softinthehead

Another two months....

2011-08-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Yes amazingly another two months have flown by here in our little village. I honestly wonder what I do with myself all day but the days just whizz by. How did I ever manage to have a job as well!! What have we been up to the? Well we have have a few visitors, the in-laws were here for a few days in early July, it was very hot while they were here and luckily they didn't want to do too much but we did a few bits, took them to Oradour sur Glane, visited nearby Chateau Guillaume, and went to a vide grenier so feel they got an all round taste of life here in the country.

When they were here the garden was looking very scorched as we had hardly any rain for months. Since mid-July however we have had plenty and all the water butts are nicely topped up....this after several weeks of having to water with the washing up water and from our well as there was a ban in the area.

Also we have made some progress on the kitchen, there is still a way to go but the units using my stripped windows are now in place and we also have a cooker!! Whoohoo - its beginning to resemble a kitchen.

Then just a couple of weeks ago, my brother, sister-in-law and two of their children were here for a week, again took off on the tourist route, trip to Limoges with a lovely walk along the river, a bit of a tortuous afternoon on the Velorail, and a tiny bit of house hunting!!!

Also, big news, second baby granddaughter, Elise Ann, was born weighing in at 8lb 10ozs on July 21st. Everyone doing very well - Annika has taken it all in her stride and I am off to Canada to see everyone a week today. Hubby just started a new job today, still in Toulouse, so not able to take time off to come with me. It will probably just be a couple of weeks of shopping with daughter, and spending lots of time with my granddaughters, I cannot wait.

Watching The Flowers Grow

2011-06-08T02:12:00.000-07:00

Well where have I been for FOUR months, I promise I haven't just been watching the flowers grow, but saying that just look how they have grown - first picture a year ago April, second picture this morning .....

Note the railings and pillars have gone, much nicer and more open now.

The concrete pillars actually ended up in the kitchen floor ....... hopefully you can spot the difference.

I love it, I have a work top - bliss. I have to say I love the tiled floor, all my own handiwork.

We are having the cabinets made by a local craftsman on a piecemeal basis, I will eventually get doors, but the next phase is a wall cupboard using the old back door windows and a larder cupboard using the original kitchen windows. I have been busy stripping those

As you can imagine this wasn't too tough a job out there on a sunny afternoon under the shady pergola.

Got to admit many an hour has been lazed away out here.

This was one of our best investments. It is so lovely out there. What with the seemingly endless hot sunny days we have had so far this year, it has been a godsend. It is a little cooler this week and we have actually had a bit of rain, believe me - no-one is complaining.

Here is another one that is growing like a weed. Thank heavens for Skype. Her little brother/sister is due in six weeks.

A Belated Bonne Annee!

2011-01-24T22:00:00.000-08:00

Just noticed that it is a month since I last posted. Where has the time gone? To think we are a 12th of the way to next Christmas! Ugh!

Well we had a lovely trip to Canada to see family, although with all the travel and rushing about my cold did stick around into the New Year. We left Canada on Boxing Day returning to the UK only to find that a week after the snow the carpark where we left our car was still a skating rink. Some nonsense about if they grit they are liable - how ridiculous. Is this what society has come to?

Anyway we then spent a hectic three days in England visiting friends and relatives and getting in some all important shopping, mostly in B & Q and Tesco. I was actually standing in an M&S where they were having a fantastic sale, but with hubby sitting on my shoulder I couldn't enjoy the experience and we left....with nothing!! Him oblivious to the fact that a trip to M&S (to buy stuff) had been an important part of my holiday!

We arrived back in our village late on the evening of 30th to find that someone (our builder) had kindly set the fire for us. We put a match to it and stood back, only to have the room alarmingly fill with smoke. So badly in fact, we had to throw water on it to put it out. It appears our builder had done exactly the same thing a few hours earlier, hoping to warm up the house for us! Apparently in our absence the chimney had become a little blocked so it was off to a chilly bed for us. Not the best welcome home. Up bright and early the next morning with our neighbour (and friend and wonderful dog sitter) round with her chimney cleaning kit to clean it out and hey presto, it was nice a toasty again.

So what have I been doing this last few weeks, well the builder got the ensuite installed and I have painted all the woodwork. We are very pleased with the results. Also finally got around to pointing and rendering the feature wall in the bedroom which meant we could finally return the little scaffold tower to its rightful owner. It is wonderful after 6 weeks to be able to negotiate our bedroom to our ensuite in the middle of the night without having to remember to climb through the scaffold!

A couple of photos of the results......

A couple of other bits of gossip, daughter and son-in-law are expecting baby number 2 in July! Very exciting news, guess where I will be spending my summer hols.

The next less happy news is that hubby's job down in Toulouse is just not working out, he is not happy and so we are looking around, will keep you posted on that one. On the positive side it has put a little bit more urgency into my "to do" list.

With scaffolding ........

and

without scaffolding!

Greetings from Canada

2010-12-24T03:01:00.000-08:00

Currently sitting in my daughter's living room at silly o'clock in the morning drinking a hot lemon drink as I have managed to catch a nasty cold for Christmas. We set off for Canada via the UK last Saturday morning at 4am, worried about the snow that was forecast and how it was going to impact our journey. However we made great time through France, avoiding Paris, and took an earlier ferry across the Channel.

As we reached the English coast however we were in the thick of a snowstorm, so thick you could see the shore at all. We slid off the ferry (yep -absolutely no attempt by Seafrance to grit/clear the ramp or the route out of the port). Good god - these people are in the business of moving cars around. It was shocking. Then a knuckle clenching 5 hour trip from Dover to Gatwick. In that five hours we did not see one gritting truck, plough or policeman. Shame on those who are in charge of these things, knowing that this storm was coming no-one seemed to have made any effort to prepare. Not even hills were gritted, lorries jack knifed all over the place. Anyway we did make to the hotel with minutes to spare, just in time for the Strictly final - yes I have to admit I got totally hooked on this programme in the last few months and missing it was not an option !

