Our first wood delivery

One of the things we have found so frustrating in France is the lack of livraison or delivery. You can order huge amounts of stuff yet they seldom deliver.

Thankfully, when we bought the wood burner, we got it delivered. Just a well since it weighs hundreds of pounds, thanks to being cast iron. However, the delivery cost us an extra fifty Euros.

Pricey.

When we booked the winter supply of firewood, we had been led to believe that about two and a half  stères (about two and a half cubic metres) would be sufficient for a winter. So we order five - just to be on the safe side. 

Then a friend told us that they got through about fifteen to seventeen over winter and we immediately doubled our order to ten stères. We asked about delivery and the farmer's wife seemed to think it unusual that we would think they didn't. 

We set the delivery for Friday. 

Friday was bright warm and sunny and we waited for the man with the lorry, truck or tractor to trundle round the corner, but no. By six that evening, we rang and the man's wife couldn't have been more apologetic.

"We completely forgot," Penny was told.

Were were understandably annoyed, but at the same time happy that she had agreed that he would deliver the wood instead the next day.

The tractor and trailer we every bit as big as they look in the
picture, the wood piled high and dumped somewhat
unceremoniously on the road outside our garage.

Saturday, the weather was not at all pleasant. We had been shopping earlier and it had been teeming down. The sky was leaden and didn't look at all promising for the arrival of our wood - which had been set for two that afternoon.

Right on time, he turned up with his trailer and dumped the wood outside our garage. There seemed so much of it. 

"Oh this is only half," he told us and said he would try and get the rest to us later that afternoon.

Our friend had offered her help in getting the wood into the garage and we set about shifting five stères from the road into the garage. At least it wasn't raining by then.

It took about an hour or so for the three of us to move and stack the wood and once done, we settled for a hot drink in the lounge, only to be half way through when the telephone rang. It was the farmer's wife telling Penny he was on his way back with the second instalment.

This load was bigger than the first and no sooner had we started, it began raining.

At seven feet tall, three to four feet wide
and ten feet long, that's quite a few lumps of
wood

We slogged on with the moving and by about five that evening, finished, soaked to the skin and completely knackered.

It was hard work, but that's it now - hopefully - until next winter, when the whole process begins again, but then we will be more prepared, won't have builders in our garage or anywhere else on the property and can order it earlier so we might have more chance of it being fine for the work.

We might also have more of an idea how much we'll need, but it's an inexact science anyway, because it depends how cold it is and how soon winter and then spring arrive.

Nevertheless, it would be safe to say that there are three people in our village now that ache in places we didn't know we had!

Prior to this, we had no real idea what ten stères would look like, but as you can see, it's no small amount.

I was hoping to be able to work in the garage - making the airing cupboard in the bathroom and one or two other bits and pieces, but where we would have been able to fit our sizeable Volvo in the garage and open the doors, now I'd be lucky to get my bicycle in between the main stack of big bits and the little stack of smaller bits.

We can't wait to fire up the wood burner now though. 

Bring it on, winter!!

Will this torture never end?

The kitchen under siege from the builders ... The sofa, coffee table
and wood burner are all under tarps and polythene, but the wall
behind the wood burner has been rendered and looks nice

I had lofty ideas about becoming the next Peter Mayle when I first began writing these blogs.

Like Mr. Mayle, I had intended to employ a dry wit and impress you with a wry look at our exploits. However, despite us both coming from the same seaside town in the south-east of England and both of us choosing to renovate a house in France, there the resemblance ends.

For a start, when Mr. Mayle penned 'A Year In Provence', there weren't so many Brits purchasing those Gallic piles of stones in the belief they had got themselves a bargain. However, since the book, they have turned up in droves, armed with screwdrivers, hammers, half of B&Q and a look of grim determination on their faces. Hundreds, thousands or even more have flocked to the various regions of France to experience their own versions of that famous book.

Not only that, but many others jumped on the bandwagon and penned their own accounts, flooding the market and making what I'm doing here old hat.

So we have heard stories about people moving to France to start their lives in everything from B&B's to snail farms, holiday homes to permanent homes, small houses to chateaux, artist's retreats to music schools, with varying degrees of success ... or failure. Right now, we could fall into either category, as we haven't been in our house for a year yet.

The central heating control box that was removed from the
garage. No wonder the bloody thing did't work.
Looks like we got this renovation under way
just in time, eh?

We also failed to take into account what living in a house with two workmen busily working away day after day after day would be like while they were doing the plumbing, electrics, putting up two walls and creating a bathroom where once there was just empty space.

For the first three weeks, we thought of this process as nothing but a slight inconvenience; a hurdle, which didn't seem anything other than something to gently step over - once you got past the mountains of dust that was.

Last week however, everything changed ... dramatically. So writing the blog in anticipation of the success of our move to France might well have been jumping the gun somewhat.

There's a reason why Mr. Mayle wrote 'A Year In Provence' . It was because of the renovation process and as we have discovered, 'Four Months In Normandy' doesn't even come close to covering the building work, let alone the rest of the stuff that begins for us when the boys go home for the final time.

And we haven't got anywhere close to the time when we can say goodbye to the boys yet.

Our existing electrics cupboard. Note the three plates of
spaghetti dripping off the top. That's not all of it yet either.

We thought that the worst was over when the the cutting out of the office doorway had been completed, the walls erected, the brick dust settled and swept up - well, mostly anyway. Therefore, the so-called messy jobs were out of the way.

We were so sure of that, that we believed the rest would be plain sailing.

What a mistake that was.

