Timeline: Late May 2013. The start of our
letting season was almost upon us, we turned over the gardens once more and
sowed grass seed in glorious sunshine, which turned into a week or scorched
heat in the high 30s to low 40s. I finally bought a 40 metre hose and gave it a good soaking and true to
form, it rained all through the night. Typical! However, we had a truly wonderful
time when our great friends Alistair and June stayed with us a while en-route
to their lovely town house in Provence and enjoyed several
vineyard tastings as well as a special evening enjoying the organically
produced wines of Chateau de Passavant. The evening was hosted in the
magnificent grounds of the chateau, by owner and vigneron Francois, who speaks
perfect English and is an entertaining host and passionate about his production
methods.
We were removing the scaffolding from our small gîte, the Maison
d’Amis, just an hour before our friends arrived, after two weeks of preparing
and applying new lime rendering. The recipe of one part lime to five of local
sand gives the typical colour seen on houses here and also lets the structure
breath and move in a natural way that should be good for another 60 years or
so. As the end of May reached us, our good friends wandered
south and the bride and I returned to the UK to keep a couple of
appointments although I was back a couple of days later with just 6 days before
the arrival of our guests.
The cottage was just about there, but the courtyard still needed
numerous doors and shutters to various outbuildings, some serious moving of
builder’s rubbish, gravel spreading and a couple of pages of small but
important jobs carrying out. Very long days were worked and our good friend
Sarah, wife of our electrician came over on the Thursday and Friday afternoons
and cleaned the gîte and utility room to the highest standard and it looked
simply beautiful. She also told me that the bed sheets needed ironing and after
showing me how to iron (something I hadn’t attempted for well over 30 years), I
ironed the new cotton sheets and pillow cases. Wow, me domesticated, or
what?!!! The made bed did look as good as any I’ve seen in an hotel though.
Saturday morning left me with just a
smallish list of jobs to do, which I set about in strict priority. After fixing
our new sign to the gates, I realised with surprise, that we’d now reached a
waypoint here; the stage where we were ready to share our space with others and
welcome guests into our home. I desperately wished the bride was with me, as
she deserved to share this pivotal moment, so I phoned her, screwdriver still
in hand and told her how proud I was that our long held vision had finally become
reality.
Our guests were driving up from the south coast and were not
expected until late, but I was aiming to be substantially complete by 16h00.
Just as well mind you, since they arrived at 16h15 as I was still pottering
about in dirty jeans and tee shirt. Oops!
 |
| Now complete with satellite TV and a new door upstairs |
The
little cottage had received numerous finishing touches and was looking and
smelling rather splendid (thanks to good ol’ Yankee Candle Co and their ‘cut
roses’). Fortunately our clients share those thoughts as they provided that
final essence to finally put the living breath back into the little cottage.
I had
the camera ready to take interior shots, but due to early guest arrival,
they’ll have to wait until the weekend!
A well timed bonus was the arrival of the new oak
door and frame to the loft suite at the top of the cottage. Our skilled artisan
carpenter created a handcrafted piece of art that represents what the tired
200 year old door would have originally looked like and also provides a secure
and completely weathtight entry to Le Grenier. We still have the old door and
will find a suitable resting place for it to live on as part of the heritage of
Le Clos de la Rose.
We have a planning meeting next week as we work up to start on the
interior of the barn. Concrete kitchen floor and temporary staircase first, but
many decisions to take of where we put things first and I’m getting excited
with the prospect of working on our own home at last.
I better go and do some work, so catch you next time. Be good and
have fun.
A bientôt,
LC
