Off to Provence! Maybe.

Well we won a Gate on eBay FR. Of course he won’t ship it, of course. Therefore we must go and get it, all 377 miles down and 377 miles back. We won’t do this in one day either, two down and one back is the current plan. The Gate? It’s to replace the gate we now have between the alley and the courtyard which is of some fine wood with a twirly-gurley art nouveau iron gate, much more in keeping with the olde ruin than the somewhat plain-jane wooden one. The new (old wreck really) gate is located deep in the south of France very near Nice. in the hills just beyond the coast. It’s all rusted and sad looking now but after we load it on the roof of the trusty ol’ Avensis and haul it back I’ll see if my friend R or A&R will/can sandblast the bad stuff off, I’ll apply a metal primer and we’ll paint it black. We bought the bloody thing for about 165 Euros…at the current exchange rate that’s $257.40 USD. That’s cheap as these things can go up to $2000 depending on style and condition. Old iron sells. New ones are ok…boring but available, olde ones suitable to us for this house are NOT so available and thus you must use eBay to find them and typically they are expensive. This one’s pics on eBay FR were awful, I had to enhance them with Photoshop so we could eye it with some detail. Looks good.
NOTE: At least it DID…as the seller guy has now returned our payment! Huh? So we write back once again to straighten this mess out hopefully and schedule the trip. Oh Jezz.

A Sunny Saturday Peeling Wallpaper

Isn’t peeling wallpaper FUN! The sound of the 2″ strips just ripping off the wall sends chills through my spine in anticipation of the wonder beneith. Shit. The room in question is the old dining room next to the Little Kitchen, the green and pale green and yellowed dirty white paisley pattern had finally worked it’s magic on our brains and Kelly started and I soon picked up the task as well. Scrape, pull, rip, climb, scrape, pull, rip, scrape, rip…on and on for hours and up and down on the ladders to get to some of the more inaccessible locations behind water pipes and bizarre electrical thing-a-majigs…brother. A beautiful Saturday like this set to waste with this awful task, what is wrong with us?! Furry just walks into the room, it’s floor coverred with thousands of 2″ X 2″ peices of ancient wallpaper and looks around, up and down at it as if to say, “Why did you screw up my purr-fectly good sitting room where I can vomit in peace under the lovely grey chairs?! Why?” Because we are DRIVEN you useless furball! Driven!
___
We grow ever closer to having the bottom story of the olde place recoverred if not entirely refurbished…at least it looks better to US than it did, whether or not we have gotten the sequence right or not, well that is a question isn’t it? Who knows, maybe we’ll have to pull some of our cover-work down and fix a leak pipe or two, or rebuild the wall or…who knows? It’s an olde place, it’s been here longer than you dear reader, I and Kelly PLUS our two cats have been alive and I suspect it will do as well FAAAAR into the future. Once we sell the little house and get that money into our hot little worn out hands (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=130234244587&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=003 to see it and
MORE PICS AT http://flickr.com/photos/hnlute/ Go to SETS then click on DIX or go straight to the pictures of the house at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hnlute/sets/72157605912040170/ )
the roof will be assessed once again and a brand new INSULATED one will be installed by SOMEONE ELSE! Then what? Well, we have a plan to build a veranda structure between the two wings in the form of one of the lovely iron ones common in Paris. All glass and arty-like. We like the one we had built for us in Suisun a few years ago so much we’d like to replicate it here in sunny and warm Lignieres. We shall see what time tells us.
___
What I wonder is how the hell we are going to get HERE next spring what with all the airline cuts. Booking the journey ought to be a thrill that’s for sure, big bucks and few flights with many more stops. Shit!

