Friday, March 31, 2006
Wednesday 29 March 2006
We have now moved back into the new kitchen! By the time N arrived on Friday afternoon, it was more or less done apart from one cupboard + drawer, the saucepan drawers and the door for the dishwasher (all of which are still awaited) including the oven, which looks very fine. The artisan was waiting for him to give a hand with the fridge/freezer, which they got into position and plugged in beside the old fridge, having first changed the direction of the doors, towards the work surface instead of away from it. Friday dinner was a little difficult, as I had to keep squeezing between the two fridges, so first thing Saturday morning, N and I ceremoniously transferred all the food from the old one to the new, and then managed to get the old one outside onto the terrace. I found having a brand new fridge/freezer very exciting - I think this is only the second time in my life a new fridge has coincided with a new house.
I also did a lot of washing on Saturday morning, as the washing machine had been out of bounds all week, and towards the end of the morning we set off for Bernay, which I was very glad to do, having been no farther then the village for the last six days. The main purpose was the buying of two redcurrant bushes, which had not been in stock when we’d gone the week before, but we also got some beautiful pale green leaved marine cineraria for the bed beside the front door, an artichoke plant which took N’s fancy and some special offer potting compost.
We made the usual visit to Monsieur Bricolage, to make sure of our parking space; N bought cement and a paint brush on a long roller, and I looked at curtain poles for the kitchen, but decided to leave it till we got to Paris, and bought a dark red lampshade I’d seen before, exactly the the same colour as the study curtains, to go on a wooden lamp stand I’d had for years, which is now in position on the mantelpiece.
While I was in Casa, looking for a vase for the artificial flowers in the bedroom, and finding a little red plastic stool to help me reach my new high kitchen cupboards, N found a little restaurant serving salmon en croûte. He also found an fascinating new publication advertising antiques for sale, which we read over lunch, interestingly served with a vast array of vegetables.
« N is so romantic, he has bought me a wonderful rubbish bin » -he asked me to make sure I put this in! The question of a bin for the kitchen had still not been resolved; ever since our arrival we had been using a plastic bucket under the sink; I favoured the idea of an under-sink bin which would open along with the door - N said this was difficult to get to, and wanted a free-standing one, which I don’t much like the look of. The one he eventually bought from a little kitchen shop in Bernay is a beautiful large Brabantia stainless steel « touch bin » which looks very elegant (« no ugly overwrap », it says) and opens and closes with the press of a finger. Needless to say, it was very expensive, but is guaranteed 10 years and is so large it doesn’t need emptying often. In the same shop I found a lovely cream glazed jug for the bedroom flowers, and we had a discussion with the patronne as to whether it was a cruche or a pichet. She thought the latter, but couldn’t explain why.
It was by then raining very hard and N stayed in the car reading his antiques magazine while I went round the supermarket, and thought of all my washing on the line at home. One of my most important purchases was a chicken for a celebratory first roast chicken dinner in the new oven on Sunday - due to the recent scares over bird ‘flu there are now so many chickens cheaply available that it was difficult to buy just one; nearly all were two for the price of one, or buy two get one free.
In the event, Sunday lunch was very late, partly because of the clocks changing and so losing an hour before we even started; also due to receiving Mothers’ Day phone calls (very nice!) and generally getting up late after having to be up before 8 all the week, and also having to heat the new oven to 250 degrees for 30 minutes and cleaning it, before I could start cooking. Once I did, it took a while to get the hang of it, so, as N said, the chicken was underdone and overdone all at the same time; however it will be better next time! And the gravy was very good, made with « fonds de volaille » powder in a tin from the local shop. The rest of Sunday was spent in having a very good fire (N had at last remembered to bring the bellows from Saint-Denis) and putting a few things back in the kitchen and having supper in the daylight, a real novelty here. I remembered when we put the clocks back last autumn and were in Italy the day of the antiques fair, it all seemed a very long time ago.
On Monday there was very little finishing off to be done in the kitchen, just a few door handles and strips above and below the wall cupboards which made a real difference, so by the afternoon I was able to put everything back - all five or six packing cases of packets and tins, saucepans, serving dishes, spices, plastic freezer boxes, baking things, not to mention the table, bread bin, kettle, toaster, and tea and coffee things. There is still some space in some of the cupboards! The dining room looked wonderfully clear again, and I swept and hoovered in both there and in the kitchen as there was such a lot of dust from the drilling. Monday dinner was a little confusing as I couldn’t remember where I’d put a lot of things, and kept looking for others where they had been in the dining room. I was able to use the grill (in the oven) for the first time, though.
