Our visit in June...it's all about the back of the house

For once, we had time to check Portsmouth out before catching the ferry.

London Illustrated News now on the wall and me with a black plastic bag over my head ready for jet-washing the stonework at the back.

Raking the joints ready for jet-washing. Also defining the patio shape.

Bev pushing it. Stonework being cleaned to the left. The right still to do. We aren't sure what to do with the previous owners bodged attempts at pointing (the little bright corner bit).

I fully support the French siesta.

A walk down the lane with the family.

Juli learning how to relax

The new breakfast table

Taking a break from cleaning the stone...digging the soak-away

It's hard work...

David entertaining the kids...the next train leaves in ten minutes...

Unless you prefer just two wheels.

Chris helping me connect to the soak-away.

Soap, water, plastic and sunshine...perfect!

Breakfast marching band

Hardcore filled, connected and capped...only the soil and seed to go.

 

A visit to the French Resistance museum

And Auray. Where's Danny?

Not to forget the cyclists...they're really serious about this.

It was an all work, all play and all relax couple of weeks.

Very tiring but very special.

Special thanks to Martin & Collete for their help with submitting plans to the Mairie.

(See previous post regarding work completed.)

Flash Forward

I was disappointed with the TV programme Flash Forward but I like the title.

I've decided to Flash Forward to 2010 and our visit to Bel-Air last week. Incidentally, Bel-Air is not a name we gave to the place...it's on all the road signs even though there are only two houses.

The other house is for sale after the death of Joel. His brother had planned to renovate the place but decided against it  given the circumstances of his brother's death. We've seriously considered buying it but it will mean selling up here in England straight away. MIL will not consider coming with us therefore we are resigned to having new neighbours in France at some point.

As soon as I organise the photographs, I'll post details of what work we carried out this time round.

Here is a brief outline...
1. Rake, Jet-wash and backfill the stonework at the back of the property ready for pointing in July.
2. Dig a soak-away with pipework leading to it.
3. Level the worst of the undulating  (moles) grass area.
4. Dig out the patio area.
5. Define the shape of the patio with retaining stone.
6. Submit plans to the Mairie for storage areas.
7. Buy materials ready for the July visit.
8. Put something on the walls to personalise the place.

2004 visit

Jon drove us to Stanstead @ 4:45 am on Sunday 29th August 2004 and we jumped on the flight to Dinard where David was waiting to pick us up.

On the way to Bel-Air we stopped off at some Australian friends of David & Eileen who gave us a grand tour of the place they are renovating in Josselin.

It was great to see Bel-Air even though we haven't any electricity and are sleeping in a tent. David made dinner and we sat in the garden to eat just as Gary arrived. In the evening we sat in front of an open fire and candlelight.

In terms of work, not a lot was recorded other than...repairing the ascot flu, the sides of the big dormer and the bedroom studding. In reality, I wouldn't have stopped.

David & Eileen's living room  as it was in 2004 after putting beams in, and later...

Uncovering a hidden window...we replaced the rotting timber lintel above the window with a slab of stone we found in the garden.

as it is now...

The big dormer at the back...before

During (after we raised the kitchen windows and David's re-tiling.)

I don't seem to have a photo of us finishing it (the same week). I build a smaller dormer over to the left above the doors and this year (2010) there will be another smaller one.

Studding the bathroom ...the ancient ascot soon to be installed for temporary hot water linked to a gas bottle. The bath, toilet and sink are also temporary. In fact, there is a rather nice finished bathroom fully functional right now.

Almost finished in these shots...

This was the year that we discovered the joys of star gazing and looking out for shooting stars.

We left to go home at 4:20 am  on Friday 10th September and only just got to Caen in time (8:15) for a calm crossing to Portsmouth.

As was and as is.

David nicking some of my mix as he works on the stonework outside. We worked hard on this as we raced against time to protect it from the elements. Luckily it didn't rain. It was so hot in fact, that David stayed the entire summer to slate the roof. It did rain eventually (and when it rains, it really rains) but not often and not for long. It was a job well done.

As it is now...still unfinished...until May 2010.

Welcome to Keith Eckstein who lives just 15 minutes from us. I've been reading his blog for some time now which gives quite an insight into the area and what it has to offer. Actually, he has several blogs worth the visit.

Clearing the ground and discovering features

Wherever I was living on Friday the 13th Feb. 2004, I was concreting a floor and painting a hallway (so says my diary).
In the evening I stayed at the Flinns ready for a 5:00am drive to Portsmouth. It was the year the caravan came with us and in the car was David, Eileen and Robin.

We made good time but the ferry was delayed by two and a half hours. We spent the time chatting to people in the queue and machine-gun toting policemen.