If anything, the mess has increased with more holes being drilled in walls, cable everywhere and not an end date in sight.

Stress levels have gone through the roof and although I wanted to make this blog light and fun, this week has been anything but.

Monday evening, we had to move the majority of the kitchen stuff out of the kitchen and into the lounge so that wiring could begin in there, but for some reason, that didn't happen, turning up the stress level another notch. But I think the majority of stress is because it's been three full weeks and by the end of Friday, it will be four. We were expecting it to be finished in four.

Our only worktop has also been kidnapped. Oh and behind
the wall there is Rob - one of the boys - trying hard to
escape being snapped - and failing miserably!

'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' this is not. How is it they can build a house from scratch in seven days and we can't even get a few simple upgrades done inside four weeks?

We have a very small area in which to cook, clean and an even smaller area in which to do everything else; areas which are sadly not free of builders rubble and general detritus, but we're trying to make the best of it.

I suspect we have fallen foul of the English mentality. Everything there is expected to be done in next to no time. Let's face it, at home and work we're constantly bombarded with things that need our immediate attention and we have doubtless brought that with us.

This situation is not the fault of the boys at all. They turn up every day and work, it's just that we - or that is, I - don't have much concept of how long it takes to rewire a four storey house to French standards in three phase, or re-plumb it either, never mind all the other jobs they've had to do or still have to do. So with every day, I was getting closer and closer to wanting to throttle someone.

We are both under stress. Living in a bedroom and having to poke around under polythene sheeting in the dust and grit will do that to you. Bathing in what feels like a sand pit and spending one's day trying to work to the dulcet tones of a hammer drill and Rob's singing will take its toll.

Our lounge - or what is to be our lounge, with cupboards
and shelves borrowed from other rooms while the kitchen
slowly comes together - which I am assured will happen ...

We are however, beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel - and it's not a train coming towards us either. The home stretch is in sight, but whilst that may be the case, there's worse to come.

Right now, we have a toilet, we have a bathroom and as scabby as they may be, they work, but as soon as the boys begin working on the plumbing, all that will change.

Fortunately, we have somewhere to go during the time that's happening and we will be able to cook, clean, eat, drink and spend a penny or two, but I can't say as I'm looking forward to it.

I'm not the world's most patient bloke and waiting is not my strong point. However, having said that, I know what's up the road and it's going to be a vast improvement on what we have right now.

There is a model call the Kübler-Ross model also known as 'The Five Stages of Grief'. Using this, we have actually defined the five stages that you will probably go through when living in the house that is being renovated, upgraded or just repaired.

• Denial: This is where you try and kid yourself that it's not bothering you. The constant throb of hammer drills, dust and general mayhem as well as the workmen themselves, making it feel like your house isn't your own. The longer this goes on, the less you can kid yourself that you don't mind.
• Anger: Your anger will be unfocussed and irrational. However much the builders do on a daily basis, it's not enough, it's taking too long, they're making too much mess and it's driving you mad. It's actually a mixture of frustration and anger, because it's unfocussed.
• Bargaining: You'll probably be tempted to pay them more, just to get them out quicker, but this is a false cure. Not only will you be out of pocket and the work cost that much more, but you will only be kidding yourself that the work will actually finish sooner. The work takes as long as it takes and chucking your hard-earned at it won't change that.
• Depression: Not sure that depression is the right term for being so tired you're actually dead on your feet. You've been giving so much energy being angry, frustrated and denying that it's getting to you, that you're not yourself. Once you can have breakfast in a room that not covered in dust sheets, sleep in a bed that's not full of scratchy builder's rubble and walk on floors that don't crunch underfoot, you'll be right as rain and that nervous tic will disappear. 
• Acceptance: Just let it go. You can't do anything about it. These old houses are riddled with issues that until things are taken apart to fix the things you know about, you don't know exist. They have to be rectified before the issues at hand can be dealt with. Yes they are going to cost more money and yes it means that they won't be finished when you thought they would, but worrying about it isn't going to help.

We have both been or are going through the above. Whilst Pen reached the acceptance stage some time back, I have only just reached it and what a weight off my shoulders that has been. It's so like the 'Money Pit' here, it's unbelievable. The only differences here are we don't have the Shirk Brothers working for us, we are definitely not living in a million Euro mansion, nor have I taken a fairground ride down the scaffolding to land head first in the ornamental pond to have a cherub pee on my head.

Well not yet anyway.

This stage of the renovation is not forever - as I am constantly being reminded (for my own good and for the good of those around me), and as tough as this is, we have to go through it to get to the end. It's unusual for renovations like these not to have a stress level that goes well into the red zone. Whilst neither Pen nor I have suffered a nervous breakdown, tried to kill each other or anyone else - yet, we've come very close.

And anyway, the end results are going to be so cool.

Well, we hope they will be ...

The before's, during's and after's: 1 The outside

The house as we first got it

This house is a curious construction of stone, columbage and concrete.

Perhaps this is because originally, the house was just a house and was converted into a shop. Of course, we're not keeping it as a shop, but have been granted a Certificat d'Urbanisme and the shop itself will be our lounge.

The outside has its issues however and we were presented with a building whose ground floor is anything but domestic. Its red, black and gold façade with huge dual aspect windows is a little too 'in your face' for us, however, plans are afoot to change all that. All we need is the money ...

The majority of the vines removed

There is obviously another side to this house, but this is the one I'm concentrating on here as this is the side that's had the work done.

Well one day, we decided to get creative and remove the vines we could from the side of the building. It took an age and uncovered some pretty nasty holes in the exterior rendering.