We spent the entire day Sunday at Gatwick airport, i.e. 8.30am to 9.15pm, with thousands of other people on tenterhooks all day watching the departures boards as there was so little information and you really weren't certain whether anything was taking off or not. Once in the airport you didn't even know if it was still snowing outside. It wasn't! Turns out it only snowed for about two hours on Saturday lunchtime! We listened to announcements from various airlines for example Easyjet, just saying X, Y and Z flights are cancelled, will those passengers please leave the airport and re-book online! No apology - nothing. I am amazed there weren't riots!

Anyhoo finally arrived in Canada at 5am French time - picked up the rental car and made our way home and collapsed into bed. Never going to travel to Canada via UK again, too much margin for problems all around.

But we are safely here and I know many hundreds of people haven't been as lucky so we are duly grateful. It is wonderful to be with family again, Annika has grown up a lot in the past three months and we are taking every opportunity to babysit. Our daughter is loving the in-house babysitting service.

I wish everyone else a wonderful Christmas and happy and safe New Year. Back in 2011.

Winter has arrived!

2010-11-27T01:49:00.001-08:00

A couple of pictures to tell the tale....

Yesterday we had a little dusting, but it was bright, sunny although definitely on the chilly side - that's our little house with the blue van out front

Then today the snow is really coming down, it is grey and wet out there

It is very hard to tell, but there were huge fluffy snowflakes falling when I took this. And to think I thought I had left this all behind on the other side of the Atlantic! I think it might be time to put away the sunbed........

Early Riser

2010-11-23T22:17:00.000-08:00

I find that the older I get, the earlier I wake up. I have always been an early bird rather than a night owl but it is getting worse. Usually I am awake and up (because I cannot stay in bed!) by 6am. Here in deepest rural France it is very dark at 6am, currently I think sunrise is around 7.45am.

I was just letting the dog out and opening the shutters when I heard the 7am carillon from the church bells here in the village and it struck me that I have already done the following:

Re-set and re-lit the fire

Hung up the overnight wash (indoors as more rain/damp is forecast)

Swept through to get rid of all the firewood mess and dog hairs, a daily if not twice daily chore

Checked my emails

Made the first cup of tea of the day

Oh yes....and written this blog

Is this sad or industrious?

I mentioned in my last post I have started on the bedroom and here are some photos of my progress:

The before shot, lots of mud and dust everywhere

The during shot. I love the look of the stone in this state but due to structural, cleanliness and insulation reasons we have to point it. That will be a learning curve for us so stand by for the after photos. The brick on the chimney is not very attractive so we are going to render that to give some contrast.

The rest of my day shapes up as follows:

Shower, dress, breakfast, walk dog, post Christmas cards, drive to next village for bread, maybe pop into neighbour on way back for coffee, then back upstairs to carry on painting the bedroom.

Little by Little

2010-11-15T03:26:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe it has been a month since I last posted! I have been keeping myself busy so I thought I would post a few pictures ...... I painted the living room before all our "stuff" arrived on 2nd November. It is a warm cream colour and just having all the walls the same colour made a big difference. Here is the before..
And after...

It is a lot nicer snuggling down here after a hard day! I have to say the black and white checkerboard tiles are getting me down though, just too busy so we are going to change them for a uniform terracotta tile. So as usual two steps forward, one back!

My next job is to do the bedroom, which needs the un-plastered chimney wall taken back to the stone for rendering and pointing. A very messy job. So I have today packed up the bedroom ready to start that, then the beams and A-frame need brushing down with a wire brush, treating against infestation and then oiling with linseed oil, before I start the marathon job of painting all the walls and varnishing/waxing the floorboards. Somehow I don't think we are going to be sleeping up there for a while but there is still a bit of a deadline as our builder is due back around Christmas to install the ensuite bathroom fittings and fixtures.

This is the bedroom before .....

Let's see how long it is before I can post the after photos.

As I mentioned all our stuff arrived safely, goodness me, two weeks ago tomorrow. We had shipped our car as well as some furniture and belongings and getting the car OFF the container was causing a bit of a headache. It had been driven on off a loading bay in Canada but no such thing exists within 20 km of our village so we had to improvise...

As always our great friends came to the rescue and we managed to borrow a low loader from the local builders' merchants and some 3 metre long ramps, those together with some planks and lots of ingenuity, the car made it safely onto French soil.

Now just the registration to get.....remember - this is a vehicle which has come from Canada and was constructed in Mexico!! Fellow importers will understand my trepidation. :)

Keep Busy!

2010-10-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

That is going to be my mantra over the next few weeks and months while I get used to life here in rural France. As you know there is LOTS to do on the house, but just on an everyday basis, there are plenty of things to keep me busy.

My new schedule starts each day a lot later than I am used as it is so dark and quiet here! After breakfast I take the dog for a good walk, usually around 45 minutes. The first few days here the weather was gorgeous, starting a little cool but perfect for a walk (always uphill as we live in a valley) but by midday it has been in the 20's so no complaints there. Then I have to clear out the fireplace and lay the new fire, as it cools off quite a bit again in the evenings.

Then there is laundry, or cooking or gardening to do. I am trying to be disciplined about shopping, not wanting to be constantly driving back and forth to the shops, the nearest of which is a 15 minute drive away. So I stocked up well and got gas. This new lifestyle is all about downsizing and becoming more thrifty and green.

Then in the afternoons I have been attacking the very long list of jobs that need to be tackled. The first day I just cleaned the house from top to bottom in an effort to get rid of a lot of dust and cobwebs.

I have sealed the old oak floor in the kitchen, it is not staying in the long term but was in a bad state and never looked clean, it is definitely an improvement.

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon cleaning up some of the walls in the living room, getting off some very stubborn wallpaper backing, sanding down some beams and getting them ready to paint. I can see the prep work is going to take a while but my goal is to get this one room decorated before our belongings arrive towards the end of the month.

