet is not so gentle or so kind

when the weather changes

its temerity.

Seb'ovis looks great and tastes delicilious

My son decided he'd like to make bread, being a schoolboy when he last made it but remembering almost exactly how it is made. The chemistry part interests him as much as the kneading, knocking back, smell and taste! Being a good teacher I taught him my skills so well that his bread turned out better than mine! Urgh! I encouraged him to add oats and linseed as well as the Pain de Campagne. On a second attempt he made a delicious funky olive and onion bread ... the same recipe I made last year. He is a star pupil!

I cultivate wild yeast. I put a small piece of dough in a jar with left over beer or milk or water and a wee amount of sugar. These men always leave a little beer in the bottle.... but frugality means I add it to the almost daily dough. I put a doyley on the top of the yeastmaking jar to let any wild yeasts enter and use this rising agent to add to the flour, salt, oil and additional ingredients such as oats, linseed or onions, potatoes, sundried tomatoes, poppy or sesame seeds, etcetera. Before I cook the dough I break off a small amount and put it into the jar with some new liquid and a little sugar.

I'd like to afford biologique (organic) wheat-free flours but our stomachs seem happy providing that we eat wheat flour substituted or mixed with epautre, seigle or other cereal flours.

We enjoy good wholesome bread...and avoid the French baguette unless it is one of the smaller specialist breads containing céréales or figs or walnuts. Recently we had a loaf made with Egyptian wheat. Delicious. It's such a lucky life in France when we have the opportunity to enjoy bread from different boulangeres but better still home baked bread is satisfyingly comfort and luxury...and we are all the better avoiding the bloated stomach from commercially produced wheat and chemicals that are in some breads. If the bread from the boulangere is not good enough we don't go there again!

Week 3 is progressing quickly

As Monday was a National Feast day we had a morning visit to a Brocante - Vide Grenier where a pretty 1930s mirror frame was discovered. It's just another small job to cut an oval mirror. Also acquired was an anglepoise lamp and a prize purchase of two very weighty brass, nickel and wood 'block and tackle' for the steel vessel.

The week promised to be more constructive as the bathroom and bedroom began to take shape with walls, ceilings, electrics and plumbing being considered whilst the sun smiling strongly in the courtyard garden forewarned us of rising temperatures heralding thunderstorms and warm, welcoming rain! The working Monday ended with a frolic in the River Anglin to cool down.

Then home to Captain Sensible's version of Salade Nicoise, an important task of baking bread, a myriad of low level domestic duties, piano practice, search for materials, and a 'catch-up' on writing! Did I say I was tired? NO!!!!!!! The weather then deteriorated with necessary rain accompanied by thunderstorms and wind.

We met an absent neighbour who appeared today in their barn next door. We discussed the problem associated with the higher level of ground on their side of our wall which is above our internal floor level. I like French people because mostly they are always very amicable... donc, voila! ... we have permission to dig a trench to replace the soil with gravel to help the walls breathe, mais bien sûr we will leave it neat and tidy and evacuate the rubble! Later in the week, this proved to be difficult.... one foot below the soil level is cement and sometimes higher so no wonder the wall by the chimney breast was very damp! Drills are insufficient --- we have to hire a specialist tool to dig away the cement.

The top layer of stringy brown wallpaper revealed the paper firmly stuck to the plasterboard below. It looks like it will be a long and painful endurance test to expose the bare walls. Several soakings with water and washing up liquid then using the steamer kettle seems to make the paper easier to remove even. Little by little we will achieve!

The 'sheds' have been swept so we can store the 20 or so bags of used and dirty sand generated from blasting the beams which look so much more friendly. Eventually it may just get sprinkled on the garden.

The chaps are about to start plastering the ceiling between the beams having completed the prep work. Their backs are taking a toll from digging ditches, distributing rubble in puddles in our lane, cutting a door hole in a French breezeblock wall and reaching high to the ceilings. I am enormously grateful, I really am.