Once on the ferry we took a whole row of comfortable seats in the casino entertainment area and slept.

It was a long drive from Cherbourg to Radenac and on arrival (12:30am) Gary made us curry, chips and rice...absolutely delicious but not the best thing to sleep on. Actually, I slept on the settee...like a log.

Bel-Air was a brilliant sight in brilliant sunshine when we arrived the next day. We unloaded the caravan of scaffolding and a million other things and had a pleasant walk to Cruguel and around the lake back to Bel-Air. Then we drove back to have a chicken lunch with Gary in Les Riviers.

Monday was another sunny day. Gary went berserk and waged war on the brambles with a strimmer in the front garden. He also cut dead trees down with Robin's help.

David, myself and Eileen were indoors chopping holes in the walls to house the beams and later to cut and fit the beams. Robin and I carried on while the rest went to Josselin for plasterboard and food.

We ended up having a huge fire in the garden which threatened to spread out of control.

It was 8:30pm and in pitch black when we arrived back at Gary's for some very suspect potatoes and bolognese...ughh!!
The jobs that followed were...levelling and treating beams and securing them, chopping and de-branching all our tree trimmings, fires glorious fires, visits to builders merchants (David paid a small fortune at Plumelec for a small concrete lintel...36:50 euro). We arrived in darkness for tea at Gary's place for pasta bolognese and general chit-chat about the day... and electrical regulations! Oh my goodness, those French electrical regulations that seem to change without warning. Gary wasn't with us today. I think one of those thorns aggravated a septic finger and he needed to spend time with the doctor.

I had a nightmare which lasted longer because Bev wasn't here to nudge me.

The next few days were the same sort of thing...plasterboard delivery and heaving them upstairs...all 50 of them (David and I), stone lintel into position, moving studding and the like. David's living room fire was lit for the first time, I used the chain saw to cut the stairwell (a defining moment). Windows and other features like fireplaces hidden for years were discovered. It was an exciting time.

We couldn't have worked harder during the week we were here.

On the way home to England we visited St Mere Eglise and Utah beach.

One of the fires in the front garden...a small one.

Joseph, our next door neighbour (now no longer with us).

David chopping render and discovering window...

Free food...I think this was the following year though.

Within a week I would be in a foot of snow in Sunderland doing jobs for Juli.

Next visit to Bel-Air...August 29th. 2004...with Bev.

Back to France

I ran upstairs and was sick when I got home on Saturday the 15 November 2003. I'd just got back from helping Jon plasterboard his ceiling and walls. It wasn't sudden...I felt ill as soon as I arrived there.

I stayed in bed the next day (Sunday) and In the evening Bev drove me to the Flinns to sleep over ready for the drive to Portsmouth. The hope was that I'd improve but I got progressively worse and feared I'd have to pull out of the visit altogether.

I woke up feeling marginally better but on the journey got worse again. We caught the ferry with just minutes to spare and although the ship was fairly luxurious and the crossing calm, it was a gruelling 10 hours spent curled up on the floor thinking my life was about to end. The Flinns photographed the event...it's what friends are for!

Another 2 hours drive to Gary's just about saw me off. A quick call to Bev and I crawled up those dusty old steps thinking I would die in bed. Threw up and spent most of the night coughing.

The Next day (Tue) was my 4th day unable to face food. We arrived in Josselin (via Bel-Air) about 10:15. David & Eileen went into the bank while I stood outside in a daze.

We arrived at the Notaire's offfice with 10 minutes to spare to wait for Trudie. She arrived late thinking we were to have met at her place first.

The notaire thought we hadn't paid his fees and local taxes but after he agreed we had, the papers were duly signed in his office (etude).

It's important to point out here that between the preliminary contract... the signing of the final deed (acte authentique) and the final act of sale (acte de vente) you should thoroughly check the property out and mention at the signing anything that doesn't match what you think you are buying, because at this point the notaire can withhold funds from the vendor to pay for replacements and repairs. After the signing it's too late because it's sold subject to the condition its in at the time of completion.

I mention this because we later found out that although there was electriciy, water and septic tank...as outlined in the house sale leaflet, they were only nearby and certainly not connected.

To connect and comply with regulations was an extremely unpleasant and expensive shock.

It was true that there were pipes leading to where a toilet should be installed (which we did, and used it for about a year), and it was also true that a septic tank was in the garden. But there were no pipes leading from the house to the septic tank or filtration pipes from the tank underground.

We laugh about it now, but at the time, our garden resembled First World War trenches as we installed the filtration that we thought was already there. And guess who had to rake a years worth of excrement from the end of the open pipe 30 feet short of it's destination?