There was nothing we could do at the time, but we knew the stuff had to come down and that was that. The vines may well have looked really pretty at one time, but they play havoc with the walls.

When we came over, one of the jobs we labelled 'really important' was having the outside of the house re-rendered. 

So the first thing the boys did, was take down all the rendering and the straw-like gubbins behind, which exposed the columbage makeup of the upstairs.

Unlike buying a property in England, you don't get all the ins and outs of the building's makeup, so whilst we were aware that the stonework to the left of the picture wasn't real, we really didn't have a clue what was behind it.

One of the issues with having bought the house without a surveyor's report.

It wasn't long before the replacement cladding went up, which as I said before, was something akin to those packs of dried noodles you can buy.

The good thing about them is that whilst they may well look like they're nothing but holes, they don't allow water to penetrate - a bit like thatching really - and they're really good insulation.

Heavy snow in the winter is not uncommon here, so that's a bonus.

Yesterday we got creative again and this time, we removed the vines from the rest of that side wall above the shop.

Our house no longer looks 'hairy' and although the rendering on the rest of the house isn't the same colour as the stuff that's just been applied, it really was at one time. 

We believe that once the new stuff weather's in, it will look the same as the rest and that's good. The only issue now is that the vines have worked their magic on the whole of the outside and really, we should get the rest re-rendered too, but that's going to have to be another project.

Home again, home again ... Oh My G--

We've been back from England for a week now and it honestly doesn't feel like we've stopped for one moment. So much for the relaxing weekend away!

We're now knee-deep in dust and debris, tools and materials, constantly moving from one room to another to escape the mess.

Having said that, progress had been made before we left. The shuttering was up and concrete poured (three large bags of it) between the kitchen and the bedroom - presumably to stop us sliding down the chimney pipe like firemen and the Monocouche (a kind of rendering) was applied and finished on the outside of the building. It looks pretty impressive - if not just a little odd that its colour is so different to the colour of rest of the building's rendering. However, we have been assured that it will weather in and blend with the rest ... allegedly.

We're really pleased as it means the outside of the house is now watertight and pleasing to the eye - er, compared to the holey mess that revealed itself when we pulled the dead vine off the wall. We're just sorry that we don't have the wherewithal to make the rest of the house look this good. Still, soon come - perhaps.

The house is already been attracting a lot of attention. Firstly is probably the noise of power tools and the fact that it now looks different. I guess the reason is - we think - is that it's been empty for the last eight years and judging by some of the bits that are barely hanging on that have already required some form of temporary repair, this do-over couldn't have come at a better time.

So with only a small amount of work left still to do on the outside, the boys turned their attention on the inside. Out came the drills and hammers, bolsters and brute force as holes began appearing and in some places there were even wires beginning to poke through.


We were on the way :)

Most of you will be aware that possibly the most stressful times in a person's life are job interviews, childbirth, moving and decorating/house renovations - especially when you're living in the place at the time.

Getting used to the somewhat 'pock-marked' finish we currently have in our house is one thing, but what is most stressful is the dust, dirt and general grubbiness.

As we have discovered, cleaning has almost become a thing of the past - well ... to a certain degree. I mean, we clean stuff, but within moments of having done so, a layer of dust descends and presto! You begin wondering whether cleaning was worthwhile at all.

Certainly at the moment, we clean with reservations ... that means we clean, but not nearly as fastidiously as we prior to the arrival of the builders .

So you can imagine our dismay at returning home on Sunday afternoon to be greeted by a house full of stuff that was either covered in polythene, dust and general detritus or both. There were holes in the walls, floors and ceilings for the new wiring.

Don't get me wrong, we were as happy as pigs in poop to be home, but the reality of how much 'poop' we found when we got here made me rethink just how happy we were.

On top of that, we knew that the next morning (a Monday no less), bright and early, the boys would be back to begin work on the front bedroom's conversion to the new office and bathroom.

Oh joy!

Normally when we go on these excursions, we leave a day in between it and whatever we are doing next to kind of re-acclimatise, but this time we didn't have that luxury.

This time, it was up at six-thirty Monday morning frantically moving stuff from the front bedroom to other (hopefully) non-dusty areas of the house (hahahahaha!!); areas that were fast diminishing, if they existed at all. I think in the end, we settled for areas that were less dusty, rather than no dust.

Next, we set about sealing off the bedroom, bathroom and the upstairs to minimise the dust travel as the boys were going to be cutting a hole in the hall wall to put the new office door in, so the dust factor was going to be massive. We were already swimming in the stuff so adding to it wasn't an option in our books.

So having been on the go since six-thirty Friday morning, this was fast passing marathon and heading towards an Iron Man challenge!

Coffee?

The kitchen when we returned home on Sunday evening. Sadly, just as we left it.
The House Repair Elves hadn't been in and fixed everything like they did for the shoemaker.

I must apologise in advance for the distinct lack of pictures - other than the one on the right, which is what we returned to - in this episode, but really, we didn't have many photo opportunities that would be fitting for this.

On with the yarn ...

After the end of Thursday when the light on the stairs (yes, we only had the one - there should be at least two) went out, refusing to work again, we thought that if that's as bad as it gets, we were laughing.

However, things were going to test us further ...

The very next day - Friday - we were due to make a lightning trip to England, which meant out on the overnight on Friday and back on the early sailing Sunday. Ostensibly this trip was for us to go to the 'Pearson family do', a regular annual event that I had been attending with Penny since we first got together. Mostly, it's the only chance the family got to be together in one place.

