Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Friday 17 February 2006
Before leaving LNL last week I had my hair cut again; it wasn’t that long since the last time but it was getting very floppy over my face, and here - much more than in Cambridge - going to the hairdresser is a kind of luxurious therapy. It was quite crowded, four stylists at work, and the lady from the traiteur was waiting while her little daughter had her hair cut and plaited. The proprietress did my hair this time, very well indeed; I took along a photo from several years ago which I had found in the suitcase of old photos, and it is a really well-shaped short cut. She is still surprised at the thickness of my hair, and I keep telling her it used to be much thicker!
I am now back in LNL again, having come for the first time by train and bus. This was because N can only get the car back on Saturday morning, and then wanted to stay on for a colleague’s concert on Sunday afternoon; I would like to have gone too, but there is so much that needs doing here, that I decided to come today and go back next Wednesday, in time for Madeleine arriving on Thursday, and at the same time trying out the bus and train connections.
I had three days in Paris, and did a variety of different things. On the way back in the car on Monday afternoon we suddenly realised that it was St Valentine’s Day the next day, and that neither of us had been anywhere near a shop to be able to do anything about it, so we decided to go out for dinner at the local Chinese restaurant in Saint-Denis, where we had not been for a long time. Tuesday morning started with N getting up early to take the car to the garage for 7.30, and bringing back croissants for breakfast, which I said I thought was a very suitable St Valentine’s Day gesture. I managed to do my Pilates video exercises, for the first time for some time (very stiff after kneeling to paint the bookshelves the day before)
I wanted to try and get to the mardi musical at the Eglise Saint- Roch, but there was nothing happening; I assume it was « les vacances de février » a kind of half-term holiday for everybody. Before this I had been to BHV to get replacement door & drawer handles for two bedside cupboards from Italy, and also found reduced cushion covers and a hook for the washroom door. I was surprised to see long queues outside the Hôtel de Ville waiting to see the Willy Ronis exhibition which we saw in the autumn; it’s difficult to believe everybody hasn’t seen it!
I bought a little salmon & spinach quiche from a wonderful shop called Gargantua next door to the church and sat and ate it on the steps looking at the Rue St Honoré and getting my bearings, and then it was quite a surprise to find no concert going on in the church. I looked round at the monuments and paintings instead, and then made my way to the Monoprix in the Avenue de l’Opéra. It was full of spring and summer clothes, which was optimistic, and so was the household section - even there was nothing I needed as so many things have just come from Italy, but the designs were wonderful and much improved from what I remember of Monoprix from years ago.
I then took the metro up to Montmartre to my favourite curtain shop, to look for red material for the kitchen curtains and found some wonderful stuff with tomatoes on it; there was barely enough left on the roll but a nice flirtatious man let me have it at a reduced price while claiming he couldn’t believe I was English, I must be Italian. I said I took this as a compliment, and he said that was how it was intended. Anyway, the material is far too wide and not quite long enough; I shall have to do some clever stuff with false hems. In any case, the kitchen curtains can’t go up till the walls have been painted, and probably not until the new kitchen has been fitted, so no hurry yet. Also in the nearby cut-price shops I found a very good red fleece for 6.99 euros, and while having tea in a café decided it was such a bargain I ought to get another one, and after much rummaging and trying on bought a cream one too.
We had a very enjoyable Chinese dinner at the Lotus D’Or, despite N ordering far too much food, and then managing to eat most of it. The restaurant was very crowded, mainly with couples; I wondered if it was like that every Tuesday, but it was probably only because of Valentine’s day. N bought me a red rose from a wandering rose seller, which was a nice end to the day.
Wednesday was a day for catching up with cleaning, washing, changing the bed and shopping at Carrefour; not only food needed for while we were at Saint-Dennis, but things to take back to LNL; pillow cases and a spaghetti tin - three open packets of spaghetti came with the things from the Italian kitchen and needed housing somewhere. In the afternoon we had a visit from the Vietnamese artist N has finally chosen to draw his portrait; for a long time there was no reply from him - we had seen his stall in the Christmas market - and then he was happy to draw it from a photo, but N thought they should meet. We found him interesting and I think he found us interesting too; he said it certainly helped to meet the subject of the portrait, and told us about his work and life - he arrived in France from Vietnam aged 5 - and was very impressed by the Ursulines building; like many people he was surprised there was something so fine in Saint-Denis. He promises to have the portrait finished within a week or so, in which case I will be entrusted with the delivery of it when I go to Cambridge at the beginning of March.
Also on Wednesday we discovered a leak in the cistern of the loo - similar, but not quite the same as the problem at LNL. (I don’t know what we have done to deserve all these plumbing problems….) N had only that morning spied a plumber’s van outside and noted the name and number, but they turned out only to work with businesses. So he found - yet another! - name in the yellow pages and in the middle of Thursday morning two very young plumbers arrived, and said that the cistern would need replacing. The loo is a very ancient avocado one, left over from the previous owner of the apartment, and the new cistern can only be in white, so it should look very unusual!
Anyway, the fact that all this happened in the morning meant that we could go out in the afternoon as planned; N wanted to show me the Quartier de l’Horloge which I had never visited; an area near the Pompidou Centre with a (fairly new) mechanical clock which chimed and moved on the hour. There was also a good lighting shop nearby, N said, and we still hadn’t solved the problem of all the hall and landing lights. We arrived at about 2.20, and discovered that the lighting shop had been transformed into a supermarket, but that close by there was now a branch of Leroy Merlin. N thought we could get done all we needed and see the clock at 3.00; I thought this was a bit optimistic, and was right, there was so much to see - N thought more than in the Saint-Denis branch, but I think was just all closer together. We found lights for the hall and landings, drill bits and things to hold up the new mirror, and looked again at curtain fittings, and all sorts of other things, and by the time we came out - carrying our bags of glass lights very carefully - it was about 3.30.
In order to kill time we went into a German bookshop, about which N was more excited than I was, although he did buy me a dual language (French/German) text version of Kafka’s Die Verwandlung which I (was supposed to have) studied for German A level and have always felt I should look at again. By then it was 3.40, so we took up positions in a café opposite the clock and had hot chocolate and a look at our German books. By four o’clock there were several groups of people standing about looking at the clock, but it was all a great anticlimax; it struck four just like any other clock, but nothing else happened at all! N asked about it when he paid the bill, and they said it used to do a lot more but hasn’t for some time now. (Probably keeping quiet about it while customers install themselves in readiness in their café)
Undaunted, we set off for our next destinations, the Grande Poste near the Louvre, where N always stocks up with stamps, and then on to the Gare St Lazare, as I wanted to get my ticket to Evreux for the next day and to see where the train was likely to leave from - it was due to leave at 8.00 am, so I didn’t want to leave any earlier than I had to. Fortunately we arrived home with all our lights intact, and put them ready to come by car next week.
The Gare St Lazare is conveniently not far down the line from Saint-Denis, so I left home at about 7.10 and was there by 7.45. The journey went very smoothly as planned; comfortable, punctual train, lots of nice sunny Norman countryside and none of the wind and rain forecast the previous evening. I had about half an hour to wait at Evreux station before the bus left, (I was the only passenger for the entire journey!) and got to LNL as scheduled at 10.20, very pleased that it can be done; it’s just unfortunate that the best connection was so early in the morning.
Saturday 18 February 2006
Since arriving here I have filled my newly painted bookshelves with paperbacks and other small books, and the wardrobe with clothes, hats, shoes and bags. It will be a real treat at last to have all my clothes ready in the room where I am sleeping for the first time since September; my underwear, nightwear, stockings and socks were also pleased to find themselves finally at rest in a spacious Italian chest of drawers after the nomadic existence they have led over the last five months. I also found in the post the estimate for the shutters from Monsieur P the carpenter, and my « dossiers » from Lapeyre; these are the revised estimates for the new bathroom and kitchen, and I have signed and sent them back with large cheques representing half of the total cost.
This morning I have been to L’Aigle on the bus, as I did two weeks ago. I felt I should support the bus company as much as possible! But was also anxious to have news of the curtain material I ordered as I had heard nothing and could not get through to the shop on the phone. I spoke to the husband of the proprietress, who said they had not forgotten me, but that the order was a long time coming and they would be in touch and deliver, as promised. So that was OK, and I then had a lot of time to spend in L’Aigle in the rain, although at least it was a little warmer than two weeks ago. I found a café where I had hot chocolate, also the Tourist Office - I got off and on the bus before the station this time, which was an improvement - and looked at different shops and bought food from a traiteur, and daffodils. There is a very large market at L’Aigle on Tuesdays, the third largest in France; the artisan from Lapeyre told us this when he was here as he lives in L’Aigle, so I think I shall go again on Tuesday and have a look.
Sunday 19 February 2006
A very frustrating start to this morning - I was very keen to do one of the exercise videos Madeleine had set me, having had a look at it on Friday evening, but the picture froze at the point I had finished watching it, and despite trying for about half an hour, I could do nothing with it. In the end I had to give up and have breakfast, and by the time I had got dressed and gone out to get the bread and post a letter, it was halfway through the morning.
The main activity of the day was the curtains in the grande pièce, which I’m glad to say are now up. It took the whole of the rest of the morning to clean inside and outside of all four windows - which I thought I’d better do before hanging clean white lace curtains up at them, and to hoover up all the dust from the outside shutters and the mess from the drilling when N put up the supports for the curtains last week. It was the first time the two shutters onto the street had been opened together for any length of time, and I should think it would not have gone unnoticed in the village (I see her at number three has got her front shutters open, and not before time…) and I was sorry Marie-Antoinette was not around to see. She appears to be away as her shutters have been firmly closed for a few days, probably on « vacances de février », but when we first met her in September said that the front shutters in this house had not been opened for over three years and you couldn’t imagine how depressing it was living opposite closed shutters. Hopefully now the curtains are up they can be opened more often.
After lunch I laid the 17 metres of IKEA voile out on to the big Italian dining-room table and divided it into eight lengths, and hemmed the tops and bottoms, fortunately the sides were scalloped and didn’t need doing. With a short tea break (when amazingly, I found the Eastenders Omnibus on my television!) I finally got them all up by seven o’clock, although as N had warned, the two poles on the street side were not straight, and it was difficult to get them back in the supports, and there is an unequal length of pole at each end. When N phoned he said he would look at this next week (even at the top of the ladder I am not really high enough to do anything about it) and also made helpful suggestions about the DVD, which I have yet to try, and most interesting of all, that he had decided it was silly to have a half green/half white loo, so had ordered a brand new white one, which was working very well indeed.
Tuesday 21 February 2006
I made slight progress with the DVD player yesterday morning, at least got the disc out, and was all ready to do my regular Pilates one instead, but that refused to work as well. Very frustrating, so this morning decided not to bother at all, but to take them both back to Saint-Denis, and to let N have a look at the machine when he is here.
Yesterday morning I went to the market here in the village, and bought some wonderful home-smoked salmon from the fish man. It’s very thick and succulent and bears no resemblance to the thin, bright pink stuff you get between sheets of plastic. We had a little chat about the best kind of white wine to go with it; can’t see that happening in ASDA. Fortunately, N had brought back some marvellous Italian white wine, which accompanied it beautifully. I was also interested to see a chair re-caning stall on the market, as there is a very elegant chair with a hole in the seat which was left here, and which I would like to have re-done. I was all ready to run home and fetch it, but the man said he hadn’t got the cane for that kind of seat at the moment; it wasn’t the season. So I suppose I’ll just have to wait. Sometimes when crossing the market square between the boulangerie and the post office I have the absurd impression that I am part of Camberwick Green or Trumpton.
