Lizards, Bats and Bumble Bees - Tuesday 12 June, 2018


Great day today. A full day of work from 9:00 till 18:30, Sally was stripping the wallpaper in the kitchen; a pig of a job by all accounts as there were multiple layers of paper and some atypical adhesives in in use. For my part I was painting some of the doors and windows' metal work (hinges etc) black. I also hung the finally fully painted ground floor front shutters and painted the window frame in the kitchen.

Sally saw one of our house lizards for the first time; this on top of us definitely being buzzed by a bat last night – and, on a less positive note, it appears we have bumble bees nesting in our walls – time for a bit of internet research as we don’t want to do them any more harm than we need to.



The Ground Floor Shutter Finally Painted.
Inside and Out.
Our dustbins were also finally delivered today – soon I’ll be trying to translate the accompanying letters to ensure we comply with requirements when it comes to using the right coloured ‘sacs’ etc.  
After a full day’s work we headed back to Malemort (30 Kms away) to visit the local Leroy Merlin (LM) – an ambition of Sally’s. LM is basically a B&Q Warehouse. Lots of tools, kitchens, showers, flooring, etc. I suspect we’l be getting LM kitchen units once the house is rewired.

Tomorrow, the plan is to get up early and get over to Bordeaux and IKEA. This will be a full day as it is a fair old run – I’ll let you know just how far, tomorrow.

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

A Night at the Chateau. 4-5 July

Image
 Up at 05:30 and on the road, as planned, shortly after 06:00. Nice clear run to the Eurotunnel terminal, as a result of which we were offered the 10:20 crossing (we were booked on the 11:50). Great result! Except we then queued and queued as traffic crawled through the customs and security checks. Eventually we found ourselves on the 11:20 crossing - still 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Anecdotally, the return delays are currently even worse. Isn't Brexit bliss 😒. We had booked a night at the Chateau de la Bucherie, just to the west of Paris. And French leg of the journey from the terminal was a s smooth as the journey to the terminal. I can highly recommend the chateau. The price was very reasonable, the room spacious (all be it in the roof with only a moderate sized Velux window).  The staff were delightful and friendly and the grounds (with impressive flora and fauna) were exceptional.  The kitchen garden was well stocked and we weren't surprised to see its produce feature
Read more

Baking Bread without an Oven & Accosting Strangers - 28 & 29 June.

Image
  On Sunday we tried, unsuccessfully, to find the workshop of the bicycle repairman that had a stall on the market the previous year. He'd told us he was opening a shop but we failed to find it  – perhaps it didn’t survive the pandemic; perhaps we simply were looking in the wrong place. We more groceries (we can only buy a few provisions each visit due to transport being limited to the push bikes) and ordered a full size fridge-freezer. Sally reckoned it was a good price and we’ve been managing with a small fridge for long enough – especially as we’ll be visiting for longer periods now (hopefully). Delivery was only €10 so we arranged for it to be delivered the next day. In the evening we looked for hotels in Paris and, having booked three-nights there, changed our return train ticket; a surprisingly simple process. Up at a more reasonable time (07:45) on Monday – thanks to setting the alarm. We needed to be sure to be up in time for the fridge-freezer delivery (scheduled for s
Read more