Four Seasons in One Day !

Timeline: 14 mars: February last year was really cold, just a look back in this blog will show you what I mean. It’s been reassuring to know that last year’s extremely cold winter was not the norm and late February 2013 saw me sunbathing on the terrace in just a pair of shorts. It was 15 deg in the shade but a barmy 25 deg in direct sunshine and we had temperatures in the mid-teens for a whole week, followed by rain, hail and general cold and dampness, then snow, although only very little and now it’s fortunately warming up again. The weather forecast however, varies depending which website you look at, but the consensus indicates a steady rise now and I’ve today declared official springtime in the village. Just as well, as we started taking the roof off the barn this week and I don’t want it full of snow or people sliding down a slippery slope.

Work is proceeding on several fronts, with the Maison d’Amis  really looking lovely inside now with its new paint scheme and just some wall panelling and skirting boards to finish. Besides the work to the barn roof and chimney, as soon as the ground is a little softer, we’ll start preparing he gardens for sowing grass seed and put in some roses and a few other plants and look to create some peaceful rest areas.

After looking at several letting websites, we registered with Owners Direct a couple of weeks ago and have received a steady stream of enquiries and have just taken our first new booking of the year. Our maçon and friend, Eric, called in yesterday to look at some more work for us and told me about his own gites being fully booked from May until September, mainly from repeat clients. I like the sound of repeat clients, as it makes the marketing tariff so much lower!

I hope to bring our old Citroen here next month, it having received a full medical and some minor procedures from a specialist recently and I’ll then have the challenge of the notorious French system of red tape to negotiate in getting Andre (all our cars have always had names) registered here. It will be grand to see him wearing a French 49 registration again after 20 plus years under the DVLA.

I’ve just noticed that more than a trace of the maison d’amis colour scheme is still decorating my hands, so I’d better give them a scrub a’dub when I go and get my overalls out of the wash, ready for tomorrows exciting exploits.

Enjoys yourselves everyone, a bientôt,

LC

Oh, how could I forget that great big truck which was reversed skilfully into the courtyard yesterday to discharge some goodies:

Just a couple of photos of Le Grenier, our large upstairs suite above the Maison d'Amis, nearing completion.More photos to follow.

 

Much sanding of beams !

Paint coming soon

 

New Year Winter Blues

Our latest guests departed on the 2^nd day of the year and sadly took the bride with them back to the UK. Since then, this past month has given various troubles to cope with including snow, man flu, truculent work force and a failure of electrical power. Obviously the man flu was the hardest to cope with !

I’ll be much happier when we’re all here together as a family unit for good (me, the bride and our cats), but in the meantime our house in the UK continues to be de-cluttered and the bride pays frequent visits to check up on the building works.

Our little gîte, the Maison d’Amis, proved to be a warm and cosy nest for its first use guest and although we had insufficient time to fully decorate it, Sally felt comfortable enough to risk coming back again with her daughter in May. In order to ensure it measures up to our own expectations, I’m currently staying here myself and am working my way through a list of additions and refinements to make staying here even more of a joy.

I’ve also been working in the Grenier above and besides sanding and oiling the exposed roof timbers, I’ve been exercising my new found woodworking skills, as I finish off some unfinished joinery work started by our departed help. I’m confidently planning to install some timber wall panelling, a built in wardrobe, shelving and cabinets, so watch this space.

Last week’s gusts of wind reminded me to do something about the roof on our open hangar. This structure is destined to be covered guest parking and the corrugated iron roof will be quite in keeping with the enhanced rustic charm we are striving to achieve. Kevin our roofer called in the other day to look at the hangar and besides attending to this, reckons he can start the barn roof, weather permitting by mid February. That’s one of the major tasks on the barn and brings our moving in date forward at least in our minds. 

Still needs paint !

Loving the new hob !

I’m getting used to the new Maison d’Ami's kitchen and fortunately, that ‘new cooker smell’ when you fire up the oven for the first few times has gratefully gone and I’m also now a firm believer in the benefits of ceramic hobs, as they heat up almost as fast as gas and are so easy to clean and even provide an occasional extra work surface!