I spent a lot of the rest of the day catching up with vast amounts of ironing, hoovering the ground floor and trying to put the new handles on the bedside cupboards, with only partial success, in between watching a variety of things on my various TV channels: part of the film Bloody Sunday, Olympic ice skating and the BAFTA awards.
This morning I have been to L’Aigle on the bus to look at the market; it snowed all the time, that thin wet snow which melts on contact, and the temperature was 1 degree! The market was very impressive however and I couldn’t help thinking how wonderful it all must be in the summer. It stretches throughout the whole town, in several large squares and car parks, and also in the streets. Lots of wonderful things to eat: crèpes, chicken, paella, roast potatoes, honey, Vietnamese food; and fruit & veg., flowers, clothes, household things, and one or two stalls I recognised from La Neuve-Lyre Monday market; the cheese man and the cobbler’s van. There was also an impressive fish and shellfish stall, with a map showing whereabouts on the northern coast the fish was caught each night.
I bought white tulips, and got given some free orange roses with them, I’m not sure why; and celery for my soup, and a large piece of N’s favourite cheese - Cantal Entre Deux, a very small chopping board and what seems like a wonderful pair of pyjamas for 5 euros - we shall see! I called in at my - now regular - bistro for a cup of hot chocolate, and its useful - if draughty - outside loo. This is in one of the squares where there are lots of market stalls, and again I thought it must be totally different experience in the summer, sitting at a table outside.
This afternoon I have made Delia Smith’s pea soup with some Italian dried peas N brought back from Italy, while watching the snow out of the window. There is now space to do « proper » cooking as the little oven has been moved to the other side of the kitchen (courtesy of Emanuel’s extra electric points) which makes more room next to the hob. There is also now a large red Italian pot to make soup in. I have also arranged all my new flowers and unpacked some more small pieces of china which came from Ainsworth Street; these are on a bookcase which needs altering, so I was waiting, but decided today they might as well be unpacked. There is so much china, glass and cutlery in this house now, I wonder if we shall ever manage to use it all.
Wednesday 22 February 2006
This morning I have hoovered all of the top two floors and stairs and cleaned the bathroom, prior to going back to Paris on the bus/train this afternoon. I received a phone call from the man at the curtain material shop saying they could deliver tomorrow; when I explained I would not be here he said they would come today between 12.00 and 2.00. I shall look forward to being able to make up the curtains at last, when we get back next week, after Madeleine’s visit. It’s all very well having an old curtain hung permanently over the window; I would like to be able to see the garden sometimes.
Afternoon: the curtain lady duly arrived with my material on a roll, and apologies for it being late. Fortunately, I like it even more now than I did when I chose it. She said I had a « maison charmante » but I managed to stop her from coming in and inspecting any of my curtains. She asked if I was living half here, half in England; I said no - half here, half in Paris, and she said didn’t it break my heart to leave here? I said, yes especially when there was so much to do! I had made her a cheque for the remaining amount, I am sure it will be worth it. I realised I had forgotten to get dark red thread, but am sure I can find that in Paris on my shopping day with Madeleine.
As it has stopped raining/snowing I have been out on my bike again and taken a large collection of glass and bottles to the bottle bank.
During lunch - a very large hot goat cheese salad, to use up various things before leaving - I discovered a new and interesting channel on the TV, called Mezzo, which I thought might be Italian but is in fact snippets of classical music performances, some old and in black & white, some modern and some bits of opera; you never know what’s coming next.
Before leaving LNL last week I had my hair cut again; it wasn’t that long since the last time but it was getting very floppy over my face, and here - much more than in Cambridge - going to the hairdresser is a kind of luxurious therapy. It was quite crowded, four stylists at work, and the lady from the traiteur was waiting while her little daughter had her hair cut and plaited. The proprietress did my hair this time, very well indeed; I took along a photo from several years ago which I had found in the suitcase of old photos, and it is a really well-shaped short cut. She is still surprised at the thickness of my hair, and I keep telling her it used to be much thicker!
I am now back in LNL again, having come for the first time by train and bus. This was because N can only get the car back on Saturday morning, and then wanted to stay on for a colleague’s concert on Sunday afternoon; I would like to have gone too, but there is so much that needs doing here, that I decided to come today and go back next Wednesday, in time for Madeleine arriving on Thursday, and at the same time trying out the bus and train connections.
I had three days in Paris, and did a variety of different things. On the way back in the car on Monday afternoon we suddenly realised that it was St Valentine’s Day the next day, and that neither of us had been anywhere near a shop to be able to do anything about it, so we decided to go out for dinner at the local Chinese restaurant in Saint-Denis, where we had not been for a long time. Tuesday morning started with N getting up early to take the car to the garage for 7.30, and bringing back croissants for breakfast, which I said I thought was a very suitable St Valentine’s Day gesture. I managed to do my Pilates video exercises, for the first time for some time (very stiff after kneeling to paint the bookshelves the day before)
I wanted to try and get to the mardi musical at the Eglise Saint- Roch, but there was nothing happening; I assume it was « les vacances de février » a kind of half-term holiday for everybody. Before this I had been to BHV to get replacement door & drawer handles for two bedside cupboards from Italy, and also found reduced cushion covers and a hook for the washroom door. I was surprised to see long queues outside the Hôtel de Ville waiting to see the Willy Ronis exhibition which we saw in the autumn; it’s difficult to believe everybody hasn’t seen it!
I bought a little salmon & spinach quiche from a wonderful shop called Gargantua next door to the church and sat and ate it on the steps looking at the Rue St Honoré and getting my bearings, and then it was quite a surprise to find no concert going on in the church. I looked round at the monuments and paintings instead, and then made my way to the Monoprix in the Avenue de l’Opéra. It was full of spring and summer clothes, which was optimistic, and so was the household section - even there was nothing I needed as so many things have just come from Italy, but the designs were wonderful and much improved from what I remember of Monoprix from years ago.
I then took the metro up to Montmartre to my favourite curtain shop, to look for red material for the kitchen curtains and found some wonderful stuff with tomatoes on it; there was barely enough left on the roll but a nice flirtatious man let me have it at a reduced price while claiming he couldn’t believe I was English, I must be Italian. I said I took this as a compliment, and he said that was how it was intended. Anyway, the material is far too wide and not quite long enough; I shall have to do some clever stuff with false hems. In any case, the kitchen curtains can’t go up till the walls have been painted, and probably not until the new kitchen has been fitted, so no hurry yet. Also in the nearby cut-price shops I found a very good red fleece for 6.99 euros, and while having tea in a café decided it was such a bargain I ought to get another one, and after much rummaging and trying on bought a cream one too.
We had a very enjoyable Chinese dinner at the Lotus D’Or, despite N ordering far too much food, and then managing to eat most of it. The restaurant was very crowded, mainly with couples; I wondered if it was like that every Tuesday, but it was probably only because of Valentine’s day. N bought me a red rose from a wandering rose seller, which was a nice end to the day.
Wednesday was a day for catching up with cleaning, washing, changing the bed and shopping at Carrefour; not only food needed for while we were at Saint-Dennis, but things to take back to LNL; pillow cases and a spaghetti tin - three open packets of spaghetti came with the things from the Italian kitchen and needed housing somewhere. In the afternoon we had a visit from the Vietnamese artist N has finally chosen to draw his portrait; for a long time there was no reply from him - we had seen his stall in the Christmas market - and then he was happy to draw it from a photo, but N thought they should meet. We found him interesting and I think he found us interesting too; he said it certainly helped to meet the subject of the portrait, and told us about his work and life - he arrived in France from Vietnam aged 5 - and was very impressed by the Ursulines building; like many people he was surprised there was something so fine in Saint-Denis. He promises to have the portrait finished within a week or so, in which case I will be entrusted with the delivery of it when I go to Cambridge at the beginning of March.
Also on Wednesday we discovered a leak in the cistern of the loo - similar, but not quite the same as the problem at LNL. (I don’t know what we have done to deserve all these plumbing problems….) N had only that morning spied a plumber’s van outside and noted the name and number, but they turned out only to work with businesses. So he found - yet another! - name in the yellow pages and in the middle of Thursday morning two very young plumbers arrived, and said that the cistern would need replacing. The loo is a very ancient avocado one, left over from the previous owner of the apartment, and the new cistern can only be in white, so it should look very unusual!
Anyway, the fact that all this happened in the morning meant that we could go out in the afternoon as planned; N wanted to show me the Quartier de l’Horloge which I had never visited; an area near the Pompidou Centre with a (fairly new) mechanical clock which chimed and moved on the hour. There was also a good lighting shop nearby, N said, and we still hadn’t solved the problem of all the hall and landing lights. We arrived at about 2.20, and discovered that the lighting shop had been transformed into a supermarket, but that close by there was now a branch of Leroy Merlin. N thought we could get done all we needed and see the clock at 3.00; I thought this was a bit optimistic, and was right, there was so much to see - N thought more than in the Saint-Denis branch, but I think was just all closer together. We found lights for the hall and landings, drill bits and things to hold up the new mirror, and looked again at curtain fittings, and all sorts of other things, and by the time we came out - carrying our bags of glass lights very carefully - it was about 3.30.
In order to kill time we went into a German bookshop, about which N was more excited than I was, although he did buy me a dual language (French/German) text version of Kafka’s Die Verwandlung which I (was supposed to have) studied for German A level and have always felt I should look at again. By then it was 3.40, so we took up positions in a café opposite the clock and had hot chocolate and a look at our German books. By four o’clock there were several groups of people standing about looking at the clock, but it was all a great anticlimax; it struck four just like any other clock, but nothing else happened at all! N asked about it when he paid the bill, and they said it used to do a lot more but hasn’t for some time now. (Probably keeping quiet about it while customers install themselves in readiness in their café)
Undaunted, we set off for our next destinations, the Grande Poste near the Louvre, where N always stocks up with stamps, and then on to the Gare St Lazare, as I wanted to get my ticket to Evreux for the next day and to see where the train was likely to leave from - it was due to leave at 8.00 am, so I didn’t want to leave any earlier than I had to. Fortunately we arrived home with all our lights intact, and put them ready to come by car next week.
The Gare St Lazare is conveniently not far down the line from Saint-Denis, so I left home at about 7.10 and was there by 7.45. The journey went very smoothly as planned; comfortable, punctual train, lots of nice sunny Norman countryside and none of the wind and rain forecast the previous evening. I had about half an hour to wait at Evreux station before the bus left, (I was the only passenger for the entire journey!) and got to LNL as scheduled at 10.20, very pleased that it can be done; it’s just unfortunate that the best connection was so early in the morning.
Saturday 18 February 2006
Since arriving here I have filled my newly painted bookshelves with paperbacks and other small books, and the wardrobe with clothes, hats, shoes and bags. It will be a real treat at last to have all my clothes ready in the room where I am sleeping for the first time since September; my underwear, nightwear, stockings and socks were also pleased to find themselves finally at rest in a spacious Italian chest of drawers after the nomadic existence they have led over the last five months. I also found in the post the estimate for the shutters from Monsieur P the carpenter, and my « dossiers » from Lapeyre; these are the revised estimates for the new bathroom and kitchen, and I have signed and sent them back with large cheques representing half of the total cost.
