Lost en France

At long last, the woodworm work in the cellar is complete. The 5 litres of treatment I'd brought with me, and brushed on, was gone in short measure so, once again, off to Leroy Merlin. Bought a 24 litre keg of the stuff along with a hand-pumped pressure spray. Spent the day spraying the cellar - 3 coats with roughly an hour between each.The pressure spray made the job so much easier (I might even say enjoyable) and I'm sure was more effective - especially at getting in crevices. Hopefully that is the last we'll see of woodworm - at least in the cave . Whilst I was spraying, Sally was doing a splendid job of finishing the painting of the kitchen door shutters - as well as cooking a delicious Moroccan chicken dish for dinner. At Leroy Merlin, signed up for their store card. Unlike the supermarket card, you pay for this one - 9 Euros for a year or 24 euros for 3 years. I went for the latter. As part of signing up you get a number of vouchers, including an instant 15% off

Monday morning was frustrating. We headed to Limoge, primarily to collect roof sealant and primer from Leroy Merlin. They had the latter - but not the former (despite the website suggesting they had both). We went to Limoge as we were unable to find any in stock in our web search of our usual Brive DIY destinations. We tried another couple of Briclolage type establishments without luck and then finally tracked down a single tin (we needed two) in Uzerche - but paid an arm and a leg for it. Roof sealant certainly seems a rare commodity in these here parts. Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning/early afternoon saw us prepping/painting shutters, sealing the garage roof and returning circa 500 kilos of soil to the 'trough' there, channelling a wall to carry power cable and, at long last, completing the preparation of the joists in the cellar, ready for the woodworm treatment. This has been a dirty, horrible, job and I'm glad it is done. Like an extra from Breaking Bad, I r

I've been a little delinquent with updates the last few days. Sally arrived yesterdays - great having her with me. Despite promising ourselves some holiday once she got here, other than a nice stroll around town today, we've still been busy, busy, busy.  Good progress though... The earth wire routing is complete - at least as far as I can take it this visit. It still need connecting up but that will be a job for the next visit, as I need to borrow a crimping tool from Tim. Sally brought over a 'bending spring' on the plane (luckily it wasn't considered a weapon). This allowed me to do some fairly fancy conduit bending to get around various existing pipes - made threading the cable through a real challenge though. Good progress has been made on the garage roof with the soil removed from the trough and bagged, the primer down in the trough and on half the roof, and likewise with the first coat of sealant. I now need more primer and sealant - so off to Leroy Me

Despite having to spend time driving to Leroy Merlin again (about and hour's round trip - and the time in store) I actually got quite a lot done today. First job was to continue routing the earth wire now that I had more of the 20 mm conduit. This meant removing and existing junction box and replacing it with a new larger one. Tim had suggested taking a photo of the internals so that I could reconnect everything properly - good advice, except the internals were so chaotic and cramped, there would be little chance of making head or tail of a photo. So, out with pen and paper and carefully noting what connected to what - I tell you, I now have a lot more respect for electricians and the patience they must have; there's no jumping in feet first  with this type of job. Though I didn't take a before and after photo, you get some idea of how cramped the original box was from the image above - the only addition is the earth-wire running through the bottom of the new box. Its

The day commenced with the trip to Leroy Merlin to get the conduit necessary for the earth cable, some rubble sack for the soil removed from the garage roof and some halogen bulbs. I got everything I needed (though I reckon I sent over an hour in the store) and then back home to start work. After a couple of issues, got the halogen lamp working again so I could see what I was doing in the cellar. I routed the 16 mm conduit for the earth cable through the hole drilled yesterday and along the cellar ceiling to the earth cable. Dirty work in the dusty and somewhat cobwebby cellar but not overly difficult. More difficult was deciding how best to route the cable in the garage so as to navigate the existing cables and pipes that adorn its walls.  It would make things easier if I could pass the cable through existing 20 mm conduit for part of its journey to the fuse-box. I consulted a book I have on French electrics to see if there was capacity in the 20 mm conduit for the earth wire as

