On our first whole day of ownership, still
reeling from the shock of it all, we drove over to the local
Brico-Depot (a cross between B&Q and Wickes in England and
like a Home Depot in the USA) to buy some wood and other
essential DIY supplies. We finished unloading our van and
trailer, yet another milestone to celebrate. Do we have
the stamina to keep celebrating every step of the way? Why
change the habits of a lifetime! On the
Monday we had our very first guests in our new abode, Kevin and
Anne from the Raleigh Barn at Bicton Arena (fabulous food
and a fantastic venue for weddings and other occasions, see
their website)
(they didn't pay us to say that!), who had been visiting friends
in Paris for the weekend and were on their way to their holiday
home in Brittany. It was great to see them and we
tried to make a special effort, so we cooked a Thai green curry
and drank most of the wine they were carrying with them.
Sorry about that Anne and Kev! Luckily for us they had
experience of renovating a place in France, so apart from giving
some helpful hints and tips, they weren't surprised by the
lavatory situation. Rita had seen a
"3 second tent" in the sports shop, Decathlon, on one
of previous visits to France, and had been determined to buy one
for some time. We bought one several days ago, and took
this opportunity to not only demonstrate the speed in which it
can be erected, 3 seconds, (hence the name) but also we thought
we might as well be the first to sleep in it. The tent is
folded in such a way so that when you take it out of the bag,
the glass fibre poles sprang into action and the tent opens up
in front of you. I think Kevin and Anne were secretly
quite impressed and really wanted to sleep in it themselves, but
they graciously said nothing and instead slept in our nice, cosy
garage. We spent the week boarding up the
doorways and windows in preparation for leaving the property for
the winter. I wanted to stop the weather from getting in
so it would be nice and dry inside when we return in the spring,
but we also needed to secure the place, not that there's much
there to steal! I also knocked up some garage doors so we
could put our van away as well, out of the rain and snow.
We cleared the area in front of the house of the weeds and
brambles, and the Anger brothers, the previous owners, came back
with their huge tractors and trailers and removed a lot of the
junk they had not got around to clearing before. I'm glad
they did that because it would have taken us a long time and
possible expense to get it removed otherwise. During
that week we discovered an amazing fact from history, that at a
place very near to our new abode was the site of a battle
between Henry I of England and his brother Robert
Courthouse. Both sons of William the Conqueror, Henry
defeated Robert in the battle, sometimes referred to as the
revenge for Hastings, which is also what some French now call
the invasion of Brits buying up old French properties for
renovation. Even more amazing than the fact that we were
now living so close to the battlefield, was that the battle
occurred 1st October, 1106 and the local town was celebrating
the 900th anniversary in some style this coming weekend.
So on Sunday 1st October, we dragged ourselves away from our
labours, smartened ourselves up and proceeded into town.
It was just a local affair, but they had a large banquet in a
mock castle constructed from hay bales, and, although we arrived
too late to see it, they had mock jousting. A lot of people were
dressed in period costume, but we had been warned not to dress
as the English. The odd thing was they seemed to be
celebrating the fact that they lost! The last
days and hours before our departure was a hectic rush, we
managed to get everything packed away and secured, and even
managed to plant a pear tree in the 10 minutes before the taxi
arrived at 9am on Tuesday 3rd October, my birthday, to take us
to the train station in Flers. Our last visitor before we
departed was our newly appointed architect, who came around to
have a quick look before we left. He will be returning
later in the winter for a more detailed look, and then he can
draw up some plans so we can get planning permission for an
enlarged house. We already have planning permission of
sorts, but because we want to use all the space in the house
including the loft we will have over 170 sq metres of living
space, which means we need to have plans drawn up by a qualified
architect. One thing he said, which delighted us no end,
was that the roof beams did not need replacing, despite their
appearance he said that underneath the surface they were as hard
as rock. That could save us a lot of money. Our
day in Paris was all too brief, another rush, but Rita had
booked us into a nice hotel not too far from the Arc de Triumph,
and the following morning we got the airport bus for our flight
to Orlando, and the start of our round the world trip. |