This morning I have been to L’Aigle on the bus, as I did two weeks ago. I felt I should support the bus company as much as possible! But was also anxious to have news of the curtain material I ordered as I had heard nothing and could not get through to the shop on the phone. I spoke to the husband of the proprietress, who said they had not forgotten me, but that the order was a long time coming and they would be in touch and deliver, as promised. So that was OK, and I then had a lot of time to spend in L’Aigle in the rain, although at least it was a little warmer than two weeks ago. I found a café where I had hot chocolate, also the Tourist Office - I got off and on the bus before the station this time, which was an improvement - and looked at different shops and bought food from a traiteur, and daffodils. There is a very large market at L’Aigle on Tuesdays, the third largest in France; the artisan from Lapeyre told us this when he was here as he lives in L’Aigle, so I think I shall go again on Tuesday and have a look.
Sunday 19 February 2006
A very frustrating start to this morning - I was very keen to do one of the exercise videos Madeleine had set me, having had a look at it on Friday evening, but the picture froze at the point I had finished watching it, and despite trying for about half an hour, I could do nothing with it. In the end I had to give up and have breakfast, and by the time I had got dressed and gone out to get the bread and post a letter, it was halfway through the morning.
The main activity of the day was the curtains in the grande pièce, which I’m glad to say are now up. It took the whole of the rest of the morning to clean inside and outside of all four windows - which I thought I’d better do before hanging clean white lace curtains up at them, and to hoover up all the dust from the outside shutters and the mess from the drilling when N put up the supports for the curtains last week. It was the first time the two shutters onto the street had been opened together for any length of time, and I should think it would not have gone unnoticed in the village (I see her at number three has got her front shutters open, and not before time…) and I was sorry Marie-Antoinette was not around to see. She appears to be away as her shutters have been firmly closed for a few days, probably on « vacances de février », but when we first met her in September said that the front shutters in this house had not been opened for over three years and you couldn’t imagine how depressing it was living opposite closed shutters. Hopefully now the curtains are up they can be opened more often.
After lunch I laid the 17 metres of IKEA voile out on to the big Italian dining-room table and divided it into eight lengths, and hemmed the tops and bottoms, fortunately the sides were scalloped and didn’t need doing. With a short tea break (when amazingly, I found the Eastenders Omnibus on my television!) I finally got them all up by seven o’clock, although as N had warned, the two poles on the street side were not straight, and it was difficult to get them back in the supports, and there is an unequal length of pole at each end. When N phoned he said he would look at this next week (even at the top of the ladder I am not really high enough to do anything about it) and also made helpful suggestions about the DVD, which I have yet to try, and most interesting of all, that he had decided it was silly to have a half green/half white loo, so had ordered a brand new white one, which was working very well indeed.
Tuesday 21 February 2006
I made slight progress with the DVD player yesterday morning, at least got the disc out, and was all ready to do my regular Pilates one instead, but that refused to work as well. Very frustrating, so this morning decided not to bother at all, but to take them both back to Saint-Denis, and to let N have a look at the machine when he is here.
Yesterday morning I went to the market here in the village, and bought some wonderful home-smoked salmon from the fish man. It’s very thick and succulent and bears no resemblance to the thin, bright pink stuff you get between sheets of plastic. We had a little chat about the best kind of white wine to go with it; can’t see that happening in ASDA. Fortunately, N had brought back some marvellous Italian white wine, which accompanied it beautifully. I was also interested to see a chair re-caning stall on the market, as there is a very elegant chair with a hole in the seat which was left here, and which I would like to have re-done. I was all ready to run home and fetch it, but the man said he hadn’t got the cane for that kind of seat at the moment; it wasn’t the season. So I suppose I’ll just have to wait. Sometimes when crossing the market square between the boulangerie and the post office I have the absurd impression that I am part of Camberwick Green or Trumpton.
I spent a lot of the rest of the day catching up with vast amounts of ironing, hoovering the ground floor and trying to put the new handles on the bedside cupboards, with only partial success, in between watching a variety of things on my various TV channels: part of the film Bloody Sunday, Olympic ice skating and the BAFTA awards.
This morning I have been to L’Aigle on the bus to look at the market; it snowed all the time, that thin wet snow which melts on contact, and the temperature was 1 degree! The market was very impressive however and I couldn’t help thinking how wonderful it all must be in the summer. It stretches throughout the whole town, in several large squares and car parks, and also in the streets. Lots of wonderful things to eat: crèpes, chicken, paella, roast potatoes, honey, Vietnamese food; and fruit & veg., flowers, clothes, household things, and one or two stalls I recognised from La Neuve-Lyre Monday market; the cheese man and the cobbler’s van. There was also an impressive fish and shellfish stall, with a map showing whereabouts on the northern coast the fish was caught each night.
I bought white tulips, and got given some free orange roses with them, I’m not sure why; and celery for my soup, and a large piece of N’s favourite cheese - Cantal Entre Deux, a very small chopping board and what seems like a wonderful pair of pyjamas for 5 euros - we shall see! I called in at my - now regular - bistro for a cup of hot chocolate, and its useful - if draughty - outside loo. This is in one of the squares where there are lots of market stalls, and again I thought it must be totally different experience in the summer, sitting at a table outside.
This afternoon I have made Delia Smith’s pea soup with some Italian dried peas N brought back from Italy, while watching the snow out of the window. There is now space to do « proper » cooking as the little oven has been moved to the other side of the kitchen (courtesy of Emanuel’s extra electric points) which makes more room next to the hob. There is also now a large red Italian pot to make soup in. I have also arranged all my new flowers and unpacked some more small pieces of china which came from Ainsworth Street; these are on a bookcase which needs altering, so I was waiting, but decided today they might as well be unpacked. There is so much china, glass and cutlery in this house now, I wonder if we shall ever manage to use it all.
Wednesday 22 February 2006
This morning I have hoovered all of the top two floors and stairs and cleaned the bathroom, prior to going back to Paris on the bus/train this afternoon. I received a phone call from the man at the curtain material shop saying they could deliver tomorrow; when I explained I would not be here he said they would come today between 12.00 and 2.00. I shall look forward to being able to make up the curtains at last, when we get back next week, after Madeleine’s visit. It’s all very well having an old curtain hung permanently over the window; I would like to be able to see the garden sometimes.
Afternoon: the curtain lady duly arrived with my material on a roll, and apologies for it being late. Fortunately, I like it even more now than I did when I chose it. She said I had a « maison charmante » but I managed to stop her from coming in and inspecting any of my curtains. She asked if I was living half here, half in England; I said no - half here, half in Paris, and she said didn’t it break my heart to leave here? I said, yes especially when there was so much to do! I had made her a cheque for the remaining amount, I am sure it will be worth it. I realised I had forgotten to get dark red thread, but am sure I can find that in Paris on my shopping day with Madeleine.
As it has stopped raining/snowing I have been out on my bike again and taken a large collection of glass and bottles to the bottle bank.
During lunch - a very large hot goat cheese salad, to use up various things before leaving - I discovered a new and interesting channel on the TV, called Mezzo, which I thought might be Italian but is in fact snippets of classical music performances, some old and in black & white, some modern and some bits of opera; you never know what’s coming next.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Saturday 4 February 2006
This morning in bed I finished reading War and Peace. I started reading it in May, after we had seen the opera by Prokoviev last winter, and thought now that I had an idea of the plot, it would be a good time to read the book. I found the appendices at the end rather tedious; I think his point had already been made. It means that I have been able to get back to La Porte Etroite, by Gide, before I forgot too much of what was going on there.
Yesterday afternoon the TV aerial man, Monsieur B, came to fix the aerial, check the TV point in N’s study, set up the satellite dish and bring TPS, (Télévision par Satellite) a system requested by N whereby we can watch a whole variety of foreign channels. Monsieur B was very dour to start with, but warmed up as he went on - not literally unfortunately, as he spent a lot of time in the garden fixing the dish (and scratching his forehead on some brambles) and drilling a long hole through the wall to the grande pièce where the TV is situated. He said these walls were particularly thick, and he had to use his larger drill. TPS comes in the form of a box the size of a small video recorder, and sits on top of the other one. He demonstrated some of the channels, of which there are many with names like God TV, Sensual TV and Black Music TV (and Al-Jazeera!) but also the more familiar Italian and German ones and BBC World and BBC Prime Time, plus all the usual French channels, and he said that English people usually ask him to install Sky TV. After I had written two substantial cheques, one for his time and the other as a deposit for TPS - for which there is a monthly subscription payable by N as this is all his idea - he left and I hoovered up the mess from the drilling and the opening of the window on to the street - I don’t think it had been opened for years and was full of cobwebs and dirt from the big lorries that go past. I then went down to the paper shop and got a TV magazine, so I can make sure I don’t miss anything.
So after dinner last night for the first time I was able to watch TV news here, the only snag being that the grande pièce is very cold; there are two radiators of which only one is working (waiting for Monsieur A to come back) and two outside walls. I ended up on the sofa with a blanket round me.
Today I have been on the bus to L’Aigle. We had only visited it once before, to go to an estate agent in September, when it was raining hard and we were taken by the agent to visit a house in the middle of nowhere. But I had memories of a town square and interesting little shops, and it was the best choice time-wise, as buses are not that frequent to anywhere. The journey took about half an hour; I left at 10.19 and got the bus back at 12.35, getting home just after 1.00. It is a very cold grey day today (not made much better by the fact that N has just phoned from Italy where he says it is warm with brilliant sunshine) and I kept feeling that the journey would be totally different in the spring or summer. However, it was interesting, and I could see a lot of the countryside and villages from the bus, which crossed the border to get to L’Aigle - out of our home department of Eure and into Orne. There was only one other passenger, both going and coming back and the driver was listening to Radio Nostalgie, which was quite entertaining.
L’Aigle was bigger than I remembered, with large blocks of flats in the outskirts, and the road from the station - where the bus stopped - led to the agency we had visited, so I knew where I was. My main aim was to buy curtain material for the study, and curtain tape for the dining room curtains, but first I came across lots of other little shops including several shoe shops, which I must return to another time. I found an inexpensive furnishing shop where I bought tape and hooks, and hesitated over some very cheap ready-made voile curtains and asked where I could find a curtain material shop. I was directed to a shop on the main square, « but it’s expensive », she said. It was!
I had a good look round while the proprietress was busy with someone else, taking orders for curtains. The tiny shop was filled with all sorts of fabrics: dress and furnishing fabrics, patchwork, braid, trimmings and samples. I was attracted to some red and yellow material with tulips on; the study has an unusual colour scheme of golden yellow walls and red & grey flecked carpet. It was expensive and there wasn’t much of it left, but she said she ordered most her stock; when I said I rather wanted to buy something I could take back today she said she was happy to deliver it; she delivered to most of her clients, and asked where I lived. « But La Neuve-Lyre isn’t the end of the world! » she said, which I happily kept repeating to myself on the bus on the way home. The material costs far more than I had intended, but will look so much better than the cheap voile I had seen in the other shop; what I really needed was something in between, like the toile de jouy in Montmartre. (Perhaps I need to get all remaining curtain material in Montmartre?) I finally decided that if I added together the prices of this and the really cheap IKEA material for the grande pièce, and divided by the number of windows, then I would feel better about it! She promises to deliver within 10 days, either herself or her husband; I rather hope it’s him, as I’m not sure what she would think of the curtains I have up so far. I think my tastes are a lot simpler.