Oops, arrived in New Zealand

Yes, I poked out of the sands of a beach on the south island and was NOT in China. Drank a fine Guinness Stout in a local pub and returned to my hole to turn right and head to China in a NEW Hole! Yes, another hole. I bissected the original pipe find and collaborated with the one coming from under my kitchen. A new spot. I took the 6 ft breaker bar and began the dig. We shall see if China reveals herself one day real soon now. We also read the notice given us by the Veolia man, it notes that we have ONE YEAR to complete this rerouting. Hmmmm.
___
Else, tore into the doorway wall this morning to see if the material used on the right side was also used on the left side, one never knows in these ruins. It appears it is of the same construction and so now I’ll de-nude BOTH walls and the ceiling over the opening as well. The MUR (Wall) through which the doorway proceeds is some 24 inches thick of waddle and daub as they call it…basically mud and rocks (typical olde construction method) and the openning to the dining room is coverred with a very fragile layer of 1/2″ thick unglazed tiles of varying sizes. Interesting… yes, delicate… yes, rustic… yes. What’s to “NO” about? Well poopsie…if I shatter, break, chip, any of these fine tiles I will get to glue them back together as nowhere on this earth will you find ANYTHING like these except possibly buried behind some grass hut in outer Mongolia or maybe Botswana.
___
Then I tore apart an old picture frame and remade it in a different size for a print we got when we were in Scotland some 15 years ago! It’s finally getting FRAMED in France! Amazing. Yhe whole IDEA of framing pictures in cut down frames from an early time period…seems nice, easy, cheap and ecological on some remote level. In reality it is a far more DIFFICULT thing to do as accuracy COUNTS and true 45 degree CUTS COUNT and I’m apparently not that capable as three of 4 joints are good…c- work, decent fit, small chips etc. and ONE joint is a friggin’ mess of out of angle cuts and chips the size of the frame itself. It’s NOT the saws I’m using either…it’s ME! I need more practice you say, sure I do…but there is little time left for practice, this IS the real world, measure twice = cut once (old adage) abd get on with it! I do…and I’ve cited the results. Shit! I have another sitting up in the grenier (attic) to tackle any day now that I want to feel inadequate.

#94 Sundai School in Chezal Benoit

#94
Not just ANY Sunday either! Chezal – Benoit (Che-sahl – Ben-Wha) was having it’s annual Brocante (junk sale) and mental health summit. You see Chezal – Benoiy is the home of a Mental Hospital and the sellers occupy the town right up to it’s gate. Too, many of the patients are present adding their own color and grunts to the event. L came to the Ruin at 9 am and while she made the huge green salad for the party we were attending afterwards at A&R’s, Kelly and I scrambled to both wake up from the party the afternoon and early evening of Saturday (yes we do these things serially it seems) (where 5 of us drank 7 bottles of the finest below 2 Euros sparkling wine and wine). I made Spinach Canneloni and it was very, very good if I do say so myself. Followed some hours later by a Pasta Povera with garlic, capers. It always works, a very simple dish that I’ve described in my blog before. That was Saturday’s food scene, Sunday afternoons at our friends A&R’s was an Asian-styled food fest. A and R had preped vegies galore, carrots, radishes, green and red bell peppers, onions, lemons and had various bottled sauces and condiments. I was put in charge by the Master Chef herself who provided me with the valued kitchen support I needed to create an asian feast. It was great creative fun and there was more than enough food at the end for A&R to have leftovers for two meals at least! I came up with Oyster Sauce Beef, Musselman Curry, Vietnamese Lemon Pork, Red Pepper Chicken, Chop Suey (YES!), and a couple of other ad hoc dishes thrown in for good measure. All over rice, thai rice noodles. Much wine was drank, as usual. The French couple from up the road (Chicken Farm) chatted amiably with all of us, in French of course…but we seemed to rise to the occassion. I had a bit of trouble understanding which isn’t unusual as the speed at which the French speak is, at times, intimidating. They also brought along their own product…goat cheeses from their heard of Goats, it was, without doubt, the FINEST goat cheese I have EVER enjoyed! The Ash coverred round loaf was spectacularly good. Wonderful light texture and a lemony aftertaste that just faded to the next bite. Anyway, we all enjoyed ourselves emmensly in A&R’s sunroom under ever darkening skies and eventually the late afternoon pouring rains. Here’s the link to the YouTube movie of the Brocante we enjoyed in the morning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT6Ztt_Iz1o
What a lovely day, rain or not. Great fun with great people, tons of chat and laughs galore, Life hardly could be better than this.