My level is that of a skivvy and remarkably it brings me enjoyment to provide coffee, tea, lunch and sometimes cakes or ice-creams but more importantly to sweep the site clean, several times a day. Sanding woodwork is not so pleasant ... but I am ready to lift buckets of rubble, problem-solve and add ideas for project management. I am not confident with buying bathroom furniture, nor considering where the electrics should go, nor calculating tiling or paint, but over the last 12 years I have become well-used to house renovation and the inside of DIY stores. My patience and interest has had to grow. I fully respect builders in ways that I know my colleagues never did. So many people in the UK appear to criticise builders - but in France the artisan is respected. A builder has to be intelligent in order to create a house of beauty out of inflexible materials; he has to be strong in mind and body; he also has to endure dusty, dirty and unpleasant conditions. And they make jolly good cooks!

Growling at the garden

We put a lot of effort into adding composts, manures, sands and removing stones for the vegetable plot. The onions that haven't been stolen by the birds are struggling, the leeks too, no peas and beans have germinated, nor my sweetpeas and runner beans even though they are planted elsewhere, some of the potatoes and all 6 tomato plants have been caught by the recent frost, 2 lettuce plants struggle whilst 4 have died, other lettuce grown from seed are performing poorly, the radish appear to be growing, the beetroot has not germinated.

Now I'm really annoyed that the 20 seeds of 4 different varieties of tomatoes that I planted individually and tenderly in special thumb pots ( not sure of exact name) had all germinated and now only two are left. One night as they were happy sitting on the floor of the warm verandah something nipped off their cotyledons! Later I found the culprit - a caterpillar type grub had somehow invaded the special seed soil I invested in! Gggggggrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Anyway I'm off to buy a soil tester kit to see what's wrong. It's the worst year ever!

Day 8 Demolition

It was a very good stroke of luck that we decided to have Le Sableuse delivered and collected for almost 100 euros in addition to the hire of the machine and the sand! Our little Clio with its small remorque would have been laughed out of town!

A French neighbour has already remarked to a friend that this machinery is "industrielle et pour les specialistes" but fortunately, my son knows all about sandblasters having had specialists remove 25 tons of rust and dirt from his steel vessel. He also is extremely strong. We would not recommend this for others but if you want a challenge then go ahead!

COMMENTARY OF IMPRESSIONS:

1.It is BIG.

2.It makes a lot of noise.

3.The very loud humming drone of the compressor with its rising tones sounded like a factory signal calling its workers to work in the morning, take lunch or go home at night.

4.The phwishshshsh of the sand being sucked into the tubes to be spattered against the beams.

5.The pop of the sand eater when it needed to digest more.

6.The trickling of the sand hitting the walls and glass panes of the doors before it fell to the floor.

7.It was a sight to see and we all needed to wear protective masks whilst on site.

8.The clouds of dust inside the house.

9.The men could not see what they were doing whilst wearing the protective headgear with breathing apparatus and protective clothing. Look at the stylish Captain Sensible.

10.The men needed to take the utmost care whilst standing on the scaffolding.

11.The dust billowed out from the dusty room, covering the roses climbing on the wall.

12.The silica sand on the skin started to softly tingle.

13.The dirty sand on the floor was like a beach.

When silence resumed we scooped up the sand into the empty sacks and any buckets we could find. "Oh I do like to be beside the seaside".

Several sweeps later the grit was beginning to disappear.

It was one days work but spread over a day and a half because the machinery was not delivered as promised for an 8 o'clock start plus another half a day to clean the house and courtyard.

325 kilos of clean sand blasted into dirty sand.

Now before finding a use for it... we must ensure no rain gets into the bags of sand or it will be impossible to move each one!

We certainly deserved the warm baths to wash away the grit and tuck into glasses of Saumur accompanied by duck with onions, apples and orange in a cognac sauce plus haricots verts beans.

The next day the job was completed and the machinery collected by one man! We had to help him push the compressor out of our garden and along the road where it was hoisted onto his lorry! Another job done and more work created. What is the meaning of life?

Western Whip Snake found dead in lane

I took some photos of the snake when we discovered it one evening in the lane, but the next morning it had gone. Perhaps another animal had cleaned up the site and ate a feast for supper or breakfast.

It is a Western Whip Snake or Coulevre Vert et Jaune. I had thought it was a Smooth Snake but a 'blogging friend' with a wealth of knowledge about the natural environment has corrected me. She has recommended this website for the facts about these beautiful creatures.