Today I have had a lazier day, after the walk with the dog, I drove into the next town to pay some taxes, and have quick look in the local brocante, it is a great one. Whilst there I spoke to the owner about a broken finial on my lovely old bed and he thinks either will have a spare or be able to make one for me so that was a good morning.

It was very very misty this morning and only 4 degrees and it has taken until mid afternoon for the mist to burn off. It wasn't a lunch in the garden day as it has been the rest of the week.

This afternoon I got the fire going, I do seem to be using a lot of logs - even though I have the woodburner shut right down, about one an hour - can anyone tell me if this is normal? And of course a lovely conversation via skype with daughter and granddaughter (who thinks it is hilarious that Nana is in the computer).

So my next chore it to get some more logs in for the evening! Hubby will be back tomorrow and we have been invited up the road for dinner. And so goes my first week in my new life.

Fait Accompli!!

2010-10-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

And it feels a little strange. It is hard to get over the feeling that I am not on holiday and that this is my life now.

As expected it was a very emotional few days, in fact I must admit to feeling a little panicked as the minutes ticked away. But I got my goodbyes and tears done and here I am.

The mission with the dog went a lot smoother than expected, although, as I thought, it is actually IMPOSSIBLE to move between Terminals 3 and 2 at Charles de Gaulle with more than 2 suitcases etc. as it is forbidden to take the baggage cart/trolley/chariot from one terminal to another!! I thought these items were for the convenience of the passengers - apparently not. So I did have to wait for my son in the station between the two terminals so we could take everything off the cart and carry it down in the elevator and get the shuttle train. This was the biggest hurdle in the whole proceedings and why I could not possibly have done it alone. There doesn't appear to be such a thing as a porter at CDG. Anyway it was done and we made it safely down to the house.

My son who works in a nightclub in London had worked til 4am and gone straight to the airport, whilst I had managed to get a little sleep on the plane, so between the two of us we almost made one functioning human being.

The drive down although long due to exhaustion was glorious due to the fabulous weather we are experiencing here. We have had a bit of rain over the last couple of days but Saturday the temperature was in the high 20's. Perfect for lazing about which I intend to do a fair bit of over the next few days, I feel I am entitled after the last few very stressful weeks!

Our son as always is very handy and helpful and yesterday we spent a couple of hours dragging a couple of trees which had fallen over the river back on to our land by chain sawing them into more manageable size pieces. Still no good for the fire yet as very green wood, but in a year or so....

As so life in rural France begins.

The Long Goodbye!

2010-10-05T12:59:00.000-07:00

That's how it feels. I leave the day after tomorrow. It has suddenly crept up on me. I am getting more and more emotional as I think about it. In a way I just wish it was Friday afternoon so that I can be happily ensconced in France with a glass of wine and all of "this" behind me.

I know that it great that my husband and I have this great adventure to look forward too, I know it is going to be great fun and we will get a lot of satisfaction out of it, but right this minute I am truly asking myself "why the hell am I moving to France and leaving behind my daughter, son and granddaughter?!".

Can you tell I am getting a little stressed? I am dreading the goodbyes. My daughter and I were in tears when we said goodbye when they left the house in France in the summer and I was going to be seeing them in little over a week! I just keep telling myself we will be back at Christmas (and blocking the fact that I will have to go through all over again then!).

If I am honest it is my granddaughter I am going to miss most. Watching her grow has been an absolute delight so I will treasure the close bond we have formed and will do everything in my power to ensure that bond continues in the years to come, no matter how many miles between us. Thank goodness for Skype.

Of course I will also miss my daughter but she is grown and we have been apart before, but we have become close friends over the last few years, especially since she became a wife and mother. We do spend a lot of time together so that is going to be a big wrench also.

And youngest son ....although I understand he is setting out on his new adventure an that he would have been going his own way anyway. Still it is not going to be painless.

Two Weeks and Counting!

2010-09-23T07:17:00.001-07:00

In a very strange place emotionally at the moment. Basically got too much time on my hands, but too much stuff spinning around in my head. On the one hand I wish I was in France and could get on with my new life, but on the other hand not wanting to say goodbye to friends and of course, family!

I have been babysitting Annika as much as possible and I am having her overnight on Friday, maybe for the last time for quite a while. I keep looking at the Pack'n'Play (portable cot) and thinking should I fold it up and hand it back, and I guess after the weekend I will. Another milestone. Just writing about it makes me tearful.

Annika and her pal, Ralph ....""aaaww walph"

I have done pretty much as much packing as it is possible to do until the last minute, I mean - I still have to function. However in an effort to save money - and because I am not exactly rushed off my feet at the moment, I am - with a little help - loading up a truck with our bits and pieces, and a few items of furniture I cannot part with, and all my garden "stuff" and driving it to the shipping warehouse somewhere in Toronto a week tomorrow and then I will drive the truck all the way back, probably a 3 - 4 hour round trip allowing for unpacking. On the following Monday I will drive our car, with daughter following, all the way to the warehouse and my daughter will drive me back. I will then have to function with the absolute minimum - one couch, one airbed, one TV, and few dishes etc. until the Thursday when I fly. Fun eh?

Between now and then I have various "last" lunches, coffees and dinners with various friends. Also doing quite a bit of knitting and reading. Have been totally addicted to the Stieg Larsson books and am currently on the last of the trilogy. Also found another good author who I have enjoyed, Kate Atkinson, just in case anyone wants a recommendation.

On my last weekend it is my youngest's 18th birthday - one of the reasons why I haven't gone sooner. So all in all a very emotional couple of weeks on the horizon. I just keep telling myself I''ll be back at Christmas.......

PS: Youngest son seems to be settling in well at college and making friends. That is a big weight off my mind.

Running Around in Circles

2010-09-09T05:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is where we will live!