For many families, this would probably be a time of mass murder or worse, but surprisingly, that's never happened at any of our get-togethers. It's actually really nice to see everyone and remark on how much the (now) nephews and nieces had grown.

Well why not? Penny and I had had to put up with that kind of cheek-pinching embarrassment when we were their age and besides, we are now great aunt and great uncle - a fact that we were pointedly reminded of.

We will get our own back for that one, Sarah, don't think you got away it.

Anyway, we were looking forward to it.

In our infinite wisdom, we had decided we were going to visit Tesco's and B&Q first for some stuff we either couldn't get here or was just damned expensive - like Dulux gloss paint, which is 69€ a litre over here and about 75% cheaper in England. This is another reason we needed a cabin. I was bad enough with sleep - imagine me without!

The Friday night ferry was due to leave Caen at 11:00pm our time and we left in plenty of time to get there, get something to eat and just relax. We had sported the eighty-odd quid for a cabin so we could get some sleep on the crossing. It sounds a lot, but we'd done overnight crossings before without a cabin and sadly, the shops and restaurants on-board aren't open all night - oh, no. They shut everything fairly soon after setting sail and thereafter nothing happens. In fact, on this particular tub - the MV Normandy if you want to avoid the floating heap we had the misfortune to be holed up on - they had just two 'Clix' coffee machines and one of those was out of order. Besides, the furnishings are anything but conducive for us two old farts to sleep on.

To add insult to injury, we'd left it so long to book a cabin, the only one left was on deck 5 - the same deck as the garage - which amounts to steerage. The vibration and noise was ridiculous, but that aside, the beds were so hard that sleep was nigh-on impossible. Finding ourselves waking up at 04:30 our time just three hours after settling down for what remained of the night, was not a surprise.

Breakfast was okay - but we just wanted to finish off with a nice cup of coffee. However, all they had was this disgusting brown water that came out of another machine was made 'au lait' with an odd white gloop that tasted foul and who knows what it did to you on the inside. We weren't having that.

Once off the boat, we went to Tesco's, spent more money than we intended, got cornered by a little old lady who insisted on telling us her life story and got trapped in the car park for our trouble. It took twenty minutes and two very nice blokes to come and fix the machine to get back out. We were apparently the earliest rescue they'd ever had, so that was something at least, even if it wasn't the kind of fame we're looking for.

Next, I took us to B&Q and here's where the idea of trying to fit everything in on the one day kind of began falling apart. Oh sure, we don't have far to drive compared to some, what with living in the north of France, but having left home at six the evening before, driven nearly two hours through the Friday evening traffic to get to the port, had virtually no sleep and trying to deal with a store the size of B&Q was no mean feat. The place is colossal!

Once again, we spent more than was intended and got stuff we hadn't thought of, but we left B&Q happy for two reasons:

1. We had saved money with what we bought
2. We could finally get a bloody coffee.

Yes folks, by this time, unless someone really wanted their head ripped off, coffee was a serious necessity. Needless to say, B&Q's coffee machine was also out of order.

I felt just like Bruce Willis in Hudson Hawk: "I just want a cappuccino ..."

We made our way to Crawley feeling that in the nearly two hours it was going to take us to get to the 'do', we were bound to hit a Little Chef or some other greasy spoon ... somewhere.

No.

We couldn't believe that there was a time that you couldn't move for Little Chefs or establishments of a similar nature, yet between Portsmouth and Crawley, there wasn't a single one. Had we chosen the wrong route or is that really the case?

So after nearly five hours after disembarking from our floating hell, we didn't find a single place to buy a coffee.

Well, that's not strictly true.

We found the pub where we were to meet the family and ironically, about five hundred metres before the roundabout it was on, there was a filling station with a big 'Costa Coffee' sign outside. Typical!

Five minutes, a visit to the little boy's and little girl's rooms, you will never meet two happier people. Just as well actually, as we were just about to become two of twenty-nine, which without caffeine, would have been like lighting the blue touch paper and forgetting to let go and stand well back from the world's most powerful firework.

Nevertheless and possibly thanks to the large 'Costa Cappuccinos,' the dinner not only went flawlessly, but was bloody lovely. Oddly enough, for the first time in the twenty-five years of being with Pen, we were on the adult's table. It felt weird, but I suppose age does have some perks after all!

Leaving the dinner, we headed back to Portsmouth and the B&B we'd booked for the night.

Let me tell you, had we not been forced to spend a night somewhere worse, this would have been the worse B&B we'd ever been in. The woman who greeted us, ignored me completely, choosing to speak only to Penny, despite having had emails for the  booking from both of us. I was made to feel about as welcome as a fart in a space suit.

The room was alright I suppose, but the nets at the widows were torn, it was right on the main road, had a street lamp outside it and heavy traffic passed by, seemingly without the faintest idea of when to quit. There were no en-suite facilities, which for £55 per night was shocking and meant sharing a bathroom that was dirty, mouldy and who knows what else. Its saving grace was that it had a TV, but the tea and coffee were really nasty and tasteless. When we turned off the light to go to sleep, thanks to the street lamp outside, it didn't get noticeably darker. Closing the window didn't make it noticeably less noisy either.

Mercifully, it didn't make much difference to us as we were so tired that they could have held World War III outside and we wouldn't have been any the wiser.

No coffee the next morning, as whilst there were still some sachets of 'stain' (the only description worthy of the crap we'd been given in the name of coffee), there was no way either of us wanted to tempt fate with any of that. Anyway, we figured we'd get some at the ferry terminal.