By the time I got home I was very cold indeed, and took some time to warm up. My shopping time in L’Aigle went quickly, but was quite long enough in these temperatures (3 degrees according to a sign in the main shopping street). I see from the bus timetable that I could also have come back at 4.30 in the afternoon; perhaps another time I’ll try that and have lunch too. I am sure N will liken this to the heroine of Brief Encounter, although unfortunately I don’t think there is a cinema in L’Aigle, although several buildings which look as though they could have been cinemas once.
Sunday 5 February 2006
It’s amazing just how much you can get done when you’re on your own! Apart from writing letters and catching up with my Internet bank, I have finished and hung the dining room curtains, and by the end was quite fed up with the peasants represented on the toile de jouy pattern. There are two couples, one industriously watering and harvesting vegetables while the other two are just sitting around on a well ignoring their animals and playing a pipe. If I were the first couple, I should be very annoyed with them.
One of the (many) things I enjoy about this house is that I can play CDs or the radio very loudly without disturbing anybody. The stereo radio is now set up in the salon, tuned to France Musique, and echoes through the rather empty tiled room, which is waiting for a three piece suite from Italy. Sometimes when I come into the room I feel as though we should be hosting a ball; when I said this to Monsieur P while we were sipping our tea he said he felt sure I must be a dancer; I didn’t like to disillusion him.
I have also watched television, although both last night and this lunchtime it took a while to get it going; but I think this is probably me and the two remote controls rather than the aerial. Yesterday evening I watched part of a tribute to Charles Trenet, which I don’t think he would have thought much of, and today after the lunchtime news saw the news in Italian. If I keep doing this until Wednesday, it will be good practice for dealing with the removal men from Traslochi. Tomorrow will be the last day I can sit around in bed in the morning drinking tea and reading Gide, as on Tuesday Monsieur A is due at 8.15, and on Wednesday Traslochi at 7.30. (I have finished La Porte Etroite - un livre étroite aussi - and have now started on Les Caves du Vatican, all in the same volume.)
The only time I have been out today was to get bread just before lunch; Sunday is always the busiest day at the boulangerie, today the queue went right out onto the pavement. As I stood waiting I thought of years ago when I began to learn French and shops in England were never open on Sundays, and we were told that it was an important French ritual to come out of Mass and buy cakes to take home, usually packaged in a pyramid of paper with a ribbon, and it seemed quite unbelievable! Well, I can assure you now that it’s quite normal.
Tuesday 7 February 2006
N phoned twice during the day yesterday, the first time as early as 11.30 to say that everything was packed up at Soliera and that the van was already on its way, and would probably arrive in La Neuve -Lyre today rather than Wednesday. He said - amongst other things - that the two ornate beds would now have one large new mattress instead of two old thin ones (i.e. only ever a double bed rather than the possibility of two singles) and that there were some fresh raviolini coming with the kitchen things! He later phoned in the evening to say he had signed the preliminary sale papers for the apartment, and was in a hotel in Chambéry (driving back to Paris rather than taking the train.)
By Monday afternoon I had caught up so well with everything that I had run out of things to do, and wished the Italian things would arrive, as I know once they do there will be a lot to sort out, or that the curtain material for the study would be delivered. I did some phone chasing however; firstly Sturno, the company responsible for putting in extra phone points to whom I had sent a cheque and acceptance four weeks ago; they said there had been a bit of a delay, and they would let me know soon when they could come; I asked whether it would be a few days or a few weeks and they said days. I also phoned Lapeyre the kitchen and bathroom people with the same sort of request; they maintained they hadn’t got my phone number! which seemed strange, and were waiting for me to contact them. They then said once they had spoken to the artisan they would call back that afternoon. Nothing happened so I called again this morning; unable to contact the artisan. I would like to get these two visits decided as soon as possible; as N will not now be driving straight on here from Paris because of the repair to the car, I could well be going to Paris on the train, and will soon have to decide when.
Anyway, I ended up spending a lot of yesterday afternoon and evening sorting out photographs. There was a collection from Ainsworth Street, which I had decided when packing up should all be put in a new album I’d been given; an album devoted entirely to Ainsworth Street, i.e. no holidays, graduations or visits. I completed this and was very pleased with it, and even printed it a nice cover with my resourceful new computer. I then turned to a huge old suitcase full of all sorts of photographs; albums, loose pictures and all sorts, which had been packed up when moving out of the house in Montague Road in 1998, and had been lying undisturbed in the loft at Ainsworth Street ever since.
It was strange going back in time, and looking at my former life I wondered more than once how it came to be that I was now the owner of a wonderful house in Normandy, but the strangest thing was seeing photos of pieces of furniture, lamps and pictures, many of which are still here with me now.
This morning I got up early in time to let in Emanuel the electrician at about 8.15, together with an assistant who appears to be doing some kind of work experience. They are here now working hard, I’m pleased to say; we went through the house again and agreed what needs doing in order of priority; he says Monsieur A will come this afternoon re the heating. (I haven’t told them some Italians could arrive with large pieces of furniture at any moment; will not complicate things until I have to! N says he has asked them to ring first)
Anyway straight away they fixed the central light here in the study, and the wall point so that the computer can be plugged in by the door, and I have been able to get rid of the cabling and extension leads all over the floor. « On est rapide, nous », he said when I was amazed at the speed at which this was done. They are now working simultaneously on the extra points in the kitchen, and on the ground floor bathroom, which as usual seems to be causing complications.
Saturday 11 February 2006
In the end Tuesday turned out to be an extremely busy and eventful day. Emanuel and his assistant went off for lunch at about 12.30, and while they were gone I had a phone call from Sturno saying the telephone point installation team were at Verneuil and could they come along to me in about half an hour? I laughed and said I already had two electricians in the house (not to mention the threat of Traslochi) and said yes, of course they could come. The electricians came back - Monsieur A was held up and now wouldn’t be coming - and in all fixed the new wall light in the downstairs bathroom and put another light in the centre of the ceiling and a point on the wall; put shades on the bulbs hanging off the wall on the staircase, and finally got the neon light in the upstairs bathroom working. The two chaps from Sturno arrived; they were young and extremely business-like; and it was so long since we asked for these extra points that I’d had to consult my notes to find out where they were required, but showed them where - a point for the phone in the back hall on the ground floor so we could stop having the phone in the dining room; and a new point in N’s study in the attic so he can have a computer there. In each case they had to take a lead from an existing point; from the dining room round three doorways and through the wall at skirting board level, and upstairs along the ceiling from the point in our bedroom and through the ceiling over the stairwell up to the attic floor and along the beams. They’d just worked out how they were going to do this - obviously seeing it all as a great challenge - when there was a ring at the front gate bell, and there was the man from Traslochi - I could tell because it said so on his overall - and he hadn’t phoned in advance, and I had to start speaking to him in Italian.
We went through the garden and garage and there was the van at the back with the two others in the team; they turned it round and started to bring things in. They’d been well briefed by N re the things which need to go in the outbuildings but I wasn’t sure how they wanted to do the rest. (Rather haphazardly, as it seemed) They fixed up a lift from the side garden to the balcony outside the bedroom, plugged in an electric point just inside the French windows and all the heavy stuff for upstairs came up there. I was so sorry I didn’t have a film in the camera, as this was an amazing sight; they started by tying ropes round the larger branches of the huge fir tree, to keep them out of the way, rather like game wardens holding down a large animal. The pieces of the dining room suite came in the side door between the grande pièce and dining room, which I’d never seen open before. I tried to keep up with where they were and what they were doing, but every so often would be needed by someone else, and from time to time would come across the chaps from Sturno still drilling away, and tried to avoid the ground floor bathroom where the electricians were. More than once I was very glad that this house has two staircases and several outside doors so that when one way was blocked by a ladder I could choose an alternative route.
I tried to speak to them all every so often and let them feel I hadn’t forgotten them, rather like different groups of children who all need to feel equally important, but occasionally and inevitably spoke to someone in the wrong language. At one stage I passed through the kitchen and saw two carrier bags full of food, just as if someone had left shopping there; on closer inspection this was the leftovers promised by N - including the raviolini! - and other fresh produce, and store cupboard things, all smelling (in a Proust like way) just like they used to in the Italian kitchen. N had given them strict instructions to hand these over to la Signora, so as I hadn’t been in the kitchen at that moment they had left them. Later on I saw what appeared to be pair of trousers just taken off and left on the ironing board; this turned out to be - together with some of N’s summer shirts - the contents of the small wardrobe they were bringing; the clothes had travelled on their hangers.
At some time in the afternoon N phoned to say he had arrived back safely in Paris; I laughed when I heard his voice on the phone and told him he could not possibly imagine what was going on here. He said to pass saluti on to the Traslochi men from il Signore. The best thing he said however, and I told him this, was that he would come the next day; apart from looking forward to seeing him again I so wanted him to see all the Italian things in position, not to mention all that I and the electricians had done since he was last here, and I did not want to leave here and have to go back to Paris. The other call during the afternoon was from Lapeyre, to say would it be OK if the artisan came the following day at 5.00? I was very pleased and said yes; not only were things happening quickly, but it meant that my all phone chasing on Monday had come to fruition in two days.
I was glad when the two from Sturno finally left, as that gave me fewer people to keep an eye on; but they had worked so speedily and efficiently I felt they hadn’t been sufficiently appreciated. The electricians were here until 5.30; and kindly hoovered up around the bathroom; when I said I was sorry the place had been so crowded Emanuel said they often worked on sites where there were several different teams at once.
This just left the three from Traslochi, and it was getting dark. The biggest stuff came in last, the two huge glass-topped sideboards for the grande pièce - one came in though the window - and two big chests of drawers for the bedrooms, plus four bedside cupboards and the high ornate frames of the two metal beds (and its huge mattress) which just fitted in between the wall lights - there wouldn‘t have been room as two single beds. There was no central light in the main bedroom, and the bed had been pushed aside to get the largest items in; all the carpets were full of mud and pine needles from the branches of the great tree. Several times I apologetically asked if they could move things just a fraction one way or another; they kept saying, no, no I must ask, I must have things exactly as I wanted them.
Last of all - as with Abels, presumably as with all removals - came the sofa and two armchairs, and all their cushions in huge polythene bags, which took some sorting out, but looked very good when in position. It is very lucky that this suite is a dull gold velvet, and goes very well with the room and its pale yellow walls, white panelling and the gilt mirror; beige curtains and brown/beige/yellow tapestries.
I had hoped that all would be over in time for me to get my yoga class, but it became increasingly clear that this wouldn’t be the case, and anyway I was physically and mentally exhausted, and I tried to ring my contacts but no reply. N had said on the phone that he expected Traslochi to put the bill in the post to him at Saint-Denis, but to pay it if they asked; not only did they ask but went on and on trying to explain why it was the sum it was - some avoidance of VAT - using all sorts of financial vocabulary which went over my head for so long that I thought I should fall asleep standing up. We then phoned N, so they could explain to him, but this got us no further, then they finally mentioned a sum almost the same as the one N had quoted, and after having confirmed several time that this was the amount they wanted me to write the cheque for, I did so and I think all were happy.
That wasn’t quite the end though, as I realised I had to go out with the torch and shut the outhouses and the garage doors once they had gone; they helped with this, and I gave them a tip as instructed by N, and they said thank you, and alla prossima, which made as all laugh.