I know I promised photos and I have been very slow to oblige but I feel like I am running around like an idiot. When in actual fact it is just my brain cells that are on overload. So here are a few more photos of our wonderful holiday, it is very hard to believe this is now to be our life!

Some interesting rooflines on the Chateau at Le Blanc

As you can imagine there are a 101 things to organise, sell, pack, many lists have been made. Hubby is off to France this weekend to start work in Toulouse next Monday. Our youngest son has moved into residence and college and seems to be settling in well and his room-mate is a pleasant young man from Indonesia studying International Business. It is very strange to think that our youngest might never live at "home" again. Very tough :(

Eldest son meets the newest member of the family!

So down to the actual logistics of getting us, that is, me, the dog, car and all our stuff over the Atlantic. The dog has been stressing me out, he is a large labrador, so needs the largest pet carrier, and the thought of getting to, being at, and getting from the airport with him, carrier and luggage is daunting.

Holiday fun in rural France

Youngest son will assist me this end, and eldest son has kindly agreed to fly to Paris from London to meet me and help me get from the airport down to the house (4+ hours south of Paris) while jet lagged. The added bonus of course being this means we will be seeing him again very soon.

Big Announcement

2010-08-30T01:03:00.000-07:00

It's all a bit overwhelming. As you are probably aware the plan has always been to eventually move to France and to this end hubby has been keeping his eyes open for a job in France. Well it has happened, out of the blue - a job in Toulouse! Yes, the plan is now becoming a reality - and to be honest - it is a little scary - not to say, emotional. We now have to follow through.

As always with us, we never say "this is it, this is permanent", I think you have known me long enough to understand why :) But even so, there is a sense of "what if it doesn't work out", "say he hates the job", "will we like actually living there". We have moved around a lot, lived in many places but never have I had this kind of uncertainty. I think it is because there is every possibility this might be the last move, but I cannot think that way, it just isn't in me, that would seem like a life sentence, far too much commitment there.

So as ever we approach the next step in our lives with a "suck it and see" approach. If this doesn't work out, revert to plan B, whereby we just move as the job demands, using France as our base.

Of course there is also the very emotional aspect, leaving behind my daughter and granddaughter, and of course, youngest son, who is moving into residence at college tomorrow here in Toronto. Lots of upheaval, lots of emotions. Hubby leaves in a couple of weeks and I hope to follow early in October, taking the dog with me.

Back to Life ....Back to Reality

2010-08-21T08:02:00.001-07:00

After five whirlwind weeks in mostly sunny France, I am back to earth with a bang. Where did those weeks go? We didn't manage to get the satellite broadband working until Wednesday of this past and final week so sorry for the lack of updates. Suffice to say I wouldn't have managed to find the time anyway, the first couple of weeks where manic getting ready for the visitors, baby-proofing house and garden, labouring for our landscapers in order to get the pergola finished in time and enjoying the best two weeks of our time there, weatherwise that is! The next two weeks were a frantic round of making meals, chasing the granddaughter and doing the tourist sights with all our visitors. Hubby returned to work last Monday and eldest son left Wednesday evening which left me just one day to close up the house until our next trip. So now home for a little rest.

A lovely time was had by all, we were thrilled with all the changes that had taken place since April, at first disappointed that the landscaping hadn't even started when I arrived, but later enjoying the opportunity to have input in the process. So for some photos.......

A waist high meadow greeted me on my arrival. Later transformed to something a little less like a jungle.

A room under construction when I arrived was whipped into a bedroom fit for guests just in time for their arrival.

A Sneak Preview

2010-07-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a little taster for you, as for me, of what's been happening in France. My great friend and neighbour took these couple of teaser shots. Apparently her camera was full and she couldn't take anymore! She also assures me that there has been more progress since these were taken, which is reassuring because my daughter, her husband and my one year old granddaughter are due to be sleeping and possibly bathing here in three weeks' time.

The first shot shows the construction of the closet and the formation of an attic space above. As you can hopefully make out, the wall dividing the space will run behind the A frame leaving the lovely oak construction exposed.

The second one is another gratuitous shot of the lovely wood framework.

So I leave on Sunday, hubby follows the following Friday. We have a very busy time ahead of us before our visitors descend. Job one for me is a French MOT (sort of road worthiness test for those who do not live in UK) for the van, day two the satellite broadband is due to be installed to get us online.

Then I have to research and purchase wooden flooring for the attic space, bathroom fittings, also find a bed for our visitors to sleep on, get more plates, child proof the building site (our granddaughter is now walking!) ......the list goes on endlessly.

So, not so much a holiday as bootcamp, but I just cannot wait. There is so much STUFF I want to take with me, I think I might alternating the same two outfits over the next five weeks. Thank goodness we have a washing machine. Believe it or not I am actually transporting a small 4 man tent in my suitcase. Yes, the suitcase that I have to slog across Paris to catch the train down to the house.

I hopefully will be able to report back once I am online en France.

A bientot mes amis

Gone Baby Gone

2010-06-23T03:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my baby's last official day of school, he graduates from Grade 12, commencement is next week. Where did that time go? Obviously he is my youngest son, our afterthought but much enjoyed third child. When I found out I was pregnant, nine years after our other son, I was a little shocked to put it mildly but once we came to terms with the fact, decided that, after having the other two quite close together (2 years apart) and the blurr that was, I would really make a point of enjoying every moment, knowing that every phase would pass eventually, I had help in the form of the older two, husband was much more hands-on and we have all enjoyed pretty much every minute of him since. He has been an exemplary child, always very easy, independent, mature, cheerful, loving ..... the list goes on.

He is a quietly confident boy, with a dry sense of humour which charms most that meet him, teachers, fellow students, employers, girls!

But he is also a bit of an anarchist at heart, always thinking against the crowd, and I mean anarchist in the following definitition taken from Dictionary.com:

-------

A theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government as a political ideal and that proposes the cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups as the principal mode of organized society.