No such luck.

They decided to load early, but once on the ferry - a nice one this time - we relaxed. After a lovely breakfast and a visit to our cabin, we went to the cafe on Deck 8 or 9 for coffee.

How they think they can get away with serving that muck on the boat to their own countrymen or women, is beyond us. It came from a proper expresso machine, but they insist upon using milk that really can't be described as fit for human consumption. It completely ruined the coffee by overpowering the coffee itself and left us a fiver poorer.

Still, the sun came out when we finally arrived in Passais and we were able to make a decent cafetiere - the first of the day. A really nice welcome home! Just as well, as a relaxing getaway this was not, and as you will discover, it didn't finish there.

However, that's another episode - the next one actually.

It was so good to be back where we feel we're supposed to be, but thanks go from Pen and I to all who were at the Duke's Head in Crawley on Saturday and made it such a brilliant time. Thanks too go to Nick and the other members of staff, who did a sterling job, making us all feel so welcome.

By the way, Nick, I'd really like that playlist that was on the sound system. You did promise - sort of.

Why choose to live in France?

France and the French departments

What made us choose France?

Why not?

We were both becoming disillusioned with England and the fact that the quality of life seemed to be missing. It all seemed to be a mad dash to get money and then more money, yet still never have enough. Housing is more expensive than ever – whether rented or bought and the work situation had become untenable over the years as despite having over fifteen years experience in my chosen field of expertise and having glowing references, it was never enough or I was offered less money than I had been earning ten years ago.

We’d been on a holiday with friends in '92 and fell in love with the place. Since then, we’d been back and forth on countless occasions, usually just day trips for cheap baccy etc, but we didn’t give the idea of living there serious consideration until about ten years ago. We knew house prices were much cheaper than in England and that the way of life agreed with us, but it was what we were going to do to earn money that prevented us from taking the plunge right there and then.

Normandy.
We're just above the 'A' in Alençon

Then one night about ten years ago, I was returning a drum kit I had borrowed to play in the band I was in and Channel 4’s ‘A Place In The Sun’ was on telly, featuring a bloody great place with acres of land and stables in Normandy that was less than half the price of a modest two bed terrace over here. We decided there and then that our idea for living in France was worth looking into further. That night was when we really decided that it was something we wanted to pursue. However, we couldn’t afford a huge house with acreage and stables, but perhaps we’d be able to afford something more our size …

Several hundred internet searches later, we discovered that yes, there were places out there that we could afford, provided we could sell our house and as for what we would do for a living, well, I had been to college and learned how to work computers (to put it simply) and we had both learned lots of other skills. So finding jobs would be a lot easier than when the idea first came to us all those years before.

In ’98, we took a trip to Bagnoles de l’Orne – strangely enough, only half an hour from where we are now – and looked at some houses. Sadly, that was when the property boom in France was at its height and the houses available were at silly money for what amounted to piles of stones.

This is not the house we saw, but just a picture to
show a columbage. It's probably in better condition than the
one we saw ...

One place we’d seen on the web was a columbage, which is similar in makeup to an old English Tudor house. It looked perfect, but what we didn’t know until we were there in the flesh, was that the nice white paint in between the wooden beams wasn’t paint at all, but Formica. Yes, the enterprising seller had nailed bits of Formica to the outside of the house! Besides that, getting to the kitchen required leaving the house and entering through another door. There was nothing in the way of a bedroom, nor a bathroom and the toilet was a hole in the ground at the bottom of the garden surmounted by a plank of wood with a hole in. There were even squares of newspaper for wiping, which was somewhat worrisome.

Another was supposedly a detached property, but the last ten feet had been taken by the original owners – who owned the house next door – for their tool shed. It was vastly overpriced, sat at the top of a very long and very steep pathway and needed the roof replacing and doubtless the electrics and plumbing together with shitloads of other stuff.

The last house was my favourite from its description on the web, and its picture made it look very inviting. When we got there, it was blowing a gale, pissing down with rain and since the picture had been taken, someone had backed a tractor into it, collapsed half the roof and put several fist-sized cracks that ran from floor to roof in other rather important walls. Plus it was at the end of a mud track which would have proved impossible to negotiate without a tractor or a 4X4 once winter arrived.

Our hopes were dashed.

We had our house on the market at the time, but because the house was ex-council, there was a rule that meant we had to sell to someone that was either from Dorset or Somerset. We had one woman who was moving into the area and was going to be doing voluntary work and would have been happy to pay the asking price, but the council twats weren’t happy with that. The sale fell through and it was about two years before we found someone to buy at well under our original asking price. By this time, our debts had risen and the profit we made on the house was much less than we needed to move.

Abrieres les Vallees, a picturesque place
near where we live

Pen’s mum passing away gave us a windfall and rekindled our desire to move to France. We began looking in the cheaper areas when searching for property in the hopes of finding something with a nice big garden and plenty of space. I had been out of work for what felt like a lifetime and it didn’t look like I was going to get anything any time soon, so I was very disappointed with my lot – as you can imagine. I wanted out and fortunately, Pen was as eager as I to make a move.

We began with the Limousin which is in Central France and whilst the property there was reasonably

priced, we discovered that the reason it’s so verdant, was it rarely stopped raining. It wasn’t unusual for there to be snow in winter measured in metres and that dampened our spirits for that area. The Auvergne was another area we’d seen on the television. Nice and green, but further south than the Limousin with less rainfall. It however, turned out to be Limousin’s expensive neighbour, so that too was out.

