Pergola - the Pictures

Here are some pictures of the construction of the pergola:

 Bill and Ali help with getting the first of the poles up:

 

Bill helping me with the cross beams, and then fixing the cane canopy:

 

And finally, the finished pergola, with a lot of the gravel in place.  The slabs under the pergola will be laid by Chris, our builder, in the coming weeks.

(Thanks to Shirley as official photographer!)

Les Hommes des Camionnettes Blanches part 2

I have previously posted about a café in the nearby village of Landerrouat (click here for that article).  When we were out in April, Bill and I decided to go there - a first experience for Bill, but the third time for me.  We went in our van, which was not out of place, as there were at least half a dozen parked along the road outside the café.

On entering the café we found it packed.  Bill and I were squeezed in at the back near an elderly English couple.  Food was good: vegetable soup, terrine, steak and chips, cheese, and rum baba, followed by a coffee, and washed down with water and a bottle of  vin ordinaire.  All this for €12.  Amazing value.

Following that lunch, Bill and I are definitely in the secret society of Les Hommes des Camionnettes Blanches!

Another New Restaurant - Le Moulin des Lèves

During our week at La Matha, our friends left for home on Thursday, leaving Pip and me to drive back in the van on Saturday.  We decided to go out for a meal on Friday evening - not too late, as we wanted an early start - and tried phoning La Terrasse.  No reply.

We then planned to go to St Foy and en route see if a new-ish restaurant that we seen in Les Lèves was open.  We didn't know what it was called, as we had only seen it side-on, turning off the D672 on a short cut just outside the village, just before the restaurant.

It was open, and it is called Le Moulin des Lèves (although I couldn't see a windmill anywhere near!).  At first, we were the only people there; a bit later a party of 16 women arrived, but they went into a separate dining room.  Just as we were finishing, a family of four arrived, who were clearly friends of the man who was front of house.

It was an interesting menu, and the food was delicious - I had red mullet tartare as a starter, followed by maigret.  Both were well presented, and the duck was cooked perfectly.  The wine list was slim, but had wine that we liked.

We would definitely recommend it - not as good as Gensaké, but worth a try.

Les Hommes des Camionnettes Blanches

It almost sounds like a secret society!  It certainly is more pleasantly sounding, perhaps without the slightly thuggish connotations of White Van Man!

Anyway, Bill and I were les hommes de la camionette blanche last week.  The Iveco Daily long wheel base van was rented from Europcar in Slough using Rhino Car Hire - I had originally booked it some time ago, but cancelling that booking and re-booking at the last minute saved about £90, even allowing for the loss of deposit on the original one.  Next time, I will risk doing a last minute booking, as long as it is not a busy period.

We left early (05:45 ish) on the Saturday morning, heading for Folkestone.  Despite a detour to drop my son off on the verges of the Medway towns, we made it to the Eurotunnel terminal in good time.  Bill paid for what was one of the worst bacon, sausage and egg baps I've ever had, and the coffee was not good either; at least we consoled ourselves that things could only get better: we were going to France, after all!

At Calais, we took our normal route of Rouen, Le Mans, Tours, Bordeaux - the A16/A28/A10 route.  This is more expensive toll-wise, but avoids the uncertainty of Paris and the Boulevard Peripherique.  The only problem we encountered was at Rouen.  About 50m before the turning for the A29 west, there was a diversion sign, saying that the main bridge over the Seine in Rouen where the A28 finishes was closed, and it was "obligatoire" for us to go A29, A151.  Unfortunately 50m is not really enough time to digest this information and work out the options etc, so we kept going.  Sure enough, just before the river, we were shepherded off the motorway.  At the traffic lights, there was a v big queue turning right, so we headed left; unsure as to whether we needed to head towards the airport or not, with Bill trying to make sense of it with the road atlas, I forked to the right.  It turned out this was the best route for us - we were heading south (always a good thing as that is the general direction we wanted to go!), and were driving along the east bank of the Seine.  This took us to the A13, a couple of junctions before we would have joined it if the main bridge had been open.  We probably were delayed in total by about 15 minutes, which I suppose is not too bad, all things considered.

For refueling both us and the van, we were unfortunate in terms of timing - the van needed diesel before we needed lunch. Diesel just after Rouen, and we hung on until Le Mans for lunch.  Along the A28/A10 route, there are two tedious legs - Rouen to Le Mans and Poitiers to Bordeaux.  Anyway, at the end of the first drag, approaching 14h, we stopped at the service station at Le Mans.  After Bill's breakfast, it was my turn to buy lunch.  We didn't want to hang around, so, stupidly, we bought a Wendy's hamburger, forgetting that the last time we did the trip we did the same thing and regretted it!  Lunch was really no better than breakfast.