--------

A hippy at heart, wanting a good world, looking for the right way to proceed through this jaded one (like his mother), but cynical (like his father) and realistic - it makes for a very interesting person, and we look forward to watching the man he becomes. It seems this also includes him taking part in peaceful non-confrontational protests, like the one planned at the G20 here in Toronto. Of course part of me wants to wrap him in cotton wool and forbid him to go - but the other part of me is proud that he has strongly held socially responsible views.

He starts college in September studying Film and Media Production, a four year Batchelor's degree. Someone asked me the other day if we were buying him something for graduation, and I was a little taken aback, but bit my tongue and did not retort "How about a very expensive education over the next four years!". No, mugs that we are he is also getting a large contribution to the European tour he has planned with his girlfriend for this summer.

Not complaining, he has made it a very easy ride over the last 17 and a half years and he deserves it all and more. Congratulations Eddie .....with much love.

Free Fallin'

2010-06-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

OK maybe not "free" falling but falling nonetheless. A little poetic license there :) What am I talking about? The Euro! Yes I know it is bad news for a lot of folks but for us it is a bonus. We spent big bucks having work done last year when the Euro was at around CAD $1.6 and so we are cashing in now that it is low. Today I managed to get CAD $1.28. Whoohoo!

When we were purchasing the house - the rate was around $1.35 - $1.43 and we used one of those services where you lock in a rate because obviously over the price of a house, a few cents here and there, made a big difference. And it has been on a roller-coaster ever since. Sorry everyone, but we ARE trying to keep the grin of our faces while rubbing our hands together in glee.

The golden Euro is looking a little tarnished these days and we do know it doesn't bode well for the Eurozone in particular and the world in general - all this uncertainty, credit crunch and Euro bailouts. But it is nice to be on the plus side for a change and we are making the most of it as we squirrel away funds to pay for this summer's scheduled work. I am sure it will come full circle - these things always do.

Yesterday

2010-05-25T12:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a bank holiday here, and, not being the busiest estate agent around at the mo, even I got to enjoy. It was amazingly hot for late May, 30+ degrees. Being the good souls that we are we had offered to go over and help son-in-law building his shed to end all sheds. So I let hubby do the building while I helped daughter look after our granddaughter and do a bit of gardening during nap times.

Note shed under construction in the background. Actually to be known as the pool house!

Son-in-law opened the pool (remember this used to be our pool) and I think being open before the end of May is a record, so well done Mike. However, as inviting as it looks, it was leg numbingly cold - believe me, I tested it.

It was a gorgeous day if you could find a bit of shade, which Blaine, their dog, managed to do.

All I can say if this is May in Southern Ontario, I am doubly grateful to be spending a good part of July and August in France.

Progress

2010-05-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

The first Christmas after we bought the house, back when my daughter had time on her hands, i.e. no daughter!, she started to put together a photo album of the house in France, using her scrapbooking skills which took us up to Christmas 2007! All we had done by then is take lots of photos of a very run-down, overgrown house and ruin. Plus pictures to show what a lovely village we had found.

In the 2 1/2 years since, daughter has got engaged, married, pregnant and is now a stay at home mum, so we thought we should give her something to fill her days ~ more photos of the progress during that period. It was fascinating to look back over the photos and see where all our money has gone..... new roof - the biggest expense to date, but also the biggest transformation. Then eldest son stayed there with his girlfriend and in three months further big transformations occurred, mains drainage, new wiring, hot water, new plumbing, wood burning stove, satellite TV - again another big chunk of change, in fact we probably as much as we did on the roof again, but on lots of different things, home comforts!

Then we had the walls rendered, beams sandblasted, staircase installed. We have just sent off the cheque to our builder who is about to convert the attic of the house into a bedroom with ensuite bathroom and walk-in closet and create a landing around the new staircase. He hopes to start early June, we have our fingers and toes crossed as he leaves to go on vacation towards the end of June.

Also in mid-June our landscaper friends intends to start work to level the area at the rear between the two "wings", lay down some nice clean peashingle and erect a simple pergola.

Choosing photos from that 2 + year period in one sitting makes you a lot of more selective. However I did in the end upload 106 photos to document the progress and am just off to the supermarket to pick them up. Ordered them just a couple of hours ago, so great service and costing me just over $10.

I think that will be that for this year. It would be nice to have some spare cash that doesn't immediately get swallowed into the hole that is "our French house".

There is still a long way to go. Obviously we need to install a proper kitchen as some point and we also intend to convert the attic of the barn to two more bedrooms and a bathroom. But we've come a long way, baby!!

Change of Plan....again

2010-05-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

When I say that, our kids just roll their eyes. As you may have gleaned from previous posts, we are a bunch of gypsies, never in one spot for very long - in fact the 4 and half years in our last house was the longest we had ever lived anywhere in 33 years of marriage. As you know hubby works all over the place as a freelance design engineer in the aerospace industry, in just the last few years of my blog, he has worked in Germany, UK, United States and Canada, with a little talk of China in there for a while, which is now off the cards for the immediate future by the way.

So what's the latest plan I hear you all ask. Well ideally hubby would love to get work in Toulouse but that just doesn't seem to be on the horizon, however, he never stops hoping. Of course that would work out perfectly with our future plans to live in France.

The loose plan, since we purchased the house in France, had been that, once youngest son was off to college, we would be free to move. Of course when we formed this plan, hubby was working Europe. Now son has accepted a place at college here in Toronto to study a Batchelor's in Film and Media Production. He will be in Halls of Residence for the first year and will probably move into an apartment off campus for the following years, So we are free to do what we want. Right?

Hubby is currently (i.e. this week!) based in Montreal, managing to get home every weekend, which is why he took the position. So we think now we will hang around here until Christmas and then I will move to Montreal with hubby and we will go to France more and more often.