Off to China…

I have begun The Search. Pipes, drains for the precious water system, Blackwater (shit) and Rainwater (fresh almost) exist somewhere in the olde courtyard. The Veolia inspector person indicated they ran adjacent to the new ancient kitchen. Sure. And, of course, the ONLY fault in our entire dye inspected system was MY connection of the olde kitchen’s sink to the rainwater downpipe from the roof. Seemed convienent. Damn. So I have begun The Dig. I have “sign”, an old rusted bottle cap at 12 inches and a fragment of a plate found about 16″ under the surface. But no sign of an actual PIPE carrying actual shit. I have three tools for this project, 4 if you count me. A 6 foot breaker bar, a square tipped shovel and a gardening hoe-type tool. I chose a spot between the kitchen and where the effulent comes out of the showerroom and disappears into the ground at some oblique angle. Who knows? This could take a while especially at the rate that I dig.

___
The front window painting exercize is going forward while I lurch dirt into the pile in the courtyard. Kelly is scraping away, it’s looking better as she goes. She is also painting the coffee table black that I have set up in the courtyard on metal sawhorses. She says she is in her Black Phase, guess so.
___
No Lean came out of the kitchen to examine the courtyard with me in it. She ringed the area sniffing here and there and chewing whatever vomit-grass she could locate. That promises a little wet surprise somewhere real-soon-now. Nice…cats.
___
The language lesson yesterday at A&R’s went off pretty well, embarrassment was at it’s height as no one there other than A herself can say much in Francaise at all. We all listened attentively at Don as he gave some language theory and explained verb endings to his languid class. Remember, these are all native English speakers, it is 6pm nearing dinner time and their brains are challenged by French no matter what. Mine certainly is. We yawned a bit, listened intently and had a generally swell time. Next time we are at the teacher’s house. He wouldn’t accept our payment either so we decided to pool the monies and do something wonderful with it when this exercize has reached some natural ending. Buy the teacher a nice bottle of scotch and a straw was one suggestion.

Une Petite Francaise SVP

That’s all it really takes, a LITTLE French. Be polite, address all persons as vous, si vous plait is good all the time. CA VA! (How are you – to those with whom you have a standing friendship andhave been properly told that now we can be familiar) To which one replies Ca Va! back (I’m ok). Well today is Tuesday and our friend Don who is a retired language teacher is taking on our little groups need for French tutorage par groupe, oh lord, help him! After 6 years of visiting this lovely, genteel land our grasp of it’s language is abouton the level of a 2 year old (or less!). It’s NOT for lack of trying, we have many CD’s, this course and that course, have taken courses at the local tourist board til we drove them mad, and commuted one a week to Berkeley to bang French into our heads. Little sticks but what does is in the present tense almost always, NOTHING comes naturally. So today we will begin yet again to learn a bit of French for the sakes of the oh so friendly French folk in and about our village and environs. Sure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsfV-ZL4rUo&NR=1
___
The black paint job is through for now, now we must scrape off the over-painting on the glass of a million panels, oh boy. So I do a panel or two, scrape, scrape, brush, scrape and I soon tire of this and wander off and Kelly grabs the scraper and razor blade and goes to work on it. This will take a while. I want to get on with the cloth hanging but it takes laying out and pattern matching before it can be hung. It will be one very dramatic entrance to the old girl, the pattern is Japanesey black on a subtle gold in big swirly things that dance along edge to edge almost. The curtains are going to be a lighter gold with a little texture in them, the whole effect should be stunning…perhaps too stunning. No matter, as soon as this scraping activity is done we will have at it.
___
I brought over my oil painting “bits” (a UK word meaning…things), brushes, media, linseed oil, tubes of paints, the whole bloody mess. When will I paint? I dunno, I never know…If I get inspiration I’m often unmotivated and if I’m unmotivated my inspiration fades and I’m back at square one again. It’s the opposite of procrastination where you should do something but you put it off. This takes less effort. Nonetheless the stuff is here, I have canvasses and we’ll see what time does.
___
Back to the scrapings,
H