Once inside on my own again, I was very glad of the raviolini which only took a few minutes to cook and eat with some pesto, and was very good. I decided there was no point in trying to sort, move or clean anything that night, and that it was all best left until the next day. The two sideboards looked odd side by side in the grande pièce, as we had known they would, and there was a big space in the dining room where the phone table had been; I measured and decided it would make sense to move the one with the smaller mirror into there. Pleased with my idea, I went to bed, but found it difficult to sleep - I seemed to keep seeing all the Italians coming in the bedroom window.
The first thing to do next morning was to put way all the store cupboard food still standing all over the kitchen, and the next - a task I was really looking forward to - was to find the quilt which had arrived in big trunk and to put it on the bed, finally bringing to fruition this bed which I have been planning since November. The quilt is a very good quality one from John Lewis, with two layers which sandwich together to make a really thick layer. So now the mattress is the right size for the bed, the fitted sheet is the right size for the mattress, the cover fits the quilt and the quilt is also the right size for the bed. Oh, and the pillows are the right size too. It looks very good, and turns out to be the cosiest, most comfortable bed we have ever slept in.
I spent most of the rest of the day sweeping and hoovering all the floors, before I felt I could begin on any of the many boxes of kitchen utensils, pictures and bedding waiting to be unpacked. Some of these were Abels boxes which N had flattened and taken with him in the car and packed again at Soliera, so there was a real sense of déjà vu with some which had my writing on from last September in Cambridge; and here they were standing in the dining room waiting to be unpacked again. At about 3.30 I was hoovering the attic stairs and looked out of the window and saw bags and boxes outside the garage; N had arrived! And wanted to look all round the house at the furniture in its new positions before he even took his coat off.
We were just finishing this, and I had made some tea, when the artisan from Lapeyre - another Monsieur P - arrived early, so he was invited to have tea too. He and I then started looking at the kitchen which all seemed fairly straightforward as before, and then at the bathroom, which took a lot longer. In order for the water from the shower to drain away, there will need to be a concrete base to raise it up (we have to find someone to do this) and there was also a problem with the angle of the WC; eventually it was decided this could be at the same angle as before, but a little further along the wall. I also asked about the possibility of a loo in the upstairs shower room; this is will be OK as long as we can get electricity for the bruyeur (don’t know the word in English) but I felt sure having seen all the men in action the day before that this wouldn’t be a problem. He finally left after about an hour and a half - a good thing he arrived early - and said he would send his findings to Lapeyre, they would send me revised estimates, which I could accept, paying half the total, then it would enter into « le planning » and I would hear when it was time. He also said it would take about two weeks to fit it all, and he would be here full time; I assured him we were very nice people to live with.
N had been unpacking boxes while all this had been going on, and the new dining room table and sideboards were covered in china and glass. He agreed it would be a good idea to move one of the sideboards into the dining room, so first thing on Wednesday morning we did this very carefully; and are so pleased with the result! Having each sideboard in a different room means that they are both shown off to greater advantage, instead of side by side as though they were in a sale room.
It has taken me several days to unpack and put away all the china, kitchen things and bedding; and wash anything I thought we might use straight away. There were also extra things like cushions, iron & ironing board, laundry things, bathroom things, cleaning materials and sewing equipment - the elderly lady whose apartment N had bought was a great needlewoman. Not to mention all the pictures, which N unpacked and stood all the way up the top stairs, so that it looks like an exhibition.
Monday 13 February 2006
N has made great progress with the downstairs bathroom; it now has a painted ceiling, all the dirty beams are out of sight, and thanks to the electricians there are two lights, one ceiling and one wall, and an point for hairdryer or shaver. The loo has become dislodged and is even more precarious, but can be used with care. And this morning N put up the mirror over the basin, to keep it from being broken while it hung around waiting. We bought the shade for the ceiling light on yet another trip to Monsieur Bricolage at Bernay on Friday, where we also got narrow white metal curtain poles for the four windows in the grande pièce, and rods for the inside of the wardrobe, and called in again at our favourite supermarket. On Saturday we drove through freezing fog and frost to a builders merchants called Point P, where N had been before to order his ceiling plasterboards, for beading for the ceiling, and for wood for my other great idea of the week.
We had always planned to have books in the grande pièce on some kind of shelving yet to be determined, but it was becoming quite crowded, and N said perhaps some could go in the corridor outside. I didn’t think there would be room, but then looked again at a « condemned » door and discovered that the depth of the doorframe was exactly that of a paperback book. The door and frame were white, so it seemed great idea to put white shelves in it and fill with paperbacks and other small books. Unfortunately we couldn’t find ready-made white shelves, so I have painted them all. N’s part of the good idea was to nail supports down the edge the depth of every shelf. It has taken very little time, and will look really good once the colouerd books are in it. And means there will be fewer books to store in the grande pièce. N favours getting Monsieur P the carpenter to make us some bookshelves to fit all over the wall of the entrance, but I think this sounds expensive. Watch this space.
This afternoon we are getting ready to go back to Paris as the car has its appointment at the garage tomorrow. There are so many things waiting to be done here that I hope I might be able to come back before Madeleine arrives in Paris on Thursday 23rd. However, just in case I have made up the bed in the attic and N has fixed the wall light over the bed. When I/we return depends on the car. I have rung Monsieur A to let him know we will be away, and as always he said « On verra ça la semaine prochaine », and also phoned the curtain lady but no reply, and received a call from Christine the yoga teacher, to whom I explained my situation. In any case there are two weeks yoga « holiday » for the next two Tuesdays. Madeleine has kindly sent me several exercise DVDs but as yet we have had no time to get the machine going here; will try to have a look at them in Paris. (One of them says « Drop a dress size in four weeks »; my first thought was, what is a dress? Here it’s usually a case of either my really dirty trousers or my less dirty trousers……)
This morning in bed I finished reading War and Peace. I started reading it in May, after we had seen the opera by Prokoviev last winter, and thought now that I had an idea of the plot, it would be a good time to read the book. I found the appendices at the end rather tedious; I think his point had already been made. It means that I have been able to get back to La Porte Etroite, by Gide, before I forgot too much of what was going on there.
Yesterday afternoon the TV aerial man, Monsieur B, came to fix the aerial, check the TV point in N’s study, set up the satellite dish and bring TPS, (Télévision par Satellite) a system requested by N whereby we can watch a whole variety of foreign channels. Monsieur B was very dour to start with, but warmed up as he went on - not literally unfortunately, as he spent a lot of time in the garden fixing the dish (and scratching his forehead on some brambles) and drilling a long hole through the wall to the grande pièce where the TV is situated. He said these walls were particularly thick, and he had to use his larger drill. TPS comes in the form of a box the size of a small video recorder, and sits on top of the other one. He demonstrated some of the channels, of which there are many with names like God TV, Sensual TV and Black Music TV (and Al-Jazeera!) but also the more familiar Italian and German ones and BBC World and BBC Prime Time, plus all the usual French channels, and he said that English people usually ask him to install Sky TV. After I had written two substantial cheques, one for his time and the other as a deposit for TPS - for which there is a monthly subscription payable by N as this is all his idea - he left and I hoovered up the mess from the drilling and the opening of the window on to the street - I don’t think it had been opened for years and was full of cobwebs and dirt from the big lorries that go past. I then went down to the paper shop and got a TV magazine, so I can make sure I don’t miss anything.
So after dinner last night for the first time I was able to watch TV news here, the only snag being that the grande pièce is very cold; there are two radiators of which only one is working (waiting for Monsieur A to come back) and two outside walls. I ended up on the sofa with a blanket round me.
Today I have been on the bus to L’Aigle. We had only visited it once before, to go to an estate agent in September, when it was raining hard and we were taken by the agent to visit a house in the middle of nowhere. But I had memories of a town square and interesting little shops, and it was the best choice time-wise, as buses are not that frequent to anywhere. The journey took about half an hour; I left at 10.19 and got the bus back at 12.35, getting home just after 1.00. It is a very cold grey day today (not made much better by the fact that N has just phoned from Italy where he says it is warm with brilliant sunshine) and I kept feeling that the journey would be totally different in the spring or summer. However, it was interesting, and I could see a lot of the countryside and villages from the bus, which crossed the border to get to L’Aigle - out of our home department of Eure and into Orne. There was only one other passenger, both going and coming back and the driver was listening to Radio Nostalgie, which was quite entertaining.
L’Aigle was bigger than I remembered, with large blocks of flats in the outskirts, and the road from the station - where the bus stopped - led to the agency we had visited, so I knew where I was. My main aim was to buy curtain material for the study, and curtain tape for the dining room curtains, but first I came across lots of other little shops including several shoe shops, which I must return to another time. I found an inexpensive furnishing shop where I bought tape and hooks, and hesitated over some very cheap ready-made voile curtains and asked where I could find a curtain material shop. I was directed to a shop on the main square, « but it’s expensive », she said. It was!
I had a good look round while the proprietress was busy with someone else, taking orders for curtains. The tiny shop was filled with all sorts of fabrics: dress and furnishing fabrics, patchwork, braid, trimmings and samples. I was attracted to some red and yellow material with tulips on; the study has an unusual colour scheme of golden yellow walls and red & grey flecked carpet. It was expensive and there wasn’t much of it left, but she said she ordered most her stock; when I said I rather wanted to buy something I could take back today she said she was happy to deliver it; she delivered to most of her clients, and asked where I lived. « But La Neuve-Lyre isn’t the end of the world! » she said, which I happily kept repeating to myself on the bus on the way home. The material costs far more than I had intended, but will look so much better than the cheap voile I had seen in the other shop; what I really needed was something in between, like the toile de jouy in Montmartre. (Perhaps I need to get all remaining curtain material in Montmartre?) I finally decided that if I added together the prices of this and the really cheap IKEA material for the grande pièce, and divided by the number of windows, then I would feel better about it! She promises to deliver within 10 days, either herself or her husband; I rather hope it’s him, as I’m not sure what she would think of the curtains I have up so far. I think my tastes are a lot simpler.
By the time I got home I was very cold indeed, and took some time to warm up. My shopping time in L’Aigle went quickly, but was quite long enough in these temperatures (3 degrees according to a sign in the main shopping street). I see from the bus timetable that I could also have come back at 4.30 in the afternoon; perhaps another time I’ll try that and have lunch too. I am sure N will liken this to the heroine of Brief Encounter, although unfortunately I don’t think there is a cinema in L’Aigle, although several buildings which look as though they could have been cinemas once.
Sunday 5 February 2006
It’s amazing just how much you can get done when you’re on your own! Apart from writing letters and catching up with my Internet bank, I have finished and hung the dining room curtains, and by the end was quite fed up with the peasants represented on the toile de jouy pattern. There are two couples, one industriously watering and harvesting vegetables while the other two are just sitting around on a well ignoring their animals and playing a pipe. If I were the first couple, I should be very annoyed with them.
One of the (many) things I enjoy about this house is that I can play CDs or the radio very loudly without disturbing anybody. The stereo radio is now set up in the salon, tuned to France Musique, and echoes through the rather empty tiled room, which is waiting for a three piece suite from Italy. Sometimes when I come into the room I feel as though we should be hosting a ball; when I said this to Monsieur P while we were sipping our tea he said he felt sure I must be a dancer; I didn’t like to disillusion him.