When we formed the original plan, we didn't have a little granddaughter, and had no idea how much we would enjoy the role of grandparents, so remaining this side of the Atlantic a while longer isn't too hard a pill to swallow:)

Parlez-Vous Francais?

2010-05-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

My usual answer to that question is "un peu" with a rye smile. However I have just finished my third week at night school studying Conversational French and instead of increasing my confidence, it is just bamboozling me with rules! I think I knew these rules once but have forgotten more than I remember for sure!

I did study French at school and at college - I did a Bi-Lingual Secretarial course - how quaint! is there even such an animal these days? But I did very well, passed my oral exam with flying colours.

Then when we moved to Canada in 1990, and as immigrants to Quebec, we were entitled to free French Immersion classes, and I attended four mornings a week for several months. It was great, I actually started to think in French. Our older two children were 9 and 7 yrs at the time and entered the Accueil programme. The teacher told us she would never speak to them in English, and after a month they would have to sit in a chair when they spoke English so that they could distinguish the difference, to them it was just communicating - how wonderful.

Within months, my daughter in particular was attending regular French school, doing all her classes in French and to this day, she can speak and read quite fluently. Our son didn't take to it quite so well so at the first opportunity he entered the English system, but even he (now living and working in France) has found that it has all come back.

My brain cells, however, are much older and out of practice and I am feeling even more bogged down with the rules and cannot wait for the day when I too can enter the "immersion" programme, i.e. living in France.

I had been fairly happy with my levels of communication, I mean we get by, in fact all my conversations with the carpenter who made the staircase were in French, he doesn't speak any English, and I am sure you will agree from the results, I made myself understood.

But on Tuesday evenings, after three hours of French nightschool, fluency seems a long way off.

Did I mention my mum and her significant other were here from the UK last week? They got delayed a day by the volcanic ash but are now back home safely. Here is a picture of Great Grandma and Great Granddaughter - 71 years between them. Annika is now nine months old and has her first tooth. She is crawling but prefers to have you hold her hands while she toddles around - quite a tyrant, but adorable.

More Progress

2010-05-05T04:40:00.000-07:00

My good friend in the village, days after an op on her knee, hobbled down the road to my house to take some photos for me. I think she deserves a medal. As we are still waiting for the photos from the carpenter, here is a sneak preview.

I think you will agree it looks pretty good, it is solid oak. We definitely didn't want a support post, which is quite common, so that the space under the stairs could be part of the room. I envisage having a desk under there or maybe an armchair.

While my friend was down at the house, the other builders were there rendering the rear walls, so now a lot of our beautiful stone as seen in this picture

has been hidden from view. I would have loved to leave more stone exposed but that is a time-consuming and therefore costly process so I have to content myself with know that the rendering makes the walls safer and is better insulation and will hopefully deter the ivy from growing back. Can you hear me convincing myself?

Anyway here is a photo of the nearly finished article. The plan is to paint the ugly grey crepi on the front and rear of the other parts of the house in a colour to match the render.

Click on the photos for a closer look.

Rumour has it....

2010-04-29T18:48:00.001-07:00

I have it on good authority that a staircase is being installed in my house in France as I write!! The photo above is not THE staircase but the photo I sent to the carpenter to give him an idea of the kind of thing I was hoping for.

This development is so damn exciting, it is truly scary. The word is it should be fully installed by next week. When we were there I kept saying to hubby, I feel I need to have a good look at everything because...hopefully....I won't see them this way again. Looks like I was right. I know it is hard, but try and contain yourselves....photos to follow shortly. Then you can see if I did get what I was hoping for. The joys of part-time long distance renovating.

Progress?

2010-04-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

Now that we are back and showing people the photos, I can see that they are having trouble seeing the progress...but honestly there has been some. I can see how everyone is still thinking that it looks fairly basic.

But here goes:

New windows:

New heated towel rail:

Washing machine and storage shelving in the utility room:

A nice mown lawn:

Even a vegetable patch!

Progress... several steps forward...yes....but then of course a step or two backwards:

A nice big hole in the ceiling .......which hopefully soon will contain the staircase.

In the Big City

2010-04-23T03:08:00.000-07:00

Well we did get stuck by the volcano mayhem in Europe. We were supposed to return a week ago today, however being on holiday! we hadn't actually been paying much attention to the news and although friends mentioned it, we had no idea of the chaos it was causing. So we dutifully got up early and set off at 5.30 am!! to get to CDG in good time. When we arrived to drop off the hire car, the guy did mumble something about us keeping it as the airport was closed but again the significance was lost on us and we trundled off into the airport. What d'ya know, the airport was closed!

So we joined the three hour ( 3 hour !) line up, just standing there for three hours to re-schedule our flight, the earliest they could do by time we got to the desk was Wednesday. Wednesday! We were scandalised, thoughts of my teenage son, left at home ALONE for the first time fought in my head with thoughts of another wonderful five days in sunny lovely Limousin! As it turns out Wednesday was perfect as the planes did not commence flying again until Tuesday, and of course teenage son was just fine without us.

So we about-turned and set off for our adventure in Paris (yes I know I always bemoaned the fact that I never actually got to spend time in the city but this is not quite what I had in mind!)

We got the train to Gare du Nord, a large and confusing station. For a little while there we really did feel like the two little country mice who had found themselves in the big scary city! Anyway we made it across to Gare Austerlitz and waited in another line up for our train ticket back to La Souterraine, our nearest station, called our good neighbour to arrange for her to pick us up at 9.30 pm and managed to find an hour to have some lunch before heading back to race for our seat on the train. It wasn't until we got to the change over station at Vierzon, when the connecting train didn't bother to turn up until an hour later than scheduled that someone mentioned that there was also a train strike in France!!

That would explain the very full train with many many people sat on the floor in the aisle, luckily we had seats.

It was a very long day but it meant another four days at the house, the longest we have ever spent there. As I reported on Facebook, I was stranded in France on my birthday, but wasn't complaining too much as the weather was gorgeous and the wine is cheap!!