Another Day in a Lazy Paradise

Yawn…up at 6am, I looked out the window of the comp room where I slept last night to see a grey and cloudy sky. Oh well, off to the computer to read the emails, if any, and see what the weather sensors have detected overnight. It is a passion of mine, the weather is, I study the situation day by day trying to sort out the forecast for the next WHILE. Kelly’s knees are far more accurate than any local forecast we get from the TV.
Mine , however, are more personal and I have INSIDE information, don’t I? Today was not sunny, overcast and grey as could be all afternoon. We worked around the house this morning then in need of paint, nails and a few other hardware items we left at about 1:30pm bound for St. Amand’s Brico Marche. I needed potting soil, some exterior wood glue and some wall fasteners, Kelly needed paint. We found our items and found each other and proceeded to the checkout cashier. As it turned out she had inadvertly bought MAT paint so after the discovery at the car returned to the store to trade in the 2.5 liter carton of MAT for the more desirable Semi-gloss. She also bought the black glossy she wanted to finish the mullions of the waiting room exterior.
The whole works is spectacular.

The Donkey Faire

Monday 12 May, 2008
Today is the BIG DAY! The donkeys are coming, the donkeys are coming! I was up early to witness the arrivals, donkeys from everywhere in France in one’s, twos, tens, tied to rails in the Champ du Foire (Fair Field). Beautiful, noisy and a cause to celebrate Asses of the 4 legged variety. Our hope this year was that the weather would be nice instead of the storminess of last years version. Up early, at dawn, for no good reason (part of ageing) I looked out the comp rm window and the skies were clear. Whoopee! Even before dawn the trucks were lining up to deliver thier braying hoards onto the Champ (shaw-mp). I grabbed my trusty Nikon Coolpix S10 and set it to movie and left the house bound to see the beginnings of todays Big Event in Lignieres. The movies are in two parts, each about 5 minutes in length. Just click the links below.

The Donkey Faire Continued:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbBHfJCNu2U

Too big to upload? Who knows, I’ve tried three times now to no avail so just click the link and watch it on YouTube. Sorry.

After the 2nd video (about 11:30) I returned to the house to prepare for our late afternoon lunch for 10. My grand idea for this gathering was to have the group make thie own sandwiches. Well…that’s how I set the table up, you know…plates of onion rings, tomato slices, pre-cut bagettes, lettuce leaves etc. and a big salad. This was to be made easier by the addition of leftovers from the meal the night before at A&R’s place. Easy to do, fun outdoor-sy at our now long table with the additional length furnished by my library table which I just completed. Sure. Wine by the bottle was soon flowing among the gathered group and conversations went off like firecrackers in every direction. I thought I made to announcement re:making your own sandwiches, but the second the plate of meats (chicken and pork) were deliverred to te table the group swarmed on them like hungry wolves. What sandwiches? Oh well, best laid plans and all of that. Much wine was drunk, the Vouvray Sparkling was especially delicious and made for a festive occassion. The party moved indoors with the coming of the late afternoon rain and we raided the bar closet for samples of the many bottles. Great fun was had by all as usual, Our Little Supper Club.