The first Springtime of living in the wilds of Central France I opened our kitchen door to see and hear a HUGE snake scrambling back into the stone wall. It seemed to make a whipping sound. I was quite frightened and dashed to our neighbour Jean-Louis who identified it as a Coulevre, a Grass Snake. He told me not to worry - our cats would be safe! To this day, no one believes me, that it was more or less all one colour (I realise that 'greenish-greyish-yellowish' is not a clever description) and well over a metre long being as fat as a large orange. It seems that he was correct and possibly I might have exaggerated its fatness in that flash of a second, in fear and surprise but I know what I saw and heard was an unusual sighting even if they are common in France.

I know that not all snakes are poisonous but recognise that caution is completely necessary, yet, having only ever seen a few live snakes in the wild, I would hate to injure one.

One time, there was a viper basking in the sunshine on the grass on the side of a dyke in Suffolk. Passers-by told me to swish a stick in the long grass in front of me as I walked. On another occasion my friend's dog attacked a viper and was killed. She was naturally devastated because she could not get her Jack Russell to receive the antidote in time. Life went downhill for her after that. It was such a terrible tragedy. On another occasion, I held a snake at a wild-life park - the fashion was not to call it a zoo! As a teacher I tried to demonstrate to some afeared children that some snakes were a safe risk to hold if the zookeeper was giving permission and the snake had been well fed before our introduction. It was also about me setting aside my fear of snakes and trying to help the children face their own fears. I think it was a boa constrictor as it was very heavy when the animal keeper wrapped it across my shoulders. I like holding frogs and toads with their cold, smooth skin but the lively Western Whip Snake or Coulevre can stay in the long grasses and damp stone walls of France.

www.herpfrance.com

www.herpconstrust

www.francethisway.com

www.planetepassion.eu

Is this really my new house?

This is the front of the house. It consists of two buildings - the original long house with central chimney / fireplace but now it has three small rooms and the barn conversion has a large living room, bedroom and bathroom. There are large French-brown gates which we can close on the outer world for privacy in the courtyard or open wide and to 'be on show' if we want! At the moment they are firmly closed whilst the demolition process takes place. I have discovered that the house decoration and barn conversion was made in 1985; the date under the removed wallpaper confirms this! The maçon also renovated the house next door but one with the same materials!

This is the back of the house. It was a barn. It is the building on the left. The neighbour's garden is behind it. The dishevelled atelier could re-incarnate into a verandah. The small building behind that is the boiler room and is like a cellar at the moment. In front is the fuel container enclosed by old house doors!!! The pointed building on the right is not mine, but to the right and out of the photos is a gate with a right of way to the street and some shed-type constructions. Do I have the inclination to keep chickens? No, not at the moment! A dog-leg shaped corner is taken out of the garden. There is a small barren field to the right and at the rear of the garden, behind the camera, is a breeze block wall dividing what once was the garden belonging to the next door but one neighbour. No one overlooks the garden excepting for the one neighbour who is absent at the moment.
I bought this house for several reasons but the carrot was that down the lane is what could become a very beautiful ancient-cum-modern small bijou residence. I have already visualised myself sitting in the front of the house reading my book, listening to the nightingale. There is an aura and gentle ambience there.

Stop dreaming girl, there is work to do before you can relax!

This big house is giving me some anxiety .. but my son is telling me to think more positive. He says it'll be ok and that I must tell myself I CAN make decisions and that I am NOT worried about this and that! There is a lot of work to do and already we have had the obligatory surprises that will probably consume the available funds! To begin with we are only updating the ground floor.

The demolition commenced! We removed a wall which separated a long thin bathroom from the large bedroom, removed the nasty shower cubicle and vanity ware. Why is it called that?

Then the chaps revealed the oak beamed ceiling continued from the living room next door. The same beams will be hidden in the bathroom to keep a lower ceiling.

The mountain of rubble, polystyrene, plasterboard, bedding materials and cardboard debris created in the garden from stuff from the attic, kitchen and elsewhere was removed before a photo shoot. It was too embarassing to show.

There is a lot of rubbish about! And we are creating more! No time to blog..... so posts are being written. put into draft to complete when I can!