Lost en France

Up at 7am and on our way back to the UK at 10 am, after a quick tidy-up and inventory of what we were leaving behind (and therefore didn’t need to bring in our luggage next time). Being a Friday and given the experience of the Peripherique on the way down, we chose to add a nominal 90-minutes to our journey and return via Chartres and Rouen. The journey was uneventful other than for a diversion off a closed section of motorway and a traffic-jam in Rouen that was as bad as the previous one on the Peripherique (though the traffic was far more civilised). We eventually reached the Chateau de Quesmy at around 7 pm – so a 9-hour journey including a 30-minute stop. Alas, the restaurant on the chateau grounds was not open on a Friday night and so ‘dinner’ was nuts, yogurts, fruit, and orange juice – that we had brought from the house. View from our window at the chateau Up at 6:30 on Saturday morning and a 2.5 hour drive to Calais for the EuroTunnel. We arrived early eno...

Before we were up, the refuse collection folk had emptied our bin – a mundane milestone, but a milestone – nonetheless. This had taken considerable organising and there was every possibility we would have fallen at the last hurdle. Alas, today is our last full day here. We made sure it was a productive one. Sally did two coats of paint on the kitchen door-frame and a length of skirting and I did two coats on the interior of the kitchen window and frame. We completed the assembly of the IKEA kit and re-organised the kitchen. Kitchen - Before                                        Kitchen - During Study - Before & During Between coats we visited the local dechetterie (tip) to dispose of an incredible amount of recyclable waste accumulated over the past two weeks, It literally filled the back of the car – mostly cardboard from all of the furniture and elect...

Today we visited Bordeaux or, to be more precise, we visited IKEA in Bordeaux; a two and a quarter hour drive. After 3-hours around IKEA we were ready for home again – so no sight-seeing nor even a lunch out. We did, however, get storage units for the Kitchen a computer desk and chair for me, a couple of bed-side tables, two rugs and a number of other small items. Our bed now has Carrefour Duvet and Pillow Covers - and IKEA bedside tables. We did a little assembly on returning home and then treated ourselves to a meal out at one of the local hotels/restaurants – very nice it was too and reasonably priced too, as in England, wine was expensive.

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.   ...

We set the alarm for 08:00 – enough of these lie-ins! We’d decided that we would work in the morning and then go out in the afternoon. The morning saw Sally rubbing down a door frame and the skirting boards in the kitchen whilst I painted the ‘black’ detailing (metal fixings) on the two shutters I had been painting and then I salvaged a new multi socket extension cable that had ceased to work (it is now a single socket extension that does work). Finally I fitted three more padlocks to the garage doors. We had a late-ish lunch and were then going to head to Brive to shop at Conformarama, a furniture shop Sally had seen online, and to pop into Carrefour and see what other interesting shops we could see. Checking online, however, showed the Brive Conformarama was closed for refurbishment. So, instead, we headed an extra 20 kilometres north to Limoges to visit the same stores. Conformarama was disappointing, not inexpensive but rather cheap looking. IKEA is far more our cup of t...

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 t...

Sally arrives today so the order of the day is a general tidy up and finish the vacuuming – 3 hours soon go and then hit the shower, get changed and off to Limoges airport. I arrive 10 minutes before the plane, which is on time. Sally debarks and gives me a wave, 15 minutes later she has cleared Passport Control – incredibly quick for Limoge, believe me. A 50-minute drive home and we pop in Intermarche to do a shop and then we get a pair of pizzas from an ‘Artisan’ pizza kiosk I had noticed a few days ago – very nice they were too. After consuming the pizzas and a couple of bieres, I gave Sally a tour of the work done and then we settled down for the evening. Tomorrow the plan is to visit one of the may Brocantes (think car-boot sales) in the area – we’ve chosen the one at Malmort as it seems at least twice as large as the others we had considered (at Tulle and Brive). The only real occurrence of note was that we got talking to a local ex-pat in Intermarche – and then co...