The scenery in the  Ardèche was absolutely stunning, but generally, the houses were perched on the side of a mountain with terraced gardens dropping into breathtaking canyons. Great in the summer, but worse than Limousin in the winter, since the roads were just a combination of hairpin bends that followed one another in rapid succession and thanks to the fact that I have acrophobia, it was not a good combination!

We heard about the Charente, which had been described as the Dordogne’s inexpensive neighbour, sharing similar weather to the vastly overpriced Dordogne, but would have been much more affordable for us. We found a bunch of houses down there and even went up as far as the Vendée  We did a camping trip in 2010 to Ruffec to go check them out.

It took seven hours to drive from Cherbourg to Ruffec and when we got there, we discovered that the houses were no better than those we’d seen in Normandy, so that was that idea out of the window too. We did go back for a second look at one house, but couldn’t find it, despite driving round for what felt like several hours. It was probably a good thing too as in retrospect, the house’s garden had been used by the neighbours for drying their washing, barbecues and the like and once we came in and reclaimed it – as we were perfectly at liberty to do, it probably would have caused unnecessary angst. It had plenty of nice big rooms and a garden shed across the road – not unusual in France – you could have parked a jumbo jet in. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the right house.

Lassay les Chateax. With scenery like this on your doorstep
who wouldn't love it here?

Once again, our hopes were dashed.

We continued to talk about the idea and were even more resolute about finding somewhere. Now it was not a case of ‘if’, but when. The atmosphere, the food and the general way of life just seemed to gel with us and what was more, people over there seemed to like us.  A good combination, but we were at odds with what we were likely to find as far as houses was concerned and the cost involved for putting it right. It wasn’t just the cost of the house, but the cost of bringing it up to a habitable standard – not to mention what we’d do when we got there to earn money as once again, neither of us felt confident enough to just say, “fuck it!” and bugger off over there anyway.

In March of 2011, I landed my first job in two and a half years and the week before I was due to start my six month contract, I was at a loose end. I decided to have a look at some Normandy properties again and was stunned to find that prices had dropped as the English weren’t buying in the numbers they had been buying in. I found three properties that were not only within budget, but were also habitable – which was something we’d never seen before. I mailed pictures of them across to Pen and she agreed that we should make enquiries.

An hour or so later, I was phoned by a lady from one of the immobiliers with reference to three that I had enquired about.

She asked what we were looking for and I told her.

“Would you be interested in a four bedroom ex-butcher’s shop on three floors with a small courtyard garden, a detached garage with a small apartment over?” she asked. “It’s got a cellar, it’s own wells, water and electric connected and it’s on mains drainage.”

I laughed. “Perhaps if we had the money!” I quipped, thinking she was going to try selling us something that was way over budget.

“It’s within your budget,” she assured me.

She sent us pictures over, which I immediately forwarded to Pen, then phoned her at work to tell her we needed to move quickly. She agreed – with reservations. It wasn’t the kind of house we’d been looking for. The garden was far smaller than we wanted and that in itself was enough to make her think twice. However, by the time she got home, we were making plans to go over the following weekend to see it. Of course, I was going to have six months of good money coming in, which would have bolstered our capital no end and make repairs and DIY affordable.

We came, we saw and put in an offer. Half an hour later, the offer had been accepted and we’d bought it lock, stock and two smoking barrels!

Oh sure, we’d been to see the other houses we’d made enquiries about, but nothing compared to the ex-butcher’s shop. It wasn’t what we were looking for, but once we saw the potential, we realised that there was plenty we could do with it. Plus, it was already habitable and at the price we had offered, we were unlikely to get anything anywhere close.

That was two and a half years ago now and whilst we are still wading through the treacle which is French bureaucracy, we have made a lot of friends, met some really fantastic people and really feel comfortable here. We’re still a little apprehensive about work and earning a living, but unlike England, we don’t have to earn shed-loads. We can earn enough to comfortably make ends meet, which is enough. The quality of life is what matters and that doesn’t seem to be dependent upon how much money you have.

We have rediscovered our love for this country and I’m even proficient enough in the language to hold a simple conversation. Pen meanwhile is streets ahead, but I’m happy enough to bumble along at this pace learning one or two words a day and getting more confused by the fact that so many words have more than one meaning. Still, little by little as the French people say.

We have also discovered Calvados, which is a dangerous apple distillation that could probably strip stove enamelling from cast iron at a hundred paces, stuff cooked ‘au pot’, which seems to be our most common form of cooking at the moment. We have converted our Volvo to a French car – well, alright, we have reregistered it over here. Nevertheless, it seems happy enough and passed all its tests first time, which it never did in England. Mind you, it cost us enough.

So why France?

We fit, that’s why.

The cladding is up!

The cladding going up

At the end of last week, our house was looking somewhat denuded, its cladding having been scraped off the outside. The plan was to replace it before the weekend.

It didn't happen. Well, you know it didn't happen and we were told that it would probably be Monday (today) that it would go up - weather permitting.

You can imagine how we felt this morning, when we were greeted with rain, we honestly thought that it was going to stop play.

We couldn't have been more wrong. As you can see, the cladding - which is a curious product that looks like packs of noodles before they're dropped into hot water - began going up about ten this morning, if not before.

By lunchtime, the whole lot had gone up and while the job isn't finished - it still has to be rendered, the rain had little, if any effect on the boys.

By the time we'd returned from our shopping, there it was, all present and accounted for.

To say we're pleased is an understatement, but there's more.

Not only did they finish putting the cladding up, but they also finished putting in our wood burner.