As I’ve finished my cup of ‘builders’, I have little excuse not to get back to work, so it's a cheery ttfn from moi as we are looking forward to the new life of spring and the warmer weather.

A bientôt,

LC

Tanks, Dangerous Scooters and Castles

Timeline: just before Christmas: The arrival of the bride into Nantes airport four days before Christmas was a joyous occasion, as work at Le Clos de la Rose had been going well and since I had not had a day off for two months, I was secretly looking forward to a rest. The trouble was that my mind and body was now wired to working long days and since we had a party of wild animals coming, oops, sorry, a group of wild party animals arriving to celebrate the New Year, I was reluctant to let my mind or my body slow down quite yet.

The Maison du Vigneron had been completed for months now, so needed just a thorough clean, a splash of Christmas decorations and a few odd jobs to make ready, while the Maison d’Amis was not quite finished, still requiring cleaning, furnishing and painting and I hadn’t completely decided on the colour pallete.

There was however an issue. Not a problem, all such entities having long been eradicated in favour of the easier to contemplate challenge and we’ve faced plenty of those. No, not even a challenge this time, but an issue and one relating to not having walls anywhere near straight or perpendicular. You’d have thought the many challenges facing builders two hundred years ago, would not have included building straight and vertical, but well, there you have it. As we needed a reasonable wall surface for the new kitchen, this necessitated the liberal application of rather thick plaster in places and that meant long drying times, even more so due to the fact we were using lime plaster, in keeping with our sympathetic restoration ethic. Yes, it takes an age to dry out, so there’ll be no painting this year.

Fortunately, lime plaster has a wonderful texture and when dry, a clean white colour. While drying however, it has a patchy, smelly, grey colour, so the heating was whacked up, rugs, curtains, pictures and some Christmas decs added and we then had a tidy, cosy retreat.

Needs paint!

Really comfy IKEA sofa

The colour pallete incidentally, unless the bride informs me otherwise, is very pale yellow walls, white skirtings and ceilings and pale green beams. The beams have been pale green for some 50 years or more, so why upset them now?

We were both hard at work right up to and including Christmas Eve, when we downed tools and took Christmas Day off. For a small village of 1300 people, we are blessed with a 12th century collegiate (teaching) church the size of a cathedral and we wanted to spend a part of Christmas within it, surrounded by its living beauty, spiritual tranquillity and to experience the power and solemnity of a living village rejoicing at the heart of its community.

The couple of hundred or so people who turned out were dwarfed by the scale of the interior, but we realised with surprise that we recognised many of them and we all sung our hearts out and felt even more privileged than usual to be able to live in such a special place as we walked home afterwards.

The morning of the 28^th saw us eager for our guests to arrive . . . so we could stop working and take a break and so it was with shovel in hand, moving a last bit of spoil left over from a recently filled in drain trench, that I heard two cars stop outside the gates. Hmm, what will they think? Will they like it? I’ll just copy and paste part of our guest and lovely new friend, Julie’s review:

''We arrived after a leisurely drive of just under 3 hours from St Malo and swept through the gate posts of lovely honey coloured stone into the courtyard and several days of bliss…. ''

It was indeed bliss and my mind or body never thought of resisting the need to party. My liver did cough a few times, demanding quantities of mineral water to make his work a little easier, but we all had a ball and I even got my hair cut, courtesy of my visiting hairdresser, my sister, who had brought the assorted revellers along.

The days were remarkably mild and sunny and Martin and Julie were keen to visit the tank museum in Saumur, while the others wanted to enrich themselves with more traditional French culture. I rode shotgun to the tanks and being someone who likes museums of all things mechanical, I was mightily impressed with the largest collection of tanks and associated artefacts from around the world, as were both Julie and Martin. My favourite was a combination of Vespa motor scooter and cannon, the latter being longer than the former. Absolutely bonkers! The famous instructions, ‘light blue touch paper and run away’ sprung to mind.

Several hours passed quickly and so engrossed were we in the exhibits, that we forgot about one of mankind’s basic needs, food, so after a quick walk around the beautiful chateau and a visit to one of the medieval timber framed houses in the centre of Saumur now converted into a creperie, we stocked up on some more wine before returning home for more merriment.