Struggled to drop off last night - despite the early start to the day - and so treated myself to a lie-in until around 9am. Then on the bike and off to the bank for some cash and the boulangerie for croissants. Once fed I headed to the farm shop and supermarket for a few provisions. At the supermarket I asked about their loyalty card. I (think) I've signed up on line but have never received a physical card - so I though I'd try in-store. There was a form to fill in and then the card was provided there and then. By the time I was home it was noon. I had a quick snooze and the got down to the real work. First job was to run the earth cable from the ground-spike through the cellar, into the garage and up to the fuse box. Despite a light in the cellar, it is still dark down there, so I'd brought a halogen lamp with me. It had been in the shed for years so I wouldn't have been surprised if the bulb had gone - but I was in luck; it did a great job of illuminating the ar

Made it to Versailles and the Ibis Budget hotel, no problem. It was a longer drive than normal but, as per the last post, I wanted to get past Paris on Sunday night - rather than Monday morning rush-hour. Traffic was still surprisingly heavy during that last leg of the journey. The hotel was easy to find and the room more than adequate. My only 'complaint' was having to pay nearly 13 Euros to park. I think I could have parked on the street fairly easily, but I preferred to pay for the enclosed  car-park as the car was rather packed with items for the house. Of course, as I drove out, the car-park barrier was up - so I could have got away without paying altogether (and I'd even had a premonition that this might happen). The drive to Uzerche was fine and I got to the house just after 10:00 - having risen at 05:30 (04:30 UK time) - I was awake so saw no point hanging around. The first thing I noticed (or didn't) was the smell of fuel oil in the hall. On previous vi

I've been back in the UK all of two weeks and I'm already heading back to Uzerche - this coming Sunday. The plan is to be over there for two weeks this time, with Sally flying out to join me for the second week. I had considered doing a straight run from the Midlands (UK) to Uzerche but, due the Euro-tunnel timings, this would have meant leaving at midnight. I'd want to have at least some sleep before setting out and so 3 am is the earliest I would consider for such a run. Instead, I'll leave just before noon on Sunday, and then plan to stay overnight in Versailles, arriving around 10 pm. This is a couple of hours further south than I normally aim for but it will mean that I get past/through Paris on a (hopefully) quiet Sunday night rather than Monday morning rush-hour. This will probably be the last visit before the onset of winter and so a key objective will be to prep-the house for freezing temperatures.  We had considered leaving the heating on over the winter b

Yesterday I had cause to call an 0800 (freephone) number in France - to discuss the replacement of my old electric meters etc., with new. I had plenty of minutes left on my pay-as-you-go plan and so was surprised to get the message that I did not have enough credit to place the call. I called EE who explained that, though I could call UK numbers from France using my plan's minutes, a call in the other direction was classed as international and so would cost £1.50. I added credit and placed the call which was answered by an automated message saying the office was closed - this was fortunate as it meant the call only lasted 54 seconds. Had I ended up on hold (quite likely) I can well imagine the call could have lasted 20 or 30 minutes and, had that been the case, I would have been billed from £70 to over £100. The sharp eyed amongst you will think I've got my numbers wrong - surely I mean £30 - £45 - or may even think, being a freephone number, the call shouldn't cost a

This post is a bit of a summary of what happened in my last week in France - as I didn't do a daily blog during that time. First, the mystery of the 300+ year old artefact... After a request for help on a couple of social networking sites it transpired that the 'moto' was "Seul contre tous" (Alone against all) - associated with Louis XIV. Since the birth of Louis XIV, France is continually at war with Spain, and more generally against the hegemony of the Habsburgs in Europe.  The revocation of the Edict of Nantes turned against all Protestant states against Louis XIV, and added religious hatreds to political hatreds.  William of Orange easily succeeded in uniting in a new coalition the various groups of allies already formed.  As early as 1688, a general coalition against France was formed: it opposed France allied to Denmark and the Ottoman Empire to the league of Augsburg composed by William II of England, the Emperor of Germany, the kings of Spain, Sweden