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.
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 5:59 AM 