I have also watched television, although both last night and this lunchtime it took a while to get it going; but I think this is probably me and the two remote controls rather than the aerial. Yesterday evening I watched part of a tribute to Charles Trenet, which I don’t think he would have thought much of, and today after the lunchtime news saw the news in Italian. If I keep doing this until Wednesday, it will be good practice for dealing with the removal men from Traslochi. Tomorrow will be the last day I can sit around in bed in the morning drinking tea and reading Gide, as on Tuesday Monsieur A is due at 8.15, and on Wednesday Traslochi at 7.30. (I have finished La Porte Etroite - un livre étroite aussi - and have now started on Les Caves du Vatican, all in the same volume.)
The only time I have been out today was to get bread just before lunch; Sunday is always the busiest day at the boulangerie, today the queue went right out onto the pavement. As I stood waiting I thought of years ago when I began to learn French and shops in England were never open on Sundays, and we were told that it was an important French ritual to come out of Mass and buy cakes to take home, usually packaged in a pyramid of paper with a ribbon, and it seemed quite unbelievable! Well, I can assure you now that it’s quite normal.
Tuesday 7 February 2006
N phoned twice during the day yesterday, the first time as early as 11.30 to say that everything was packed up at Soliera and that the van was already on its way, and would probably arrive in La Neuve -Lyre today rather than Wednesday. He said - amongst other things - that the two ornate beds would now have one large new mattress instead of two old thin ones (i.e. only ever a double bed rather than the possibility of two singles) and that there were some fresh raviolini coming with the kitchen things! He later phoned in the evening to say he had signed the preliminary sale papers for the apartment, and was in a hotel in Chambéry (driving back to Paris rather than taking the train.)
By Monday afternoon I had caught up so well with everything that I had run out of things to do, and wished the Italian things would arrive, as I know once they do there will be a lot to sort out, or that the curtain material for the study would be delivered. I did some phone chasing however; firstly Sturno, the company responsible for putting in extra phone points to whom I had sent a cheque and acceptance four weeks ago; they said there had been a bit of a delay, and they would let me know soon when they could come; I asked whether it would be a few days or a few weeks and they said days. I also phoned Lapeyre the kitchen and bathroom people with the same sort of request; they maintained they hadn’t got my phone number! which seemed strange, and were waiting for me to contact them. They then said once they had spoken to the artisan they would call back that afternoon. Nothing happened so I called again this morning; unable to contact the artisan. I would like to get these two visits decided as soon as possible; as N will not now be driving straight on here from Paris because of the repair to the car, I could well be going to Paris on the train, and will soon have to decide when.
Anyway, I ended up spending a lot of yesterday afternoon and evening sorting out photographs. There was a collection from Ainsworth Street, which I had decided when packing up should all be put in a new album I’d been given; an album devoted entirely to Ainsworth Street, i.e. no holidays, graduations or visits. I completed this and was very pleased with it, and even printed it a nice cover with my resourceful new computer. I then turned to a huge old suitcase full of all sorts of photographs; albums, loose pictures and all sorts, which had been packed up when moving out of the house in Montague Road in 1998, and had been lying undisturbed in the loft at Ainsworth Street ever since.
It was strange going back in time, and looking at my former life I wondered more than once how it came to be that I was now the owner of a wonderful house in Normandy, but the strangest thing was seeing photos of pieces of furniture, lamps and pictures, many of which are still here with me now.
This morning I got up early in time to let in Emanuel the electrician at about 8.15, together with an assistant who appears to be doing some kind of work experience. They are here now working hard, I’m pleased to say; we went through the house again and agreed what needs doing in order of priority; he says Monsieur A will come this afternoon re the heating. (I haven’t told them some Italians could arrive with large pieces of furniture at any moment; will not complicate things until I have to! N says he has asked them to ring first)
Anyway straight away they fixed the central light here in the study, and the wall point so that the computer can be plugged in by the door, and I have been able to get rid of the cabling and extension leads all over the floor. « On est rapide, nous », he said when I was amazed at the speed at which this was done. They are now working simultaneously on the extra points in the kitchen, and on the ground floor bathroom, which as usual seems to be causing complications.
Saturday 11 February 2006
In the end Tuesday turned out to be an extremely busy and eventful day. Emanuel and his assistant went off for lunch at about 12.30, and while they were gone I had a phone call from Sturno saying the telephone point installation team were at Verneuil and could they come along to me in about half an hour? I laughed and said I already had two electricians in the house (not to mention the threat of Traslochi) and said yes, of course they could come. The electricians came back - Monsieur A was held up and now wouldn’t be coming - and in all fixed the new wall light in the downstairs bathroom and put another light in the centre of the ceiling and a point on the wall; put shades on the bulbs hanging off the wall on the staircase, and finally got the neon light in the upstairs bathroom working. The two chaps from Sturno arrived; they were young and extremely business-like; and it was so long since we asked for these extra points that I’d had to consult my notes to find out where they were required, but showed them where - a point for the phone in the back hall on the ground floor so we could stop having the phone in the dining room; and a new point in N’s study in the attic so he can have a computer there. In each case they had to take a lead from an existing point; from the dining room round three doorways and through the wall at skirting board level, and upstairs along the ceiling from the point in our bedroom and through the ceiling over the stairwell up to the attic floor and along the beams. They’d just worked out how they were going to do this - obviously seeing it all as a great challenge - when there was a ring at the front gate bell, and there was the man from Traslochi - I could tell because it said so on his overall - and he hadn’t phoned in advance, and I had to start speaking to him in Italian.
We went through the garden and garage and there was the van at the back with the two others in the team; they turned it round and started to bring things in. They’d been well briefed by N re the things which need to go in the outbuildings but I wasn’t sure how they wanted to do the rest. (Rather haphazardly, as it seemed) They fixed up a lift from the side garden to the balcony outside the bedroom, plugged in an electric point just inside the French windows and all the heavy stuff for upstairs came up there. I was so sorry I didn’t have a film in the camera, as this was an amazing sight; they started by tying ropes round the larger branches of the huge fir tree, to keep them out of the way, rather like game wardens holding down a large animal. The pieces of the dining room suite came in the side door between the grande pièce and dining room, which I’d never seen open before. I tried to keep up with where they were and what they were doing, but every so often would be needed by someone else, and from time to time would come across the chaps from Sturno still drilling away, and tried to avoid the ground floor bathroom where the electricians were. More than once I was very glad that this house has two staircases and several outside doors so that when one way was blocked by a ladder I could choose an alternative route.
I tried to speak to them all every so often and let them feel I hadn’t forgotten them, rather like different groups of children who all need to feel equally important, but occasionally and inevitably spoke to someone in the wrong language. At one stage I passed through the kitchen and saw two carrier bags full of food, just as if someone had left shopping there; on closer inspection this was the leftovers promised by N - including the raviolini! - and other fresh produce, and store cupboard things, all smelling (in a Proust like way) just like they used to in the Italian kitchen. N had given them strict instructions to hand these over to la Signora, so as I hadn’t been in the kitchen at that moment they had left them. Later on I saw what appeared to be pair of trousers just taken off and left on the ironing board; this turned out to be - together with some of N’s summer shirts - the contents of the small wardrobe they were bringing; the clothes had travelled on their hangers.
At some time in the afternoon N phoned to say he had arrived back safely in Paris; I laughed when I heard his voice on the phone and told him he could not possibly imagine what was going on here. He said to pass saluti on to the Traslochi men from il Signore. The best thing he said however, and I told him this, was that he would come the next day; apart from looking forward to seeing him again I so wanted him to see all the Italian things in position, not to mention all that I and the electricians had done since he was last here, and I did not want to leave here and have to go back to Paris. The other call during the afternoon was from Lapeyre, to say would it be OK if the artisan came the following day at 5.00? I was very pleased and said yes; not only were things happening quickly, but it meant that my all phone chasing on Monday had come to fruition in two days.
I was glad when the two from Sturno finally left, as that gave me fewer people to keep an eye on; but they had worked so speedily and efficiently I felt they hadn’t been sufficiently appreciated. The electricians were here until 5.30; and kindly hoovered up around the bathroom; when I said I was sorry the place had been so crowded Emanuel said they often worked on sites where there were several different teams at once.
This just left the three from Traslochi, and it was getting dark. The biggest stuff came in last, the two huge glass-topped sideboards for the grande pièce - one came in though the window - and two big chests of drawers for the bedrooms, plus four bedside cupboards and the high ornate frames of the two metal beds (and its huge mattress) which just fitted in between the wall lights - there wouldn‘t have been room as two single beds. There was no central light in the main bedroom, and the bed had been pushed aside to get the largest items in; all the carpets were full of mud and pine needles from the branches of the great tree. Several times I apologetically asked if they could move things just a fraction one way or another; they kept saying, no, no I must ask, I must have things exactly as I wanted them.
Last of all - as with Abels, presumably as with all removals - came the sofa and two armchairs, and all their cushions in huge polythene bags, which took some sorting out, but looked very good when in position. It is very lucky that this suite is a dull gold velvet, and goes very well with the room and its pale yellow walls, white panelling and the gilt mirror; beige curtains and brown/beige/yellow tapestries.
I had hoped that all would be over in time for me to get my yoga class, but it became increasingly clear that this wouldn’t be the case, and anyway I was physically and mentally exhausted, and I tried to ring my contacts but no reply. N had said on the phone that he expected Traslochi to put the bill in the post to him at Saint-Denis, but to pay it if they asked; not only did they ask but went on and on trying to explain why it was the sum it was - some avoidance of VAT - using all sorts of financial vocabulary which went over my head for so long that I thought I should fall asleep standing up. We then phoned N, so they could explain to him, but this got us no further, then they finally mentioned a sum almost the same as the one N had quoted, and after having confirmed several time that this was the amount they wanted me to write the cheque for, I did so and I think all were happy.
That wasn’t quite the end though, as I realised I had to go out with the torch and shut the outhouses and the garage doors once they had gone; they helped with this, and I gave them a tip as instructed by N, and they said thank you, and alla prossima, which made as all laugh.
Once inside on my own again, I was very glad of the raviolini which only took a few minutes to cook and eat with some pesto, and was very good. I decided there was no point in trying to sort, move or clean anything that night, and that it was all best left until the next day. The two sideboards looked odd side by side in the grande pièce, as we had known they would, and there was a big space in the dining room where the phone table had been; I measured and decided it would make sense to move the one with the smaller mirror into there. Pleased with my idea, I went to bed, but found it difficult to sleep - I seemed to keep seeing all the Italians coming in the bedroom window.
The first thing to do next morning was to put way all the store cupboard food still standing all over the kitchen, and the next - a task I was really looking forward to - was to find the quilt which had arrived in big trunk and to put it on the bed, finally bringing to fruition this bed which I have been planning since November. The quilt is a very good quality one from John Lewis, with two layers which sandwich together to make a really thick layer. So now the mattress is the right size for the bed, the fitted sheet is the right size for the mattress, the cover fits the quilt and the quilt is also the right size for the bed. Oh, and the pillows are the right size too. It looks very good, and turns out to be the cosiest, most comfortable bed we have ever slept in.
