Disappointing Bricante and Tripping the Electrics. Sunday, June 10, 2018.


The plan today was to get up early and head to the 180-stall Bricante in Malemort, near Brive. We’d seen these Bricantes on the likes of Channel 4’s ‘Escape to the Chateau’, and so we were hoping to see such delights as old ‘Victorian’ baths that we could pick up for a song and then renovate.

Well, things didn’t go quite to plan. First we overslept (again), second there were no baths nor any other interesting furniture. In fact, this was basically a massive Jumble Sale – not even really up to the standards of a good British ‘car-boot’ and prices were higher than I would have expected. So a bit of a let-down really, and Malemort, as a locale, doesn’t have a great deal to offer. However, just one more thing to put down to experience.

In the afternoon, Sally did a great job stripping the lounge-diner and I finished plumbing in the washing machine. The task itself was relatively simple – what took the time was translating the commissioning instructions. It was worth every minute though as it appeared there were four hefty transportation bolts that needed removing. Had I not done the translation, we would have been on the market for another new washing machine.

In the evening we tripped the electric for the first time. In France you subscribe to a pre-determined maximum amperage. The higher the amperage, the higher the standing charge. It’s a bit of guesswork as to what you should opt for but is, I believe, relatively easy to ’upgrade’ if you initially get it wrong. This trip was caused by running the water heater, vacuum, washing machine and steam stripper at the same time. No problem, we can cutback on that load – if I can figure out how to reset the trip. We have a very old fuse-box which pre-dates the various internet posts I found discussing resetting a trip. Worried that we would be without power for several days I basically tried pressing everything I could see around the fuse-box and meter and eventually firmly pressing a big green button did the trick – phew!

See the big green button?
That's the one you want.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Receipt of Compromise & Diagnostics Reports (Feb 2018)

I'm still building this blog, setting up the 'Retrospective' pages which describe our activities between first embarking on this adventure  and finally deciding to create this blog. However, I've decided to create the first blog post as we've hit the first major milestone to occur since I started blogging - the receipt of the Compromise and the Diagnostic Reports. The Compromise is the first of two contractual documents and commits both parties to the sale of the property. The other contract is the main contract at the end of the process. Rather than travel to France we had decided to give the notaire (similar to a solicitor but working for the State rather than the two parties) power of attorney  to sign the Compromise on our behalf. This seemed seemed sensible as it involved no additional fees and saved us the journey. We would still have a 10-day cooling off period and, even if we had traveled there, the chances of understanding even a small part of what we w
Read more

Last Few Days - Parting Gifts, 11 - 15 Oct.

Image
  As we had Friday off, it was back to DIY today – the last full ‘free’ day I have as I’ll be working from home tomorrow and we head back to the UK on Friday. Poor old Sally was back in the ‘future’ bathroom, stripping paper that was very reluctant to be stripped.  Me? I rubbed down the filling on the study ceiling, washed it and gave it a coat of paint and then gave the kitchen ceiling its second coat. Then a bit of a break before touching up a number of metal details on the window furniture and then a second coat, once dry for the study ceiling. All in all, a good day’s work. Monday through Thursday saw Sally has been odd-jobbing/cleaning  and tidying up as we wind down to our departure on Friday morning.  Nothing of much not to relate – except the kindness of the neighbours.  First it was Pilli and David; they came around with a bag of foraged apples. I believe they were by way of an ‘apology’ for asking us to move the car on a couple times when they took deliveries and for the
Read more

Rain Upsets Plans, 13 - 18 Sept.

Image
  We tried relaxing on Sunday but found it hard work and so couldn’t resist doing some of the jobs; painting windows, repairing plaster and relaying the Astro-Turf on the 'patio' (removed due to all the dust, flaking paint and paint drips from painting the window above) to allow us to get the loungers up and the BBQ out. Monday through Friday I had my day job, but Sally pushed on with more painting of window frames, door frames and shutters. In the evenings I did some painting too, mainly painting the details (e.g. hinges) on doors, windows and shutters. Before After Late Monday afternoon, we met up at the Café de France for a coffee with Marie, a member of a local Facebook Group I’d established. Very peasant lady who seemed to know just about everyone in Uzerche; including the previous owner of our house. We had some good news on Tuesday. Our UK home insurer finally got back in touch with us after 3-weeks and a lot of chasing. It appears our policy allows us to be away for
Read more