The New Year celebrations were fabulous, with seven of us gathered around the farmhouse kitchen table for a very slow meal, fast paced discussion and board games with some dubious moves, which we all got away with.

I must give a big thank you to Maggie for cutting my hair and making me look and feel human again, to Roger for despite coming down with serious man flu, still managing to fit all the new spotlights to our nearly completed Atelier suite, to Martin for breathing life into my old and trusty notepad pc and also putting some real security into our wi-fi set-up, to Julie for liking tanks so much and for such a lovely guest review, to Sally for a brilliant rendition of 'Hey Big Spender' and reminding me how much friends not seen for far too many years remain important to you and to the bride for being the love of my life. 

I’ll let Julie finish off this post, but not before saying that they have booked to return later this year and also for the retro Grand Prix in 2014. How cool is that ;~) 

''Bill and Letsie promise on their web site to ‘offer you respite from your busy lives in a pleasant environment, overlooking vineyards as far as the eye can see.’ Mission accomplished for us! Our visit left us relaxed and charmed by the whole experience and we will return!  Julie & Martin''

Leaving the village bar, a sad, yet regular event

A bientôt,

LC 

The Eagle Has Landed

Timeline: 6 December: Hello Houston, the Eagle has landed, touchdown, we are all systems go on that website! Another red letter day today with our website finally live. Take a look to see what we, well the bride mostly, has been up to lately at www.leclosdelarose.com

                                                                            

We already have two bookings for the end of May next year and work progresses on several fronts, both building and marketing, as well as securing more guest equipment and planning for a new venture on the classic car front.

The kitchen in the Maison d’Amis is almost finished, while the upstairs Grenier is beginning to look as splendid as I always knew it could.

My baby sis' and bro’ in law arrive with a tribe of party animals for the New Year, so we have been four to five strong on site lately getting the second gîte ready.

I still have two excavations open, for the new Maison d’Amis drains and a large hole outside the main gates for the poste du relevage, which will be filled in next week, so long as I can keep my hands above freezing point!

I better go and do more work, while it’s still a warmish 4 deg, so catch you soon.

A bientôt,

LC 

 

Well Tooled Up!

Timeline: October/November: We had a lively few days with our god daughter’s party, including her university friend, her sister and her sister’s boyfriend and despite a little precipitation, we got out and about to see a few sights in the three days before they departed to Italy and the USA. With two geologists, caves were very much on the menu and we managed two wonderful collections of these at Brézé and Doué, did some wine and cheese tastings, enjoyed the delights of the bustling Saumur Saturday market and hopefully left them with a flavour of the area, which I assure you is even better when not raining! On a personal note, we particularly enjoyed having Laura, Emily and their friends to stay and we wish we could see more of them and their family, whom we have known right back to our teenage years. Come back again guys, you are most welcome.

Although I was acting tour driver and guide, the bride and I managed to slip away and order our kitchen for the maison d’amis, just in time to get a sizable discount and are expecting delivery by the middle of November, when most of the work on the little house will be completed.

Having had to dash to the UK to attend to some matters, the ground floor of the maison d’amis had been transformed by clean fresh plasterwork thanks to Kevin’s first class skills, while plumbing and electrical works have also leapt forward and this little time capsule is coming back to life again with a smile on its face thanks to a skills of our hard working team.

We’ve now trying to get to grips with the magnificent, yet lack lustre oak beams. I’m also giving some thought on colour and texture of the walls and ceilings. A sympathetic look and feel for the age of the building is desirable and further research is necessary before we get closer to what this little cottage deserves. The floors however are remarkably easy, as they are the lovely and ancient tomette clay tiles to both floors, which need only cleaning and light restoration. We had to do a little jiggery pokery upstairs to get a structural metal tie rod to sit more or less flush with the floor tiles and the look of exposed metal now adds to the feel of the living heritage of this large bedroom suite. This is one of my favourite places on the whole site, as it’s already a wonderful space in which to contemplate the rest of the word from, having some fine stone features, magnificent timberwork, a high cathedral ceiling and the space filled with natural light.