Countdown

2010-04-07T03:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be so slack in the blogging but had a hectic couple of weeks. As I said in my last post, I gave my notice in for my part time job and have been going as full tilt as possible at the real estate and now have a couple of listings bubbling under so that is a positive result of my decision.

My dad has been with us for the last week over Easter. He lives in San Francisco so we don't get to see him often enough, it was great to spend the time with him. He experienced gorgeous unseasonable weather here, yes it is still with us, much nicer than the wet Easter weekend that was forecast for San Francisco. Saturday and Sunday were particularly lovely, temperatures in the mid-20's, much sitting out on patios soaking up the sunshine. We went downtown Toronto on Saturday to watch daughter and son-in-law do their 8k run, taking our granddaughter with us. This was a first for SIL so he was thrilled that he achieved is goal "not to throw up"!! Well done to both of them.

So now it is the countdown to our trip to France. Still quite a bit to do before we set off on Friday. Such as buy travel insurance, pick up euros, do taxes (!) eek, pack, in and around that, clean the house, leave enough food for youngest son who we are trusting to stay behind and take care of the dog ....and himself.

I hope to report back the other side of the holiday with lots of photos. A bientot!

Decisions

2010-03-23T03:24:00.001-07:00

I have decided that I am spreading myself too thin, have too many things going on in my life, starting to feel stressed about the move etc. So I have made the decision to quit my part-time job and put more effort into the real estate. I love my little part-time job but feel I am taking liberties there with wanting so much time off. They have been so flexible and easy-going with me but enough is enough. A few weeks ago I told them of my plans, the fact that, as well as wanting to go to France for a good part of the summer, we were actually planning on moving permanently in the fall once youngest son was well settled into college. I hate having a secret agenda, and although I knew they knew I wasn't there forever, I also knew they didn't think I was off so soon.

So I told them of our plans and said I would understand fully if they wanted to move on without me, I really appreciated how amenable they had been with my schedule...da de da.. but they said no problem, they would work around me!! I know I had secretly been wishing they would make the decision for me and say that in that case they would start looking for someone else. But no...doh! So now a few weeks on, when I now want yet another day off to take a college tour with my son, I really feel I am taking the p*ss as we say in the UK, so decision made, I am going to tell them I am out of there at the end of April and in the meantime, going to give the real estate a big push. There is also the fact that my co-worker and friend is wanting to change her position in the company and I feel it would be easier for her if I wasn't there being so flaky with my hours.

I must admit that it is a weight off my mind, especially as when I spoke to my real estate partner/colleague who I have teamed up with as assistant, she said she could give me more hours which would help make up for the regular albeit small amount of money I was making at the other job - result. So at least I will be in one place, concentrating on one thing and hopefully get more going with that. I am determined to give it one last push and make some money, I had such a good first year in the business, then the market dived and I lost my way somewhere and have certainly been struggling. I want to go out with a bang....or at least feeling that I did give it 100%.

Things have progressed in France as well, just over two weeks till we get to see the results. The windows have all been replaced/installed. The boarding between the beams is coming along and the floor in the attic is getting done. New ceiling in the kitchen as well. My goodness it might actually be draft free when we get there.... well except for the large hole that is being made for the staircase!

Our dutch friend emailed us yesterday to say our mutual builder has made the huge hole for their swimming pool so if we want some free dirt.....yes we do. So hopefully lots of new photos when I get back. Our friend does email us photos but he does it as a pdf due to poor broadband capabilities when sending photos and I can't work out how to get those into Blogger, if anyone has any ideas let me know.

After an absolutely glorious and record-breaking spring break week here last week, we are back to single digits and rain this week. We knew it couldn't last!

Is this Spring?

2010-03-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

Can it be true? Probably not, as a "canadian" of several years now I am as cynical as the rest. Its only March and spring never gets here until well into April, if we are lucky. We have experienced a really strange winter here in southern Ontario, hardly any snow at all, with all of us driving around on our winter tyres! It is ironic as I get ready to move to France that they have experienced a much worse winter than us, is this a sign of winters to come?

But the last few weeks and especially last few days we have definitely been experiencing "spring", temperatures in double digits, yesterday 16 degrees C - it has been wonderful, everyone's spirits have lifted, everyone is sitting on their porches, walking their dogs and small children, walking around with no coat or boots. It has been heaven. Spring and fall are my most favourite times of year, but usually here in this area they are both much too short, usually just a couple of fleeting weeks of gorgeous "good to be alive" weather, before it becomes too hot, or too cold. This is why we are all taking full advantage, especially as deep down, we Canadians knew it was too good to be true, and yes there are snow flurries and single digit temperatures in next weeks forecast.

Today

2010-03-06T13:41:00.000-08:00

Well as you can see I have been fiddling around with the layout of the blog. I must say that some sites were helpful, however some could have been in a different language for all the help they were! The background isn't as wide as I wanted, I couldn't make the photo I wanted for my header small enough but baby steps.....

The weather here today in southern Ontario is absolutely gorgeous (9 degrees C) and the snow is gradually melting, it really feels like spring but we know mother nature is just teasing us, there must be more winter on its way to us. But regardless we took the opportunity to go for a long walk up on the Bruce Trail with the dog. It was very very muddy, and slippery but we had a lovely time and it was great to be out in the fresh air. Roll on spring.

Hubby is loving getting home every weekend but I must say it is not helping my motivation in the real estate area of my life. Weekends are when I should be busy but with so much going on in our lives, with our new granddaughter, plans to move, etc. I am losing my motivation....especially as I know I am not building a long term real estate career here.

I am now of the mind that if something comes along .. great but I cannot be bothered to be out there hunting for it. Open houses are always on Sunday just as hubby is getting ready to head off again. So I have started doing more admin for the lady I am now assistant to and getting paid to do that, every little helps, and if a deal comes along, its a bonus.

