I May Have Spoken Too Soon !

It’s been a good week so far. After four phone calls, I’ve got a window guy coming round on Friday to quote, plus my good buddy Paul aka Mr Beast is arriving in a few days to add his expertise and practical building skills to the project. Also I think I’ve found a local electrician who is willing to work with us and seems to understand what we want to create and more importantly, how to design the electrical distribution system to do it.

This is a large project he told me. Fortunately, that’s not the way I look at it. It’s actually a series of much smaller projects, joined together to achieve a pleasing whole. Small chunks of clearly defined work are much easier to control from the time, quality and cost perspective. Anyway, I just don’t fancy managing a large electrical sub-contract, so we’re both going to have to see it my way, haha!

Actually getting this important specialist part of the project underway is a blessing, as I’ve known for a while that we need to increase the power supply capacity. If this wasn’t pretty obvious from our need to supply power to many additional buildings, then the fact that the power currently trips out whenever I’m cooking with the washing machine or tumble dryer going really gives the game away! For the technically minded (Roger, hello chum) the total power supplied to the house is 20 amps, where it really should be four times that amount for modern living.

Call that snow?

Another good friend woke me early on Monday morning with a text message to tell me it was snowing in Hampshire, so feeling smug while enjoying this mild janvier, I was responding with suitable sarcasm, not to mention rudeness at being aroused from my sleep, when snatching a glance through the window to inspect my clear sky, what should I see but, well, snow! My post last week had me speaking too soon and the electrician was even saying how unusually mild it was, as there was often a frost and even snow was not unknown!! My head is hung in shame, but what a difference a day of snow makes. The village and surrounding vineyards have turned into a Christmas cake tin picture.

Now that's more like it

Note to self: buy more soup, we may be stuck here for a while!

The snow started really gently and I thought it would fizzle out like a damp firework, but it continued and grew in heaviness and by lunchtime, I had to admit defeat and all plans for finishing off the barn dig were abandoned. I did however dress up and took a walk to the Mairie to post my notice of actually starting the building work through their letterbox and took my camera with me. I even received an invite to a snowball fight, but my precious camera stopped me from decimating the trio of yoofs with an intensive neigeblitz, so they lived to tell the tale of how they drove the anglais away!

As pretty as it is, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for no more snow, as I’d like to get some more work done on the barn without dressing up like Nanook of the Loire!

More soon, TTFN 

LC

The pretty courtyard garden

Everyone is staying in today

Blanketed vineyards

Happy New Year

 

Here we are again, as happy as can be in the deep mid-winter of the Loire Valley and I’m very pleased to say that it’s as mild as I was quietly hoping for. We’ve all heard exaggerated claims from people who live somewhere gorgeous in the summer, as they tell you it never snows, freezes, or rains much and the winters are short and mild. Well, it seems to be true here, at least as far as January is concerned and I’ve recorded 11 to 12 degrees C over the past week in mid-afternoon. There has been no frost yet and hardly any rain, although it did blow a bit in December and I noticed a couple of slates have blown off a damaged eaves section of the barn roof.

I’ve dug so much rock out of the barn since I’ve been back this last week, that my hands and particularly the finger joints are rather sore, so anti-inflammatory drugs in hand, I’m taking a couple of admin days and now have a local electrician coming to price some work on Friday and have commented back this morning to the webmasters on the latest draft of our website. It’s looking a bit fab and groovy ;~)

I’ve also taken some pics of the dig only to find I didn’t have the camera to pc cable in my bag when I came to download them, so am unable to post new photos here until the new one arrives from Hong Kong. This is via ebay at a modest $5.00 US delivered to by French letter box. Not only am I more cynical these days, but firmly believe in the words, ‘If it seems too good to be true, it probably is’. But hey, I am desperate and 5 bucks is an easy punt, so fingers crossed (if I was able!) and hopefully the Chinese New Year won’t delay my stringy thingy too long.

Right, I’m off food shopping and also some jolly bloke’s shopping on the way back in the form of a big bad pressure washer. Getting wet is usually fun!!

TTFN  LC