I spent most of the rest of the day sweeping and hoovering all the floors, before I felt I could begin on any of the many boxes of kitchen utensils, pictures and bedding waiting to be unpacked. Some of these were Abels boxes which N had flattened and taken with him in the car and packed again at Soliera, so there was a real sense of déjà vu with some which had my writing on from last September in Cambridge; and here they were standing in the dining room waiting to be unpacked again. At about 3.30 I was hoovering the attic stairs and looked out of the window and saw bags and boxes outside the garage; N had arrived! And wanted to look all round the house at the furniture in its new positions before he even took his coat off.
We were just finishing this, and I had made some tea, when the artisan from Lapeyre - another Monsieur P - arrived early, so he was invited to have tea too. He and I then started looking at the kitchen which all seemed fairly straightforward as before, and then at the bathroom, which took a lot longer. In order for the water from the shower to drain away, there will need to be a concrete base to raise it up (we have to find someone to do this) and there was also a problem with the angle of the WC; eventually it was decided this could be at the same angle as before, but a little further along the wall. I also asked about the possibility of a loo in the upstairs shower room; this is will be OK as long as we can get electricity for the bruyeur (don’t know the word in English) but I felt sure having seen all the men in action the day before that this wouldn’t be a problem. He finally left after about an hour and a half - a good thing he arrived early - and said he would send his findings to Lapeyre, they would send me revised estimates, which I could accept, paying half the total, then it would enter into « le planning » and I would hear when it was time. He also said it would take about two weeks to fit it all, and he would be here full time; I assured him we were very nice people to live with.
N had been unpacking boxes while all this had been going on, and the new dining room table and sideboards were covered in china and glass. He agreed it would be a good idea to move one of the sideboards into the dining room, so first thing on Wednesday morning we did this very carefully; and are so pleased with the result! Having each sideboard in a different room means that they are both shown off to greater advantage, instead of side by side as though they were in a sale room.
It has taken me several days to unpack and put away all the china, kitchen things and bedding; and wash anything I thought we might use straight away. There were also extra things like cushions, iron & ironing board, laundry things, bathroom things, cleaning materials and sewing equipment - the elderly lady whose apartment N had bought was a great needlewoman. Not to mention all the pictures, which N unpacked and stood all the way up the top stairs, so that it looks like an exhibition.
Monday 13 February 2006
N has made great progress with the downstairs bathroom; it now has a painted ceiling, all the dirty beams are out of sight, and thanks to the electricians there are two lights, one ceiling and one wall, and an point for hairdryer or shaver. The loo has become dislodged and is even more precarious, but can be used with care. And this morning N put up the mirror over the basin, to keep it from being broken while it hung around waiting. We bought the shade for the ceiling light on yet another trip to Monsieur Bricolage at Bernay on Friday, where we also got narrow white metal curtain poles for the four windows in the grande pièce, and rods for the inside of the wardrobe, and called in again at our favourite supermarket. On Saturday we drove through freezing fog and frost to a builders merchants called Point P, where N had been before to order his ceiling plasterboards, for beading for the ceiling, and for wood for my other great idea of the week.
We had always planned to have books in the grande pièce on some kind of shelving yet to be determined, but it was becoming quite crowded, and N said perhaps some could go in the corridor outside. I didn’t think there would be room, but then looked again at a « condemned » door and discovered that the depth of the doorframe was exactly that of a paperback book. The door and frame were white, so it seemed great idea to put white shelves in it and fill with paperbacks and other small books. Unfortunately we couldn’t find ready-made white shelves, so I have painted them all. N’s part of the good idea was to nail supports down the edge the depth of every shelf. It has taken very little time, and will look really good once the colouerd books are in it. And means there will be fewer books to store in the grande pièce. N favours getting Monsieur P the carpenter to make us some bookshelves to fit all over the wall of the entrance, but I think this sounds expensive. Watch this space.
This afternoon we are getting ready to go back to Paris as the car has its appointment at the garage tomorrow. There are so many things waiting to be done here that I hope I might be able to come back before Madeleine arrives in Paris on Thursday 23rd. However, just in case I have made up the bed in the attic and N has fixed the wall light over the bed. When I/we return depends on the car. I have rung Monsieur A to let him know we will be away, and as always he said « On verra ça la semaine prochaine », and also phoned the curtain lady but no reply, and received a call from Christine the yoga teacher, to whom I explained my situation. In any case there are two weeks yoga « holiday » for the next two Tuesdays. Madeleine has kindly sent me several exercise DVDs but as yet we have had no time to get the machine going here; will try to have a look at them in Paris. (One of them says « Drop a dress size in four weeks »; my first thought was, what is a dress? Here it’s usually a case of either my really dirty trousers or my less dirty trousers……)
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Wednesday 1 February 2006
Am back here again at LNL now, on my own since yesterday as N has gone back to Paris prior to going to Italy for the house sale and furniture send-off. We arrived late Friday afternoon after having spent some time at Leroy Merlin buying spot lights for the beams in N’s study and a wall light for our bedroom which looks rather like a large jelly fish. N has removed one of the two former wall lights now stuck behind the wardrobe, leaving a rather dark room with bedside lamps and what he calls The One True Light. We also bought two smaller wall lights for the ground floor bathroom and the spare attic bedroom, a toilet roll holder and expensive porcelain door handle for our bathroom and some nice things called “embrasses” which are in fact hooks to hold the curtain tie backs for the salon and our bedroom.
On the way we saw patches of snow and ice and on Saturday morning woke up to a light covering of snow, the first we had seen here. Fortunately I had three pictures left in my camera so was able to take pictures of the garden. (I have since taken the film to the paper shop, which conveniently takes in photos as well as dry cleaning.) During the day we made considerable progress in turning the house into a home - the mattress was duly delivered as promised in the afternoon - and bed remade with very large fitted sheet! - And we lit our first fire in the big fireplace in the salon, after ceremoniously unpacking the new mirror and putting it in position on the mantelpiece. (It will eventually have fittings, but for the moment is just standing there) We felt it was important to make time to just sit and relax in front of the fire, instead of working hard all the time, and although it smoked a lot the smell of wood smoke was far preferable to the previous house smell of wood worm treatment.
N drove as far as a local builders’ merchant we had seen on our way back to Paris last time to order plaster boards and battens for the ground floor bathroom ceiling. I collected the furry bedspread from the paper shop after its dry cleaning, and put it back in position in N’s study. I also got out the sewing machine for the first time and set it up in my new sewing (and ironing) room a little anxiously as I wasn’t sure how it would behave after 3 months in store, but it was fine, so was able to make a start on the alterations to the long beige Ainsworth Street curtains ready for the salon, and took pleasure in fitting out my sewing table again for the first time since 1993 when it had to become a desk. By Sunday afternoon the curtains were up in position, on the existing supports together with gilt poles and ends and matching « embrasses », and all tassels in position. I also put up fine white curtains in our bedroom (ready made from IKEA last November) as N had stuck together a gilt pole we had found here, just before we left last time. Great improvements! In the evening we spent a lot of time trying to locate a blown fuse (caused by N hammering through a wire while fixing his spot lights) involving in the first instance finding our way down to the ground floor from the attic in pitch dark. The result of this is that I now know how to replace fuses - this week’s New Skill - as I’ve only ever lived with automatic fuse boxes before. So I’ve been to get a supply of spare ones from our friends at the Quincaillerie.
Apart from lots more gardening and bonfires, N also kept trying my e-mail connection, which still wasn’t working, despite our being told it would take 10 days and it was by then 13. On Monday afternoon we set off for Bernay - in beautiful sunshine, although still icy - with as usual, several destinations in mind. The France Telecom shop, where we intended to ask about the e-mail, was shut on Mondays, as were two curtain material shops I had found in the yellow pages. (We had decided the next priority for curtains was not the dining room, for which I already have the material, but my study as its curtainless, shutterless window faces the road, together with view of my new computer.) We visited Monsieur Bricolage as usual, and bought white curtain poles and accessories for the two study windows, and I have since temporarily draped an old yellow curtain over the naked window, poles installed by N the same evening, even though we now no longer have a central light in this room, only a lamp. We tried to buy light fittings for the hall and landing, but there weren’t enough, and came away with a pretty glass shade for the central light in the grande pièce, which I hoped might go with the Italian dining suite. Even more interesting, we spent a long time - and much money - in the supermarket Intermarché, and in the garden centre Vive le Jardin!, where N got large pots for the two oleanders brought from Saint-Denis. No sign of the cat this time; I thought it was probably her day off.
All was going well until on the way back the front of the car scraped the back of another one at a cross roads. There were three policemen hanging about on the pavement as it happened, but they didn’t do anything except look, and the other car wasn’t damaged. Both N and the car were shaken up however, and the front light was damaged - although still working - and some strips came off the front bumper. This was the main reason N went back to Paris when he did on Tuesday; he was intending to go back in time to catch up with a few things before putting the car on the train on Friday night for Italy; yes all that again, but at least I know how it works this time! And it will probably be the last time. I was hoping to go to my yoga class on Tuesday evening and so wouldn’t have been there anyway, so he left after lunch on Tuesday, after having taken delivery of his plaster boards and battens, and having cut them down to size a bit. I think he was disappointed not to be able to start putting them up on the bathroom ceiling straight away. He phoned later to say that the insurance expert will have to look at the car before any parts are ordered and that can’t be before he comes back from Italy. Good news however was that his garage over the road is now accessible again, so no more trundling round to the municipal car park.
On Tuesday morning I went out to check the mail box - as I still haven’t worked out at exactly what time post is delivered - and saw Monsieur P the carpenter getting out of his van. I greeted him and wasn’t sure if he was coming to us, but it turned out he was going to our neighbour over the road (the one with the little dog) and apologetically said he had forgotten all about the bed piece, and would try to do it next week. It was an amazing piece of luck that I came out and saw him just then as we did not have his phone number, despite trying to look him up in the book, but as he seemed to live in the middle of nowhere, not knowing which area to look under.
Once N had left I did an enormous amount of tidying and clearing up, and then sat down to phone my yoga contacts to check my lift. I checked my messages first - there is nothing on the phone to tell whether there are messages or not - and found one from Christine the teacher that morning saying she had cancelled the class as she was not well - obviously the same kind of malady as the chorale conductor in Saint-Denis. It’s a good job some of us are staying healthy! I was not sorry to stay in and have dinner and get to bed early though, as it had been a tiring day. Before N left we had moved various pieces of furniture that required two pairs of hands ready to make space for the delivery from Italy next Wednesday, the sofa into the grande pièce and the bedroom chest of drawers which had already come downstairs to the salon to its new position in the back hall.
Thursday 2 February 2006
My e-mail connection from Wanadoo was suddenly in place yesterday afternoon, which is good, but I cannot retrieve my list of contacts from my other address in Saint-Denis. However, it means N and I can communicate by e-mail, something we have not done for about four months. He has also written me a letter! The other thing we had been waiting for suddenly turned up today too, a video/DVD player which N had ordered from Saint-Denis last week, about which I went to enquire yesterday at the post office; I don’t know if there was any connection. It was well timed as tomorrow afternoon a TV aerial installer is due, and can tune the player as well as the TV now it’s here. The TV was bought at the same time as the mattress was ordered, but tomorrow for the first time I should actually be able to watch it! I am still having my solitary dinners to the accompaniment of Radio 4 News and comedy, but hopefully all that is about to change.