During the afternoon the Artisan was able to start on the bathroom, getting rid of the old bidet and basin, and looking at the plumbing. He called us to see what we thought about a slight change of position for the loo, out from the wall but at a better angle, both for the evacuation pipe and for getting to it - which he demonstrated to us by sitting on it!
On both Monday and Tuesday it was very windy indeed, but N was able to do a lot of work in the garden in between showers, keeping an eye on levels in the new water butt, digging several rows in the vegetable garden and weeding lots of flower beds. My parcel from Lakeland arrived - I’d ordered by phone a wonderful « Peely Bin » which I’d seen in the shop in Ipswich, for collecting vegetable pieces in the kitchen ready to go out to the compost bin. On Tuesday the Artisan was away for some time in the middle of the day finally getting rid of all the broken old kitchen cupboards, the old fridge, loo, basin and bidet plus an old washing machine which was here in the kitchen when we arrived and has been taking up valuable space in the potting shed ever since. The old cupboards seemed to have been standing out on the terrace for ages, including getting covered in quite a lot of snow last week, so it was a relief to see them all gone.
On Tuesday my envelope from the St John Passion organisers arrived, with times, places, instructions and a badge; as I suspected it will be sung in German and I have only ever sung it in English, so a bit of adjustment to do there. The numbering of the chorales, choruses and arias is different on the vocal score from that on my CD so the first thing to do was cross check and mark the corresponding numbers on each, and the next was it fill in the words where missing under the alto line. I can now listen to all the chorales (about 10 of them, I think) while following the score, and will try to do this as much as possible before the final rehearsal on Saturday 8 April.
N went to Rouen for the morning to fetch back the DVD player; obviously I would like to have gone too, but needed to stay with our artisan in case he needed to ask anything, and we thought it should be fetched sooner rather than later. FNAC claimed there was nothing wrong with it at all, and after trying it for a while back home it seemed to be fine. Not sure I dare try the exercise DVD again though, there has been no time for these for so long, as we have had to be up before 8 every morning to unlock the garage doors ready for the arrival of the artisan.
I have also got out and varnished and assembled the three little spice shelves I bought in IKEA last November, but N has been unable so far to drill holes for them in either the kitchen wall or tiles. We have had partial success in putting up more pictures; some walls are very hard indeed. Also finally cycled to the bottle bank (in rain) to dispose of an ever increasing number of bottles and jars which were clogging up the boiler room. If all this sounds a bit haphazard, it is really; it’s been a question of what we can get on with around the house while all the work is going on on the premises.
Thursday 30 March 2006
N went back to Paris after lunch today, so he can do shopping and put on heating before arrival of Clare and Charlotte (daughter and granddaughter) tomorrow afternoon. At present I don’t know when I shall be able to get there; much depends on exactly when the work on the bathrooms will finish, not to mention still waiting arrival of missing cupboards.
The shower room is looking very good, however, especially the little rectangular washbasin with the drawer underneath, and the shower looks large and imposing despite being raised up on the cement socle (this is so that water can drain away properly) N and the artisan think it will need a step in front of the shower door; I can see this will mainly serve for stubbing toes as one comes into the room.
Friday 31 March 2006
All bathrooms and kitchen finally finished! The loo/broyeur was fixed very quickly yesterday afternoon (despite his banging his head on the very low doorway so hard that he saw stars!) and today he has fixed the missing drawers and doors in the kitchen. He even kindly fixed the screws for the spice shelves as our drill was not powerful enough. Also this morning he brought along his father-in-law to help carry away all the superfluous pieces, and help load the van with tools and packaging. The FIL was interested to see the shower room as well, and asked about the house and garden. Talking of which, there are finally daffodils in flower this morning; and a bright pink flower and a half on the camellia by the water butt. The latter is so full it is now turned off, but I have taken some water for my pots of herbs to keep them going while I’m away.
I paid the final cheque, made out to Lapeyre but taken by him, and he left his card, which might come in useful, and handed over the bottle of champagne which N had bought for the purpose, with our thanks.
All this has been finished so a quickly that I am now able to leave on the 13.06 bus and should be in Paris by about 15.30. As always, there are so many things to do here that I am loath to leave - paint to be touched up in both bathrooms, especially on new pipes, but also lots of little accessories to be bought for all three rooms, so I am looking forward - as always! - to the shopping opportunities in Paris.
