Fireworks and a New Bike - 13-15 July, 2018

Well my daughter tells me the last post was boring, so I’ve waited a few days until I have something ‘more interesting’ to report. Now I must wrack my brains to remember what I was doing three days ago.

As I am typing this, cars and bikes are again doing a celebratory circuit of the town - France have won the World Cup within the last hour. Fortunately, this match was a little earlier than the semi-final, so hopefully they will have calmed down by the time I try to sleep – bah humbug! In all seriousness though, it is great to see people so happy – just a shame it isn’t happening in England.

Friday

On Friday I took a walk to the town’s Tourist Information Office to collect brochures handily labelled ‘within 20 minutes’ (distance). These should be useful if I do get some sight-seeing in during this visit. I also asked about local celebrations for Bastille Day and was given a brochure with a wide range of activities over the day itself (Saturday) and on Friday.

One of the prime objectives of this week is to put down some cushion flooring in the loo and the shower room. Before laying the flooring, it makes sense to paint the wood work. Before painting the woodwork, it makes sense to fix a leaking loo and a leaking cistern. Plumbing is probably my least favourite DIY task – but it needed doing. I removed the cistern and stripped it down. These are not your typical UK cistern and you can see from the picture:

I need to get an ‘o’ ring and then re-assemble it. The existing ‘o’ ring looks OK, but if it isn’t that causing the leak, then I don’t know what is. I also removed the leaking seal from the back of the toilet – it was perished beyond belief, crumbling in pieces as I removed it.

I took the evening off to take a look at the night’s event – a small fair, a fishing competition and a communal meal. I would have been tempted by the latter had I someone to go with ☹.

Without a doubt though, the highlight was a firework display over the town at 11 pm. It was magnificent. Classical music blared out across the town as synchronised fireworks exploded over the towers and turrets. The view from the house couldn’t have been better – and there were no crowds on my garage roof 😊. I should gave taken some photos. I did take a few videos – but the don’t really do the display justice.

Saturday

Saturday saw me head into Brive again, to visit a couple of Bricolages (DIY stores) to get more tools, including a chop-saw to allow me to add some decorative mouldings to some of the doors. The most important item to get was a replacement seal for the loo. I drew a blank at Brico Depot, but fortunately Mr Bricolage had something that I thought might do the trick. I also went in Carrefour again to see if I could purchase one of the bikes I’d seen on Thursday. I’d done my research on the Friday and decided I wanted a Top Life V8000. Luckily it just fitted in the back of the car. I was also lucky to get the last one.

Back home I put the bike’s battery on charge and read the manual – the fact it was in English (as well as French) was a pleasant surprise. Then I erected a new set of shelves, did a general tidy-up of the garage and sorted the refuse in accordance with the local requirements (I have an exciting life).  

Next, I set to trying to fit the new seal to the toilet. After much time and effort and trying a variety of methods – I failed. The seal is like a doughnut which goes into the back of the toilet and then the feed pipe from the cistern goes into the centre off the ring. I couldn’t get the seal in the loo, let alone get the feed pipe in. I gave up. I’d been pushing the seal so hard that it wasn’t until a gave up that I realised I’d pulled the tip of my index finger away from the nail – ouch.

My abortive attempt to fit the seal.

The other big news from Saturday was that my dad was home and well after having a pacemaker fitted.

Sunday

Today is Sunday.  I did the laundry – with the help of Sally on the end of the phone telling me how to operate a washing machine. 

I then took the bike out for its inaugural run – covering just over 15 km riding the area around the town. I was interested to see how effective an electric bike is. I am very pleased. I’ve not ridden a bike in tens of years, but it was easy. Uzerche is hilly (the main road south is a 1:10 incline) and yet I was able to maintain 15 km/h up the hills (and over 55 km/h down them) with no real effort. 

I’d seen some of the areas visited before, but some were new thanks to the accessibility that a bike provides.

Back at the house I had decided to leave the loo as shops would be shut  (it being Sunday) and I needed to buy some new piping and some grease to hopefully enable me to finally fit the seal. Instead I worked on the toilet door and started preparing the shower room for painting.