Having obtained a sand blaster when in the UK, I needed an air compressor to power it and after some research into one of my seemingly favourite topics, namely ‘tools’, a shiny new twin cylinder 11 bar compressor with a 150 litre tank now sits in the workshop, together with a small, yet carefully selected collection of air tools, so useful for the cars as well as the building work.

Attempts of removing well bonded 100 year old rock hard lead paint from equally dense oak beams, even with such manly air-power tools, proved tedious as well as greedily consuming large quantities of grit, so the sand blaster will be reserved for the many other unpainted antique timer beams, while the ground floor timberwork will be rubbed down and painted white, together with the plaster ceiling. This will still be in keeping with the original treatment of the house decor and will give the ground floor a cleaner and lighter look than the previous two-tone green.

I had to relent slightly with the floor finish to the ground floor bathroom and selected some new grey and white ceramics for this slightly smaller room to maintain a comfortably cosy and cosseted feeling of intimacy.

Other than have modern doors everywhere, Paul has made all of the cupboard and wardrobe doors in the effort to preserve the hand crafted feel of the building. These will be sanded and waxed and then hung with appropriate hand finished ironwork furniture to complete the look. He’s also working on a new iron studded external door for the upstairs suite.

Autumn is well and truly with us now and we are still having plenty of sunny days, which is good for the external work. My brother in law is arriving in a few days to install the upgraded electrical site distribution network and I have some trenches to dig for these. Unfortunately, the mini digger company cannot deliver the machine for the foreseeable future, so it’s hand digging again for a couple of days, which is just as well now there are already numerous underground drains, water and electrical cables to avoid down there!

Next time: Preparations for Christmas, finishing off the maison d’amis and oh no . . . more digging in the dirt as the poste de relevage arrives!

A bientôt,

LC

Maison d'Amis

Timeline: September:  Now we have the main gîte pretty much completed, its time to get stuck into the little house, our lovely 18^th century listed cottage. We want to bring it back to life as our second gîte, providing a cosy retreat full of charm and original features. It is blessed with lovely tommette clay floor tiles to both floors, an old fireplace and chimney which although covered with multitudinous layers of green paint, hopefully will yield some stone underneath and then there are lots of beamed ceilings, stone niches, fossils and a fabulous exposed timber roof construction. Although a small building, like many structures this old, it has seen changes over the years and as we gradually strip back generations of paint and plaster, some old secrets are revealed. 
 

Maison d'amis, a centuries old time capsule

We discover a low level window opening with a curved head and adjacent door opening in the rear wall, both filled in with stonework at least a hundred years ago, as we have photographs this old showing the external staircase which blocks these openings. The roof line has been increased in height, with the line of the old roof and pockets for roof timbers clearly visible. Another external door is discovered at the front of the house, more recently blocked when the massive stone gate pillars where built. My suspicions are that the rear door and window are probably original to the house, possibly dating back several hundred years when the house was in its original form. The gate pillars were possibly only erected in the 19^th century when the property became more important as a part of a larger wine producing enterprise. More research will hopefully reveal further clues and one of our neighbours family used to own much of the properties in our road as part of their vineyard, so we have some local knowledge to hand.

My now good friend and stone mason Monsieur Deschamps has already created new window openings and we had new windows fitted in July and after many attempts of finding a roofer, the old roof covering was removed in September and as I write this on the 9^th October, the ridge tiles are just being finished and we have a new watertight roof.

  

In the last few weeks, Paul and I have moved a door opening, formed another, repaired various parts of he structure, constructed the timber stud partitioning to the ground and first floors and with great satisfaction, uncovered a stone fireplace beneath all that green paint! Paul has also put all the first fix waste and hot and cold water services, while Sparky Paul has done most of the first fix electrics. There are seemingly more electrical cables than on the space shuttle, but they’re all been hidden more or less away and the rest will soon be covered up by new plaster and plasterboard.

The bathroom (yes, a bath!) to the first floor

We also have had a new purpose made steel balustrade fabricated and expertly fitted by our local metalwork man and Thomas is a remarkable and happy individual to have on your team.