Far from wondering what to do with myself until the Italian furniture arrives next Wednesday, there is not enough time to get through everything I want to get done. I have at last had time to catch up with washing and ironing, and yesterday was a beautiful sunny day so I took time to walk all round the grounds, and was pleased to find some small snowdrops under bushes that N had pruned. This was in addition to clearing the first floor guest room ready for the furniture, including cleaning the two large windows which took ages, but has made such a difference. I have been trying to contact Monsieur A about the heating and electrician, and eventually he said he would come first thing next Tuesday, but may still be at it when the Italians arrive on Wednesday, which should be interesting. I have finally got out my bike - again in the sunshine yesterday - and found the recycling area and gone back with the empty bottles. People seemed very interested in my bike - or perhaps it was just the way I was riding it - it reminded me of when I brought my small-wheeled Moulton bicycle here thirty years ago and everyone would keep asking if it folded up. I have done the second and third coats of paint on my red kitchen stool, which looks very good and makes room in the veranda for a flowery Italian sofa due next week. I still haven’t invited Marie-Antoinette; I’ve not seen her except for yesterday when she was busy with her little granddaughters (Wednesday is a day off school for little ones) I’ve been to the Mairie and got myself a bus timetable, and as soon as I can - probably Saturday now - will go out somewhere on a bus to see how it works.
However the most exciting thing today, and the greatest progress, has been a phone call from Monsieur P about midday today saying he could bring the replacement bed piece at about four this afternoon. This he duly did, and together we reassembled the bed in to all its former Ainsworth Street glory; it looks very good in position in the smaller attic and is just the right size. I gave him tea and we discovered we both listened to France Musique, and he told me about coming to the house when the dentist lived here about 10 years ago, when he replaced one of the outside doors. I also showed him the carvings on the beams at the foot of the original staircase, of the builder of the house and his wife, which I thought he would appreciate and I was right. (Mme V pointed these carvings out to us, but I was delighted to find a third one - of a baby! - higher up the stairs, which I don’t think she knew about.) At N’s request, I asked Monsieur P to look at all the shutters and to give an estimate for repairing/replacing, and warned him that one of the Italian tables would need a foot repairing. We parted on very good terms; I paid him cash which was easier for all and much less than the price of a new bed. It was also very satisfactory to think that I began this Blog worrying about this bed and whether to bring it at all, and now I’m so glad I did. I don’t think I ever could have visualised finding someone like Monsieur P to fix it so beautifully, or that it could look so good in its attic.
Am back here again at LNL now, on my own since yesterday as N has gone back to Paris prior to going to Italy for the house sale and furniture send-off. We arrived late Friday afternoon after having spent some time at Leroy Merlin buying spot lights for the beams in N’s study and a wall light for our bedroom which looks rather like a large jelly fish. N has removed one of the two former wall lights now stuck behind the wardrobe, leaving a rather dark room with bedside lamps and what he calls The One True Light. We also bought two smaller wall lights for the ground floor bathroom and the spare attic bedroom, a toilet roll holder and expensive porcelain door handle for our bathroom and some nice things called “embrasses” which are in fact hooks to hold the curtain tie backs for the salon and our bedroom.
On the way we saw patches of snow and ice and on Saturday morning woke up to a light covering of snow, the first we had seen here. Fortunately I had three pictures left in my camera so was able to take pictures of the garden. (I have since taken the film to the paper shop, which conveniently takes in photos as well as dry cleaning.) During the day we made considerable progress in turning the house into a home - the mattress was duly delivered as promised in the afternoon - and bed remade with very large fitted sheet! - And we lit our first fire in the big fireplace in the salon, after ceremoniously unpacking the new mirror and putting it in position on the mantelpiece. (It will eventually have fittings, but for the moment is just standing there) We felt it was important to make time to just sit and relax in front of the fire, instead of working hard all the time, and although it smoked a lot the smell of wood smoke was far preferable to the previous house smell of wood worm treatment.
N drove as far as a local builders’ merchant we had seen on our way back to Paris last time to order plaster boards and battens for the ground floor bathroom ceiling. I collected the furry bedspread from the paper shop after its dry cleaning, and put it back in position in N’s study. I also got out the sewing machine for the first time and set it up in my new sewing (and ironing) room a little anxiously as I wasn’t sure how it would behave after 3 months in store, but it was fine, so was able to make a start on the alterations to the long beige Ainsworth Street curtains ready for the salon, and took pleasure in fitting out my sewing table again for the first time since 1993 when it had to become a desk. By Sunday afternoon the curtains were up in position, on the existing supports together with gilt poles and ends and matching « embrasses », and all tassels in position. I also put up fine white curtains in our bedroom (ready made from IKEA last November) as N had stuck together a gilt pole we had found here, just before we left last time. Great improvements! In the evening we spent a lot of time trying to locate a blown fuse (caused by N hammering through a wire while fixing his spot lights) involving in the first instance finding our way down to the ground floor from the attic in pitch dark. The result of this is that I now know how to replace fuses - this week’s New Skill - as I’ve only ever lived with automatic fuse boxes before. So I’ve been to get a supply of spare ones from our friends at the Quincaillerie.
Apart from lots more gardening and bonfires, N also kept trying my e-mail connection, which still wasn’t working, despite our being told it would take 10 days and it was by then 13. On Monday afternoon we set off for Bernay - in beautiful sunshine, although still icy - with as usual, several destinations in mind. The France Telecom shop, where we intended to ask about the e-mail, was shut on Mondays, as were two curtain material shops I had found in the yellow pages. (We had decided the next priority for curtains was not the dining room, for which I already have the material, but my study as its curtainless, shutterless window faces the road, together with view of my new computer.) We visited Monsieur Bricolage as usual, and bought white curtain poles and accessories for the two study windows, and I have since temporarily draped an old yellow curtain over the naked window, poles installed by N the same evening, even though we now no longer have a central light in this room, only a lamp. We tried to buy light fittings for the hall and landing, but there weren’t enough, and came away with a pretty glass shade for the central light in the grande pièce, which I hoped might go with the Italian dining suite. Even more interesting, we spent a long time - and much money - in the supermarket Intermarché, and in the garden centre Vive le Jardin!, where N got large pots for the two oleanders brought from Saint-Denis. No sign of the cat this time; I thought it was probably her day off.
All was going well until on the way back the front of the car scraped the back of another one at a cross roads. There were three policemen hanging about on the pavement as it happened, but they didn’t do anything except look, and the other car wasn’t damaged. Both N and the car were shaken up however, and the front light was damaged - although still working - and some strips came off the front bumper. This was the main reason N went back to Paris when he did on Tuesday; he was intending to go back in time to catch up with a few things before putting the car on the train on Friday night for Italy; yes all that again, but at least I know how it works this time! And it will probably be the last time. I was hoping to go to my yoga class on Tuesday evening and so wouldn’t have been there anyway, so he left after lunch on Tuesday, after having taken delivery of his plaster boards and battens, and having cut them down to size a bit. I think he was disappointed not to be able to start putting them up on the bathroom ceiling straight away. He phoned later to say that the insurance expert will have to look at the car before any parts are ordered and that can’t be before he comes back from Italy. Good news however was that his garage over the road is now accessible again, so no more trundling round to the municipal car park.
On Tuesday morning I went out to check the mail box - as I still haven’t worked out at exactly what time post is delivered - and saw Monsieur P the carpenter getting out of his van. I greeted him and wasn’t sure if he was coming to us, but it turned out he was going to our neighbour over the road (the one with the little dog) and apologetically said he had forgotten all about the bed piece, and would try to do it next week. It was an amazing piece of luck that I came out and saw him just then as we did not have his phone number, despite trying to look him up in the book, but as he seemed to live in the middle of nowhere, not knowing which area to look under.
Once N had left I did an enormous amount of tidying and clearing up, and then sat down to phone my yoga contacts to check my lift. I checked my messages first - there is nothing on the phone to tell whether there are messages or not - and found one from Christine the teacher that morning saying she had cancelled the class as she was not well - obviously the same kind of malady as the chorale conductor in Saint-Denis. It’s a good job some of us are staying healthy! I was not sorry to stay in and have dinner and get to bed early though, as it had been a tiring day. Before N left we had moved various pieces of furniture that required two pairs of hands ready to make space for the delivery from Italy next Wednesday, the sofa into the grande pièce and the bedroom chest of drawers which had already come downstairs to the salon to its new position in the back hall.
Thursday 2 February 2006
My e-mail connection from Wanadoo was suddenly in place yesterday afternoon, which is good, but I cannot retrieve my list of contacts from my other address in Saint-Denis. However, it means N and I can communicate by e-mail, something we have not done for about four months. He has also written me a letter! The other thing we had been waiting for suddenly turned up today too, a video/DVD player which N had ordered from Saint-Denis last week, about which I went to enquire yesterday at the post office; I don’t know if there was any connection. It was well timed as tomorrow afternoon a TV aerial installer is due, and can tune the player as well as the TV now it’s here. The TV was bought at the same time as the mattress was ordered, but tomorrow for the first time I should actually be able to watch it! I am still having my solitary dinners to the accompaniment of Radio 4 News and comedy, but hopefully all that is about to change.
Far from wondering what to do with myself until the Italian furniture arrives next Wednesday, there is not enough time to get through everything I want to get done. I have at last had time to catch up with washing and ironing, and yesterday was a beautiful sunny day so I took time to walk all round the grounds, and was pleased to find some small snowdrops under bushes that N had pruned. This was in addition to clearing the first floor guest room ready for the furniture, including cleaning the two large windows which took ages, but has made such a difference. I have been trying to contact Monsieur A about the heating and electrician, and eventually he said he would come first thing next Tuesday, but may still be at it when the Italians arrive on Wednesday, which should be interesting. I have finally got out my bike - again in the sunshine yesterday - and found the recycling area and gone back with the empty bottles. People seemed very interested in my bike - or perhaps it was just the way I was riding it - it reminded me of when I brought my small-wheeled Moulton bicycle here thirty years ago and everyone would keep asking if it folded up. I have done the second and third coats of paint on my red kitchen stool, which looks very good and makes room in the veranda for a flowery Italian sofa due next week. I still haven’t invited Marie-Antoinette; I’ve not seen her except for yesterday when she was busy with her little granddaughters (Wednesday is a day off school for little ones) I’ve been to the Mairie and got myself a bus timetable, and as soon as I can - probably Saturday now - will go out somewhere on a bus to see how it works.
However the most exciting thing today, and the greatest progress, has been a phone call from Monsieur P about midday today saying he could bring the replacement bed piece at about four this afternoon. This he duly did, and together we reassembled the bed in to all its former Ainsworth Street glory; it looks very good in position in the smaller attic and is just the right size. I gave him tea and we discovered we both listened to France Musique, and he told me about coming to the house when the dentist lived here about 10 years ago, when he replaced one of the outside doors. I also showed him the carvings on the beams at the foot of the original staircase, of the builder of the house and his wife, which I thought he would appreciate and I was right. (Mme V pointed these carvings out to us, but I was delighted to find a third one - of a baby! - higher up the stairs, which I don’t think she knew about.) At N’s request, I asked Monsieur P to look at all the shutters and to give an estimate for repairing/replacing, and warned him that one of the Italian tables would need a foot repairing. We parted on very good terms; I paid him cash which was easier for all and much less than the price of a new bed. It was also very satisfactory to think that I began this Blog worrying about this bed and whether to bring it at all, and now I’m so glad I did. I don’t think I ever could have visualised finding someone like Monsieur P to fix it so beautifully, or that it could look so good in its attic.