We have now moved back into the new kitchen! By the time N arrived on Friday afternoon, it was more or less done apart from one cupboard + drawer, the saucepan drawers and the door for the dishwasher (all of which are still awaited) including the oven, which looks very fine. The artisan was waiting for him to give a hand with the fridge/freezer, which they got into position and plugged in beside the old fridge, having first changed the direction of the doors, towards the work surface instead of away from it. Friday dinner was a little difficult, as I had to keep squeezing between the two fridges, so first thing Saturday morning, N and I ceremoniously transferred all the food from the old one to the new, and then managed to get the old one outside onto the terrace. I found having a brand new fridge/freezer very exciting - I think this is only the second time in my life a new fridge has coincided with a new house.
I also did a lot of washing on Saturday morning, as the washing machine had been out of bounds all week, and towards the end of the morning we set off for Bernay, which I was very glad to do, having been no farther then the village for the last six days. The main purpose was the buying of two redcurrant bushes, which had not been in stock when we’d gone the week before, but we also got some beautiful pale green leaved marine cineraria for the bed beside the front door, an artichoke plant which took N’s fancy and some special offer potting compost.
We made the usual visit to Monsieur Bricolage, to make sure of our parking space; N bought cement and a paint brush on a long roller, and I looked at curtain poles for the kitchen, but decided to leave it till we got to Paris, and bought a dark red lampshade I’d seen before, exactly the the same colour as the study curtains, to go on a wooden lamp stand I’d had for years, which is now in position on the mantelpiece.
While I was in Casa, looking for a vase for the artificial flowers in the bedroom, and finding a little red plastic stool to help me reach my new high kitchen cupboards, N found a little restaurant serving salmon en croûte. He also found an fascinating new publication advertising antiques for sale, which we read over lunch, interestingly served with a vast array of vegetables.
« N is so romantic, he has bought me a wonderful rubbish bin » -he asked me to make sure I put this in! The question of a bin for the kitchen had still not been resolved; ever since our arrival we had been using a plastic bucket under the sink; I favoured the idea of an under-sink bin which would open along with the door - N said this was difficult to get to, and wanted a free-standing one, which I don’t much like the look of. The one he eventually bought from a little kitchen shop in Bernay is a beautiful large Brabantia stainless steel « touch bin » which looks very elegant (« no ugly overwrap », it says) and opens and closes with the press of a finger. Needless to say, it was very expensive, but is guaranteed 10 years and is so large it doesn’t need emptying often. In the same shop I found a lovely cream glazed jug for the bedroom flowers, and we had a discussion with the patronne as to whether it was a cruche or a pichet. She thought the latter, but couldn’t explain why.
It was by then raining very hard and N stayed in the car reading his antiques magazine while I went round the supermarket, and thought of all my washing on the line at home. One of my most important purchases was a chicken for a celebratory first roast chicken dinner in the new oven on Sunday - due to the recent scares over bird ‘flu there are now so many chickens cheaply available that it was difficult to buy just one; nearly all were two for the price of one, or buy two get one free.
In the event, Sunday lunch was very late, partly because of the clocks changing and so losing an hour before we even started; also due to receiving Mothers’ Day phone calls (very nice!) and generally getting up late after having to be up before 8 all the week, and also having to heat the new oven to 250 degrees for 30 minutes and cleaning it, before I could start cooking. Once I did, it took a while to get the hang of it, so, as N said, the chicken was underdone and overdone all at the same time; however it will be better next time! And the gravy was very good, made with « fonds de volaille » powder in a tin from the local shop. The rest of Sunday was spent in having a very good fire (N had at last remembered to bring the bellows from Saint-Denis) and putting a few things back in the kitchen and having supper in the daylight, a real novelty here. I remembered when we put the clocks back last autumn and were in Italy the day of the antiques fair, it all seemed a very long time ago.
On Monday there was very little finishing off to be done in the kitchen, just a few door handles and strips above and below the wall cupboards which made a real difference, so by the afternoon I was able to put everything back - all five or six packing cases of packets and tins, saucepans, serving dishes, spices, plastic freezer boxes, baking things, not to mention the table, bread bin, kettle, toaster, and tea and coffee things. There is still some space in some of the cupboards! The dining room looked wonderfully clear again, and I swept and hoovered in both there and in the kitchen as there was such a lot of dust from the drilling. Monday dinner was a little confusing as I couldn’t remember where I’d put a lot of things, and kept looking for others where they had been in the dining room. I was able to use the grill (in the oven) for the first time, though.