Well, they haven't quite finished that either, but they have got it all hooked up to the exhaust with its nice new satin black pipe and frilly forty-five degree elbows on - and they managed to get the chimney sorted while they were at it.

Outside now, there's a nice shiny new cover to the chimney. It's wearing what looks like a hat for a Chinese robot, but it will definitely stop birds nesting in our pipe - or so we're told.

Like anyone with a new toy, we wanted to fire it up and see it going, but there's still more to do - hopefully it'll be ready by the end of the week, but hey, any time soon will do.

Our wood burner's nice new hat

As you can see, there's still a gaping hole between our kitchen and the master bedroom, which isn't supposed to be there. Next there needs to be reinforced concrete put in with extra metal bracing, but once the concrete's hardened, we have been told to give it a blast - well, a gentle one anyway - with some windows open to get rid of any fumes that will be produced when the paint bakes.

So, tomorrow, the scaffolding goes up and hopefully, the rendering too, which will make us watertight for the winter. Then, the hole in the ceiling gets filled, fireproof plasterboard goes up, which we can skim ready for decorating and then it's all systems go as far as that's concerned.

After that, it's first fix electrics, followed by plumbing, new bathroom, new office and ... and ... and ...

It's all very exciting!

Kindle tax issues

As the name of this blog suggests, I like to think of myself as a writer. I do all sorts of other things too, but first and foremost, I like to think of myself as a writer.

Of course, I wouldn't dare to put myself in the same league as David Eddings, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Steven King, Dean Koontz or of course, J.K. Rowling, but I write.

I have published many stories on websites that offer free stories to readers, which I believe is where many people begin, but then I heard about the Kindle thing.

My wife was all, "I like the feel of a real book. You won't catch me reading from one of those things." Which is fair enough, but the information I was getting, suggested that others didn't necessarily feel the same way.

I took the bull by the horns and published one of my stories on Kindle and lo and behold, people actually bought copies. Sadly they didn't buy it in the thousands, but enough bought it to let me know that maybe I'd be able to get some financial remuneration for my efforts.

The sting came when I discovered that because Amazon is an American company, they withhold 30% of my royalties to give to the IRS. Yeah, you can't escape taxes, but I thought that because I was an English person, with an English email account and an English address, it would have been obvious that I was anything other than an American.

Apparently not.

So having just passed the sales number that would have given me my first payment for my book, I discovered to my chagrin that I wasn't going to get paid because my sales returns didn't add up to the amount needed once the 30% withholding was taken into account.

I was devastated. I didn't and haven't sold that many books to begin with and for them to withhold all that hard-earned money just didn't seem right.

So I looked into how one goes about getting that withholding removed.

At first glance, it didn't look so difficult, but on closer inspection, it transpired that there were several hoops to jump through that I hadn't seen. On top of that, we had just at that time decided that moving to France on a permanent basis was our way forward. If I'd have filled in all the forms, jumped through all the hoops and done everything else the American government though I should to, I'd have had to do it all over again once we'd moved here.

Still, having got here, I took the bull by its horns again, phoned the tax office and got my EIN number. I then followed that up with the W8-BEN form, which I paid to have recorded delivery and waited.

Then I waited some more ...

... and some more ...

After eight weeks, I had to face the fact that Amazon probably hadn't got my form and promptly sent off another one. This time I considered sending it recorded delivery again, but didn't and just two weeks later, I got the fabled email from Amazon.

This one told me I had forgotten to tell them I was in France - if the rest of the address didn't make that perfectly plain.

I sent another form and went through this one with a fine-tooth comb to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

I waited and waited and then the other day, I got an email.

This one told me that if I didn't fill in my tax information, I wouldn't be able to sell my books on Amazon.

I nearly hit the roof. It wasn't as if I hadn't tried to tell the buggers what, who or where I was. I was just not getting through to them.

Further down the email however, I discovered a link. This link took me to a page which allowed me to complete my W8-BEN form on-line, took hardly any time at all to complete and there we are, job done.

It's only taken four months.

Why on earth they have taken so long to provide an on-line service for filling in this form I don't know, but now you budding authors out there who have been put off by the deadly IRS's claim to your hard-earned, take heart it's now much, much simpler.

So why haven't I been talking about the work that's supposed to be being done on our house; I mean that's two days now where nothing's happened?

Well, the answer's really simple.

The cladding can't be fixed to the side of the house because it's raining. Secondly, the wood burner isn't in yet because the run from the kitchen through to the upstairs chimney isn't a straight line.

The straight tubes and the elbow.
Note the elbow is a matt finish and the straight tubes
are nice and glossy

It looks as though there may have been a fireplace in our kitchen that was taken out and bricked up. The chimney upstairs is set back from the wall downstairs and the upshot is, the boys will have to put a couple of 45 degree elbows in.

It's not a big job to do, however, finding those elbows that are a) the right size or b) the right colour to match the tubes already purchased, is!

The poor lads have been trawling here, there and everywhere to try and find these parts and apparently - or so we have been told - it's because it's holiday season. We have been told that because of the holiday season, there aren't as many deliveries.

Who are we to argue?

Looks like another day's work has bitten the dust ...

The work continues

  After the boys went yesterday, we got on with the job of tiling the plinth or pad for the wood burner. It wasn't an easy job and one we'd never done before as the tiles were 60 X 60 and a centimetre thick. Very different to work with than ordinary kitchen/bathroom tiles

We cut them with an angle grinder as we didn't have a tile cutter man enough for the job and whilst our lines weren't exactly spot on, it doesn't look too bad and besides, once the chunky old wood burner is on top of them, no-one's going to get close enough to notice.