We used candles for light for a long, long time and David eventually (some years later) created from nothing an outside solar panel shower and modesty screen for when we weren't staying at Gary's. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Such luxuries were way ahead in the future.

Getting back to the present, the signing was completed...what we thought we had and what we actually had was legally ours.

It was back to Bel-Air with the keys then off to Lorient via a brief visit to Les Riviers.

I almost passed out in Brico Depot. Home at last (Les Riviers), phoned Bev, threw up.

I woke up after having about 2 hours sleep and felt strangely a lot better so decided to chance some soup. The rest of the holiday (if you can call it that) saw me much improved in health and we made good progress with clearing overhanging branches, brambles and weeds, clearing gulleys for drainage, buying and setting up a temporary bathroom, measuring for cables...miles and miles of them and pipes, buying a large water heater and other electrical bits...tons of sockets, removing old beams from David & Eileen's place, and a host of other things including me catching fire from a candle I forgot was near me.

I think the hectic work schedule set the tone for all future visits.

Our next visit to Bel-Air was the 14th Feb 2004, two and a half months down the road. Can't wait!

The power shower...once, on Monday the 30th April 2007 after a hot day, I thought the water would be hot and it was dark as Bev lit the way with a torch. The water was freezing and she caught me by torch-light dancing  and hopping trying to scurry back indoors to dry in front of a roaring fire followed by a mug of hot chocolate. The evening was finished off by writing my journal by candlelight.

The bare facts of renovation in rural France. No it isn't real...other than the shower. That's me at the sink, Ash on the loo and David taking a shower.

Get it right! France update.

This is my 'A day at a time' blog entry from April 23rd 2009 which I've brought over here...
There was very little air last night and for some strange reason we didn't have a dawn chorus. I woke up feeling very groggy and every bit my age and not full of the joys of spring like yesterday. What a difference a day makes.
After a good bath I felt a different person and decided to search for my 2003 journal to see how accurate my memory was of buying our house in France...here are the results.

It wasn't Summer when we decided to buy a place in France. We set off on Thursday 22nd May 2003 for Poole to catch the Condor ferry to StMalo. We met up with Phil & Pat in the B&Q car park and then drove straight onto the ferry.

Our friend Jill and her husband met us as we docked and we followed them to their place (actually they had two properties) near Guilliers. We had something to eat in Guilliers itself.

It wasn't until the Saturday (rainy) which was the 24th May that we saw Bel-Air and signed the agreement before going off to Mohon to celebrate at Brumbilly's ( I think that's what it was called...I'm feeling groggy again!

Eileen has just emailed me her account...she is always more accurate!

On the day we bought Bel-Air, it wasn't quite like you said. We got the addresses of two properties to look at. We went to Bel-Air first, looked through the windows because we didn't have the keys and fell in love with it, then looked at the other property until it was time for the estate agents to reopen at 2. We managed to get the keys and at that time we told them we definitely wanted to buy the property for the asking price. We all felt anxious at lunchtime that we might lose the house and decided to go for it there and then before we had gone inside. I remember the discussion. I also remember thinking - that's two houses David and I have bought before we've actually gone inside - did the same with 124 Davies.

We went back to Bel-Air with the keys and had a good look round. We then went back to Josselin to sign the paperwork. 

Thanks for that Eileen.

The weather dramatically improved after this and we still went to see other properties while exploring the area. We visited Vannes, Auray, Lac au Duc, Cruguel, La Gascilly and Roche Bernard and Gary's place at Radenac. Goodness knows how many villages we passed on the way.

We also experienced our very first Fez-Noz, although our poor command of the French language resulted in the locals at the door thinking David and I were gay. You must think carefully before opening your mouth.

Anyway, that's the official record but the feeling was the same...it was fantastic to have a house in France after all the dreams, plans and 'What if's'. It was the real deal!

The real deal right now is dealing with the here and now. Karen's (she sits next to me) friend had a brain haemorrhage last night and therefore will be leaving at lunch time today to help out. She was out shopping with her last weekend and is understandably upset at how sudden and unexpected it all is.

Apparently they were buying clothes and things for the forthcoming holiday...a holiday that will never now materialize.

I'm starting to change my attitude for today as I've a lot to be thankful for...excluding our greedy politicians of course, who currently occupy front page status for awarding themselves allowances and pay rises beyond our capacity to understand. My blood boils. Perhaps the French weren't far off the mark with the guillotine! Somebody should give them the chop, that's for sure!

A vigorous reality shake in the hope their heads might roll off is my unrealistic and unkind thought of the day. Better still...let St George's dragon slay the greedy beggars on this 'proud to be English' day that no one is allowed to celebrate in case we upset someone.
Don't worry, I've already repented and am ready to stand in line and be good...until tomorrow!