A Week of Warm Sun…

It’s true! A whole bloody week with some sun everyday and not a drop of H2O to go with it! Yippee! We had grown quite tired of the constant grey skies and rain routine that seemed to go on and on weeks at a time. Suddenly it’s Real Springtime! Birds, swallows, pigeons, tits, nightingales in and out of our backyard feeding station all day long, wonderful!
___
The Waiting Room project continues with Kelly painting the elaborate iron window frame with several coats of her own home-brewed color choice, looks nice. The small wall and the door still need the cloth covering and curtains are yet to be put up, but it is close, maybe this week. I opened up the wall at the entrance to the Dining Room, it was a constant wet source and the lower portion was soft, damaged and falling off of it’s own accord. It was, as expected, waddle and daub (rock and mud) covered by individual tiles of a light fired brick color, interesting as an artifact of much earlier times but not the wonderful STONE edifice we desired. I’ll do some wood mouldings around the doorway and cover it all up with a moisture barrier of some sort and a more modern equivalent of the horsehair plaster that someone used a century or two ago.
___
Today and tomorrow are (today) Pentacost (Everything you EVER wanted to know about this celebration is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentacost ) and the Monday after, so what do you say you heathen, ok, ok, it’s The Donkey Faire in Lignieres! Two days of Merguez and frits, red wine, crowds, agricultural sights and sounds and donkey shit by the bagful! Terrific as long as the weather holds out. Last year it was not a nice day. Wet and sloppy, cold too boot. I have a short video of it on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qNxC0srBJo . Today Sunday is the Opening Day and Tomorrow is The Big Day. Difference? Dunno, but there’s LOTS of Donkeys arriving today, tomorrow they will already BE here and there’s more shit on the ground. It’s a wondrous thing to behold, donkeys and their keepers from all over France and a few from other European countries. They come to show them, buy them and sell them and all the gear that goes with. It’s a great rural France scene. Not to be missed.
___
I built a Library Table this last week, used the Sapin pine panels for the lumber as I had downfall from the Waiting Room bookcase project of last week. The table was simple to build and came out quite well if I must say so myself. Not to be used in the library though, more as a utility table, another flat surface to fill with papers and tools and reading materials AND mostly as an adjunct to our outside table so we can accommodate more persons for summer lunches and dinners outside.
___
We had dinner with our Scottish friends Danny and Wanda last night, she is a wonderful cook and I appreciate and invite to their table anytime. We sat outside amidst there sizeable garden which we toured before dinner. Row after neat row of every vegetable important to cooking, it is very impressive, Alice Waters would be proud. We drank more wine and nibbled then went inside to have one very fine meal of Roast Leg of Lamb, Scalloped Potatoes, Green Beans. a fine rich gravy from the pan drippings, a very fresh green salad with her special dressing (I MUST get that recipe) followed by a cheese course (It IS France after all!), and a lovely gelatine, mandarin orange with cream trifle as dessert. Wonderful all. We finished the night with scotches outside under a clear and dark, dark sky. A very easy and wonderful way to end the week. I’d be happy to pay for it!

A Beautiful Warm Sunday In The Berry

Blog Entry Sunday May 4th, 2008
Sun in the morning, warm soothing sun, even the cats notice. Two days in a row now, a record. We had scheduled to go to a neighboring villages brocante with Raj and Nannette. They came over at 9:30, we shared coffee and happy chatter and off we went to see what gems we could find among the piles and piles of rusted junk and plastic crap that a few hundred souls are attempting to foist off to the public. The ride was without incident, we parked outside the town center in a huge feild with a topping of very wet grass and wildflowers, very soppy this. We walked each aisle, gawking at the offerings, old keys, rusted tools, baby rattles, plates, kitchen implements etc. The warmth of the sun made the day festive and kept everyone moving along.
Along with all the vendors there was a rather expansive display of old and classic cars, SIMCA, Pougeot, a Pontiac Firebird for god’s sakes, an 80’s Cadillac, a bright red and PERFECT Ferrari Testarossa 512 and many others. It was great fun looking at them all lined up adjacent to the village church as it rang it’s bells every hour. I spent some time taking pictures as I do and bent over staring at the interiors. What this said to me was that the French LOVE their cars as much as we do. A gathering of ancient tractors lined one street, 20 of them I counted, Old Massey Furgusons, Fords, Fiats, Pougeots and others I’ve never heard of before. All running, chug-a-chug-chug, wonderful sounds of deisels and gas engines of very old designs still running after all these years. While walking along we ran into first one then many of our friends enjoying the sun and the bussling atmosphere of the brocante. Later we gathered at the bar tent for a few beers and laughs. Another hour later off we went to head home satisfied that we had filtered the place of any object worth our time and fast evaporating money. To the field we walked to see yet another acquantance with his front tires buried in the sloppy soft mud, uh oh. In the distance we heard one of the ancient tractors fire up and slip into gear. Soon one rounded the bend and drove into the field, an old hit-and-miss two cylinder gas beast belching black smoke and eager for the challenge. HA! Hooked up in a few minutes it readily pulled the offended modern auto out of it’s hole and soon it was on it’s way home. The driver of the tractor refused payment offered by the cars owner and just smiled and waved as he chugged along returning to the line up back in the village, a job well done!