During the afternoon the Artisan was able to start on the bathroom, getting rid of the old bidet and basin, and looking at the plumbing. He called us to see what we thought about a slight change of position for the loo, out from the wall but at a better angle, both for the evacuation pipe and for getting to it - which he demonstrated to us by sitting on it!
On both Monday and Tuesday it was very windy indeed, but N was able to do a lot of work in the garden in between showers, keeping an eye on levels in the new water butt, digging several rows in the vegetable garden and weeding lots of flower beds. My parcel from Lakeland arrived - I’d ordered by phone a wonderful « Peely Bin » which I’d seen in the shop in Ipswich, for collecting vegetable pieces in the kitchen ready to go out to the compost bin. On Tuesday the Artisan was away for some time in the middle of the day finally getting rid of all the broken old kitchen cupboards, the old fridge, loo, basin and bidet plus an old washing machine which was here in the kitchen when we arrived and has been taking up valuable space in the potting shed ever since. The old cupboards seemed to have been standing out on the terrace for ages, including getting covered in quite a lot of snow last week, so it was a relief to see them all gone.
On Tuesday my envelope from the St John Passion organisers arrived, with times, places, instructions and a badge; as I suspected it will be sung in German and I have only ever sung it in English, so a bit of adjustment to do there. The numbering of the chorales, choruses and arias is different on the vocal score from that on my CD so the first thing to do was cross check and mark the corresponding numbers on each, and the next was it fill in the words where missing under the alto line. I can now listen to all the chorales (about 10 of them, I think) while following the score, and will try to do this as much as possible before the final rehearsal on Saturday 8 April.
N went to Rouen for the morning to fetch back the DVD player; obviously I would like to have gone too, but needed to stay with our artisan in case he needed to ask anything, and we thought it should be fetched sooner rather than later. FNAC claimed there was nothing wrong with it at all, and after trying it for a while back home it seemed to be fine. Not sure I dare try the exercise DVD again though, there has been no time for these for so long, as we have had to be up before 8 every morning to unlock the garage doors ready for the arrival of the artisan.
I have also got out and varnished and assembled the three little spice shelves I bought in IKEA last November, but N has been unable so far to drill holes for them in either the kitchen wall or tiles. We have had partial success in putting up more pictures; some walls are very hard indeed. Also finally cycled to the bottle bank (in rain) to dispose of an ever increasing number of bottles and jars which were clogging up the boiler room. If all this sounds a bit haphazard, it is really; it’s been a question of what we can get on with around the house while all the work is going on on the premises.
Thursday 30 March 2006
N went back to Paris after lunch today, so he can do shopping and put on heating before arrival of Clare and Charlotte (daughter and granddaughter) tomorrow afternoon. At present I don’t know when I shall be able to get there; much depends on exactly when the work on the bathrooms will finish, not to mention still waiting arrival of missing cupboards.
The shower room is looking very good, however, especially the little rectangular washbasin with the drawer underneath, and the shower looks large and imposing despite being raised up on the cement socle (this is so that water can drain away properly) N and the artisan think it will need a step in front of the shower door; I can see this will mainly serve for stubbing toes as one comes into the room.
Friday 31 March 2006
All bathrooms and kitchen finally finished! The loo/broyeur was fixed very quickly yesterday afternoon (despite his banging his head on the very low doorway so hard that he saw stars!) and today he has fixed the missing drawers and doors in the kitchen. He even kindly fixed the screws for the spice shelves as our drill was not powerful enough. Also this morning he brought along his father-in-law to help carry away all the superfluous pieces, and help load the van with tools and packaging. The FIL was interested to see the shower room as well, and asked about the house and garden. Talking of which, there are finally daffodils in flower this morning; and a bright pink flower and a half on the camellia by the water butt. The latter is so full it is now turned off, but I have taken some water for my pots of herbs to keep them going while I’m away.
I paid the final cheque, made out to Lapeyre but taken by him, and he left his card, which might come in useful, and handed over the bottle of champagne which N had bought for the purpose, with our thanks.
All this has been finished so a quickly that I am now able to leave on the 13.06 bus and should be in Paris by about 15.30. As always, there are so many things to do here that I am loath to leave - paint to be touched up in both bathrooms, especially on new pipes, but also lots of little accessories to be bought for all three rooms, so I am looking forward - as always! - to the shopping opportunities in Paris.
# posted by Chez Katherine @ 2:22 AM 