That over with, we continued, and ended up at the house just before 19:45 - a journey time of around 13 hours.  We decided to take only the bags out of the van, turn on the heating in the house, and head out to Duras and dinner at La Terrasse - we deserved it after the drive and bad breakfast and lunch.  Second issue of the day - La Terrasse in complete darkness.  No problem, we could always go to Don Camillo for a pizza..... Oh no, that was closed too!  We then had no choice but to go to the Hostelerie des Ducs, which was more expensive than the other two, but food was essential, as we had nothing in the house.  The meal was great, and was a good end to a long and tiring day.

The Utility Room

We had hoped that our builder would have rendered the walls of the utility room - full render over the breeze blocks and "pierre apparente" where the walls are stone.  However, it has been so cold out there this spring, rather like in the UK, that he has not been able to do it: it needs consistent temperature of at least 20 deg.

He will be doing the walls in early May; however, this didn't stop us from painting the floor.  Well, the primer coat and the second coat went down, with our builder promising to do the final coat after he's done the walls.  We used Ronseal Diamond Hard Floor Paint, which went down a treat.  I was looking on line for some tips, and I read that someone painted the edges with a brush, then poured the paint onto the floor to roller it in.  Brilliant! I had the whole floor painted in a single coat in an hour, with a four hour drying time, the second coat went on later that day.

The result - absolutely no dust from the floor!  It is so good, and will make such a difference when the walls are done.  All we need now is to put a sink in there and move the washing machine to the corner, and it will be finished!  (oh yes, and the rendered wall painted...)

Balthazart Comes to the Rescue!

If you're reading this blog, you will be aware that we have recently put up a pergola by the side of the house, in order to make that part of the grounds more attractive.

The whole of that side of the grounds was covered in concrete - the previous owner was a builder, and that was his "yard".  Therefore, we needed to put six holes in the concrete for the posts.  We came armed with a small angle grinder, electric hammer drill, bolster chisels,  mallets and a sledge hammer.  In reality, this was naive - it turned out the concrete was some four inches thick in places!

On failing to make little more than a dent in the first hole, I decided that I would have to hire a kango hammer.  Bill suggested that we should see if we could hire a man with a hammer rather than just the hammer, and mentioned that Mr Balthazart, our gardener, might know of such a man.  A brilliant idea, I headed straight over the Landerouat to ask him, even though it was Sunday.

Mr Balthazart asked if we wanted someone to do the kango'ing or just the use of a hammer - I replied that it didn't really matter.  He then headed to a large shelving unit, and, from a selection of large tool cases, pulled out a Bosch Professional Demolition Hammer with a chisel bit and a borer.  A quick demonstration later, I was heading back to La Matha full of optimism.

Using the hammer in the concrete was like putting a knife through butter - it really made light work of the concrete, and we had got the first three holes dug by the time our wives arrived from Bergerac Airport in the afternoon.  The final three were quickly finished on Monday morning.

We were really grateful to Mr Balthazart and his hammer - it meant that we could finish the pergola on Monday, and saved having to find a hire shop to rent one.

Pomerol

When Bill and I were here in 2011, we visited the brother-in-law of a French colleague of mine.  The brother-in-law, Charles Estager, has three wine parcels: a Pomerol, a Lalande Pomerol and a Montagne St Emilion.  When there, we bought some of the 2010 Pomerol "en primeur", which means we buy it before it is bottled.

We have just visited Charles again, and picked it up - here is the evidence:

The boxes are in the van already, to which we will be adding some local wines from Berticot and Univitis - we have to do this to make sure the van does not come back empty!

We're Here!

We've now been here for a few days, working hard.  The pergola is up, and the cane shade cover is securely fastened.  Photos of work in progress and the completed works will be posted on our return.

Planting is also now complete, with the whole of the bed along that side of the house now finished - looking good!  I've fixed a hose up along the back of the house from the tap so that the new bed can be watered, but we're having to work out what to do with the high water pressure.

New curtains have been put up in two of the bedrooms, with one more to go, and cushions have been attached to the benches in the dining room.

There is more work to be done, some of which we will be able to complete, and some we won't.  One big piece of work is laying the slabs under the pergola.  That would be a big job for relatively inexperienced people like Bill and me, so we will get Chris our builder to do that when he renders the walls in the utility room.

It does seem like Pip and I will have to come out here for a weekend next month......