We will be grouting them tonight and adding some more small glass tiles around the edge to cover the glaring issues, but all told, not a bad job.

The new Invicta is currently sat atop its plinth ready to have its pipes attached - which may be tomorrow or perhaps Monday, but we're well pleased and will post pictures when complete.

The new Invicta -
a much bigger woodburner than
the Supra we used to have 

We're looking forward to firing it up and being able to cook 'poule au pot' without using the oven.

The boys didn't stop when they'd finished putting the blockwork down for the plinth, but instead, ripped the side of our house off.

As you can see from the pics below, the house is stone on the ground floor and columbage above.

The outside has to be re-clad and today is a bonus for us as the boys are off getting the cladding ready to fix up tomorrow - weather permitting. They're also getting the cabling for the rewire and possibly other odds and sods.



The place is currently an absolute tip inside and whilst we try and keep it clean and tidy, it's akin to trying to sweep air into a heap. We just have to do the best we can.

Thankfully it won't be a building site inside for too much longer. All this work maybe very exciting, but an absolute pain in the arse as far as living in it is concerned.

The swishing noise of the polythene dust covers as we walk past has already lost its appeal and despite our best efforts, everything's still covered in dust.

We are looking forward to the rewire as we don't have a single domestic fuse in the house and whilst the electric works, if anything should go, it'll take out the lot and who knows what will happen to the delicate electronics like the computer and BluRay we have hanging out of the walls.

I know surface mount is a little unsightly, but in the great scheme of things, the cost would have gone through the roof, or the work we would have to do to 'make good' would be astronomical.

All things considered, once done, it shouldn't be too noticeable and the peace of mind it will provide will be stupendous. I was glad when the electrician told us that first and second fix will go in before the switchover occurs, so we won't be without during the job.

After that, we get the plumbing, our new kitchen gets put in and the big front bedroom will be converted into my office and the bathroom - that's separate rooms.

Not looking forward to the work that entails. The're going to have to cut a new doorway for the office, which will mean shed-loads of dust everywhere - again ...

The installation of the poêle à bois

The SUPRA 7.5Kw wood burning stove

When Penny and I bought this house, we knew there would be shed-loads of work to do and whilst we were a little apprehensive - having never taken on a project like this before, we looked forward to it.

We bought the house in March 2011 and from that point forth, visited whenever we could to work on the house and get to know what was 'soon-to-be' our village.

Of course, the kind of work we were doing at the time didn't amount to much - mainly cosmetic and the first few visits were during the summer months, so we didn't have a clue what it was going to be like during the winter months. However, with foresight, we bought a wood burning stove, which we were assured would be plenty for our needs.

People will tell you anything when they want to sell you something - especially if they're leaving the country won't they?

This 'poêle à bois' as it's actually known, had been installed in its previous owner's house by the simple expedient of attaching a five foot length of flexitube out the back of the poêle and shoving it a short way up his chimney. How they didn't die of CO poisoning I don't know, but that kind of slipshod engineering wasn't an option for us, as we didn't have a fireplace on the ground floor.

Anyway, until we visited in March one year, had never needed heating. However, on that visit, we were given a baptism of ice. It was so cold that even with the bottled gas fire on full and no more than a couple of feet from us, it was still cold enough to worry a brass monkey.

We made enquiries about getting our poêle fitted - properly - and were told that 7.5Kw wasn't nearly enough for a room the size of our kitchen, we should look into buying something more 'manly' and up to the task.

For this we found a bargain Invicta 12Kw, which was nearly eight times the price of our Supra and when we move over permanently in May of 2013, we were very excited to get it installed and ready fo the coming winter.

Well, after four months of waiting, work began on our house just yesterday and lo and behold, the first job on the agenda was the poêle.

With some roofing jobs to look into as part of the preliminaries - fixing some flashing, checking slates and so on, the flex tube was then poked down our chimney and is ready to accept its nice hat.

With its razor-sharp edges and spiky bits, I'm not sure leaving the curly tube like it is in the picture won't do a better job of deterring the bloody crows, pigeons and other flying wildlife from nesting in our nice clean and warm pipe, but I have been assured that a hat is best ...

On the inside, as you can see, it's definitely a work in progress.

Both our builders and us, were hoping that the vertical tube that connects this curly tube to the poêle, could simply be pushed through a nice, neat, round hole from the kitchen.

Sadly, today we discovered that this isn't going to be the case.

It would appear that the previous owners had a fireplace on the ground floor, but didn't want it, so they took it out. The fireplace in the master bedroom - which was their kitchen or dining room or somesuch was then decommissioned, but as it looked nice with its black marble hearthstone and surround, was left.

Underneath unfortunately, all the supporting structure had been removed and they had cured the issue with the simple expedient of screwing in a lump of softwood and filling in the remaining hole with plaster - not cement or concrete to make it fireproof - so the whole damned thing had to come out.

It's no longer a nice, neat, little hole, but something big enough to fall through. I'd jokingly said to one of my on-line friends that we'd found ourselves in our very own version of 'The Money Pit' and whilst neither Pen nor I look anything like Tom Hanks or Shelley Long (either way round), we certainly have got our share of headaches and nightmares - and we're only on day two!

Still, our two trusty workers are forging on regardless and this afternoon we will be putting the tiles down on the pad for the poêle, so that it doesn't sit directly on the ground.

We're just going to have to be careful not to sleepwalk tonight or we might end up downstairs a hell of a lot sooner than we'd expected ...