So that brings up pretty much up to date, although we are just about to accept a quotation for construction of a new chimney to the barn and the bride et moi are very much looking forward to the arrival of our god daughter Laura, her sister Emily and Em’s boyfriend Pete and Laura’s friend Olivia tomorrow. We haven’t seen Laura since her last trip to the UK two years ago and Emily since Laura’s High School graduation on Maine in 2006, so we have some catching up to do. Our local restaurant, which is normally closed on Wednesdays, is even opening specially for us to have a grand reunion dinner tomorrow night. How cool is that!

Next time: Masion d’amis, continued . . .

A bientôt,

LC

At Last, We Have Guests!

Timeline: Friday 20th July: (Slightly out of order, but I was so keen to share the joy of the road racing with everyone!) Good news, the gorgeous bride arrives next week in time to help prepare our first gîte for our very first real guests who arrive in a week. Bad news, our very first real guests are arriving in just one week and the place still looks like a building site! I suppose that’s because it is a building site and if we can pull this one off, it’ll be a very neat trick!

The gîte is just about complete upstairs and it looks pretty good with last week seeing the completion of the second bedroom, including a built in wardrobe, window cill and skirting boards, leaving just curtains and rugs to do. The ground floor and staircase however need completely decorating, new lighting installed, the kitchen refreshed, a media unit building, separation of the utility room and reception from gîte space and new pictures everywhere. The work is easy enough, at least with Paul’s carpentry skills and if we had two weeks, but then there is also the transformation of the building site outside into a tranquil and lovely courtyard space where people will want to spend quality time together and remind themselves what a wonderful holiday they are having.

We have a tabulated programme of work, itemised with daily tasks and we have already used up most of our ‘float time’ over the past two weeks of the three week schedule. Fortunately, a local builder gave us three days and built a beautiful paved terrace and cleared so much building detritus away, but I still need a ‘big statement’ to be evident one drives through the gates. So I order 24 tonnes of gravel, after discussing the probability of a juggernaut being able to get into the place to drop its load. 

The first of two gravel delivery trucks

Pool and terrace in a sea of gravel

The transformation was amazing with the addition of gravel a small pool on the terrace, a big BBQ, planting, garden furniture and the sound of a tasteful fountain tinkling in the background. We were pretty close to the feel we want our guests to find when stepping out of their car. It will be even better when more planting is completed and established with playful sights, sounds and smells to delight and entertain the senses. 

The 'secret' bathroom

All that sanding the floor paid off!

With the bride here to swell the workforce and with our good friend Sarah, who has quickly become one of the bride’s favourite people in the whole world, the girls soon had acquired all the items left on the shopping list to completed the equipping of the gîte and was looking even better than we hoped. Sarah went above and beyond the call of duty, giving up two precious days to help out and enabling me to stick at the build side of things with Paul in readying the place for our guests. Thanks Sarah, we owe you.

True to their word, Andy, Sue and daughter Hannah arrived spot on schedule at 19h00, as we were carrying out important last minute preparations, like opening the bottle of bubbles in welcome.

Despite an over long day of travel, they all managed to walk up to town for the night racing and a most excellent day was spent with them on the Sunday, when the village was filled with thousands of race enthusiasts.  

The next two weeks seemed to pass in a flash for us and hopefully not so quickly for our guests, who enjoyed a mixture of wine tastings at local vineyards, castles visits, troglodyte cave expeditions, a day at the local bioparc (a wonderful zoo for endangered species with an active breeding programme) and plenty of chillaxing time around the pool and barbeque.

Having Hannah here was a wonderful tonic and this bright and engaging almost six year old was as happy to entertain as be entertained. She even got Paul dancing and provided remarkably useful feedback for us on the child friendly front. She enjoyed playing with the hastily provided swing-ball set, as have many others, including the adults.

Our first guests proved to be excellent company and we have all become firm friends and were sad to have to wave goodbye, although they hope to be back again next year. Paul however, is providing a local wine delivery service for them at Christmas en route to his own festivities.

Yes, Christmas is just round the corner and we have five guests staying for a week of frivolity!

A bientôt,

LC