Lost en France

  Sunday - More work on the stairs. Did a small amount of filing and rubbing down and then hit the filler with crayons as we tried to blend it in a little between with the surrounding wood. Not a bad job – from a distance; certainly better that without the crayon. Then the first couple of coats of polyurethane varnish to alternate steps – so we can continue to use the stairs. Also, a final coat of varnish on the banister. We’re getting there – slowly. Monday - Got the stair steps finished – hurrah. Look really nice. Started filling the central heating system with water ready for the plumber to service it in a week’s time. At 1.5 bar, a leak appeared at the left-hand side of the boiler. Fortunately it stopped when I stopped filling so I’m hoping it is the pressure build up that has found a weak (replaceable) seal. Hoping it isn’t time for a new boiler. Plumber informed. Tuesday - Decorating moved to the walls and skirting around the recently varnished stairs. Also cutting out MDF co...

  Working on the stairs again on the Friday followed by a walk down to the nocturnal market at just before 7pm. On the way down we checked out the photo exhibition at the Papatiere. A photographer from Limoges did black and white studies of a number of Uzerchoise back in April/May. I’m far from as expert, but they are stunning. They look to be from a past era and many have a three-dimensional quality.   Alas, I only recognised the one denizen, our friendly florist, Marie. The market itself seemed a little larger than last year but is really aimed at socialising (buy your duck brochette on one stall and have it barbequed on another) and, as we don’t really have the social contacts yet, we wandered around and then left. What to do for dinner if we’re not eating tat the market? As the weather was fine, we decided to dine at our most local restaurant, Au Fils du Temps, where Sally had the plate du jour (Moules et frites) and I had Confit de Canard – most unusual for me. Both dis...

  These three days were spent replacing, undercoating and painting missing tiles in the shower room (Sally) and rubbing down and filling, rubbing down and re-filling the ground to first floor stairs (me).  Good hard work that gave a great sense of satisfaction – and we’re still in the prep phase (which is normally somewhat demoralizing). Tuesday evening, we dined at the local kebab house on falafel wraps and frites. On Wednesday afternoon, we had a nice long stroll along the Vezere towards (but not quite as far as) Espartingnac. Beautiful afternoon with the roll of thunder around 5pm. Thursday, I bought Sally a bunch of flowers from the local florist, Marie. Had a good chat with Marie who is learning English. She practiced that and I practiced my French. This is the first bunch of flowers I have bought Sally in the three years we have been here. In my defence, however, we are not normally here long enough to make such a purchase worthwhile.   On the way back from the fl...

  The first good solid day’s work of the visit – even if we did stop the hard work just before 15:30. Gave a first coat of varnish to the wooden banister that runs between the ground floor an the first floor. Sprayed the entire roof of the cave with woodworm treatment, applied and removed paint stripper to the steps of the ground/first floor stairs at the back and sides where the floor sander will struggle to reach. And did a little filling and rubbing down around the stairs too. Sally scrubbed the steps of the stairs with a mix of whiter spirit and meths to give the bare wood a general clean (before I applied the paint stripper and she cleaned up a dozen tiles that we need to put up in the shower-room to replace missing ones. She also had a play with her new sewing machine – she approves. Dinner was a very nice chicken stir-fry.

 Tuesday - Day gets off to a good start with a £50 Premium Bond win. It looks like another lovely day (yesterday was good too – being the first dry day of the visit). A plumber I’d reached out to yesterday got back in touch. €120 for a full service of the boiler, with new jets. Seems reasonable. Had planned to sand the stairs (Sally) and re-treat the cave’s woodworm (me), but somehow that never happened. Instead, a fairly laid-back day. Had a stroll through town before lunch as it was such a nice day and ended the day with a pizza from the pizzeria at the top of the road.  During the stroll we explored one of the guard towers on the old wall. There was a small room next to the main guardroom. Turned out to be an en-suite drop-loo. Basically a plank over a hole that deposts one's doing at the other side of the wall. Beware anyone scaling the wall at that point! At the end of the walk we stopped at a local bar for a drink. I made the mistake of ordering a "petite bierrre". ...

  Sunday - Another shopping trip on the bikes, mainly as we have a guest for lunch tomorrow – but also to stock up on wine (including a bottle of Champagne courtesy of Natasha for Father’s Day).   We also got a few items for the ‘new’ freezer which was now powered on and apparently working fine. On the way to the supermarche I spotted a wallet on the path. It was full of cards and cash and, fortunately, ID cards. I asked at the Tourist Information where I should report such a find and they directed me to the local Gendarmerie. The Gendarmerie was far more secure than a British police station – and they were not answering the buzzer at the front gate. Eventually they spotted me an let me in. Good deed for the day done I returned home, and we had some lunch. After lunch, and after 3 relatively lazy days, we got to work on the house. This afternoon’s project was the stairs between the ground and second floor. Sally got to work (doing the harder job) cleaning the steps with a ...

  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 ...