We are excited as all the jobs we had lined up in France are due to get underway this week apparently. Our great friends in France have been on to the various artisans to chivvy them along and we will see tomorrow if they have had an impact. The new windows in the rear are due to go in and that is a big change so will be excited to see the photos.

Just an update on hubby's illness last week, he is all fine now, but he lost 11lbs !!! by not eating for three days....so obviously he was way ahead in the dieting stakes after that. This week however his appetite is back with a vengence, doesn't that always happen...and he has gained 5 1/2 lbs so now we are just 1/2lb apart.

Slow Ahead

2010-03-02T06:24:00.000-08:00

Up until now we have been very lucky getting the work done in France. Had really great builders and artisans so no complaints on that front which seems to be refreshing from all the horror stories I have heard. Of course we didn't expect it to be plain sailing all the way through and it seems we are now getting to the point where, now that we are ready for full steam ahead to have the place a bit more habitable by the summer, things are at a standstill. We have reached the point where everything has to go in a certain order, trades have to coordinate and it seems that we are all waiting on the carpenter who is (hopefully as we speak) making the staircase. He has had the go ahead and a down payment since early February but no word on a possible installation date. This guy is also responsible for making the hole in the ceiling to break through to the attic as it seemed sensible to get him to do that as he needs to make the staircase fit the hole. No so sure now that was the best plan. We have instructed another builder to go ahead and board and plaster between the beams in the room where the staircase will eventually be situated and he is waiting for the hole to be done!

As far as the window replacement is concerned, apparently that builder is waiting for the windows to be made, but in the interim has not done the kitchen ceiling and apparently is looking for work!! It is frustrating as we have lots he could be doing for us but it is hard to communicate our requirements, not only in another language but long distance. So as you can imagine we are anxious to get back to France to chivvy everyone along.

I spoke to my friend and neighbour in the village this morning and she has promised just to ring around and see what everyone is thinking and see if she can move things along a bit. I don't like to ask but she is on the spot (both physically and figuratively) so it is easier for her. She was telling me that they had had a terrific storm over the weekend, some people were actually killed. Somehow I had missed that on the news. But she assures me she has walked around all of our properties (ours and other absentee owners!) and we all still have our roofs intact.

Roll on April - I hate this wishing the days away but .....

Man Flu

2010-02-25T02:30:00.000-08:00

Hubby called from Montreal yesterday to tell me he was laid up with the stomach flu. He said he had to leave work in a hurry!!
You can guess what that means. Anyway he was in his bed feeling very sorry for himself and I hope I sounded sympathetic but you know how it is ladies.........

I just hope he doesn't bring me a little gift when he comes home for the weekend.

I just had a thought, we have challenged each other to lose some weight before our next trip to France. The lengths some people will go to!!

It's a Done Deal

2010-02-23T03:01:00.000-08:00

We have booked the tickets and are all set for our week in France in April. After all that research I had done on the complicated plans to go to France via the UK (hubby's idea) to pick up hubby's new passport!! he then decided it was far too time consuming (and exhausting.....and complicated) so I researched going directly to Paris and driving down, and what do you know, it was a lot less expensive. Strangely it was also much less costly to rent a car for the entire week, returning it back to the same pick up location than just renting for the journey down, using our little blue van for the week, and then renting just for the journey back, almost half as expensive in fact! Also this plan also allows us to stop en route to pick up some stuff. This time around we want to try and get a washing machine and a heated towel rail. I know, exciting or what?! No wonder the visitors to my blog have dropped off drastically (if the comments are anything to go by) but these are the things that make up my existence!

Anyway hubby wants to buy one of those strange French (?)/European (?) top loading machines. All I can think when I see one is "can I get a decent load in there....will a duvet fit in?" If anyone has any comments or input on that, do pass it along. I couldn't find a photo of one but I am sure you French dwellers know what I mean. You lift the lid, then you open the drum. The drum seems very small but we do have limited space where it is going to be installed and most of the time it will just be the two of us.

So another mind-bogglingly fascinating post from SITH. I am sure you have now concluded I really am soft in the head. :)

I am sure you look at the first picture and wonder at my longing to be back there, but then I look at the one above and cannot wait to see that view through my new french doors. I do however love the old windows and hope to be able to recycle them somehow.

On The Road Again...

2010-02-17T12:22:00.000-08:00

Gone are the days when you went to your travel agent to book your holidays. No, it is yet another skill I have had to master. And believe me the logistics of getting from Burlington, Canada to Limoges, France are not for the feint hearted. So I have spent a good part of the last few days doing just that, all the different scenarios, leaving on this or that date, stop overs, car rentals, connecting flights and all on a shoestring of course. Also I have to maximize time away, satisfy hubby's desire to be in France while not being away from work too long, pacifying the two (2!) lots of people I work with.

So this is what I have finally nailed down - leaving Friday afternoon (once hubby has returned same day from Montreal!) arriving in London at the crack of Saturday morning. Pick up car rental and rush down to the south coast to see the in-laws and pick up hubby's new passport. Up the next morning again at the crack of dawn to head back to Stansted for our flight to Limoges. Hopefully be picked up in Limoges by our wonderful neighbours and hence finally arriving at our little piece of France Sunday afternoon. All of course with jet lag!!

Spend a productive five days in France, looking out through our lovely new windows, admiring the beautiful ceiling and discussing the next stage with our builders. We would also love to be able to see our staircase installed but have been warned not to hold our breath on that matter.

Return to UK on Saturday, pick up another rental car, meet up with friends and hopefully cadge a room for the night, up at the crack of dawn Sunday morning to catch our fight back to Canada. Once back in Toronto, wave hubby off on his fight back to Montreal. All for the very reasonable cost of just over $2000!! Travel has certainly got a lot more expensive since we bought the house!

Anyone having anything helpful to suggest, please do - only polite suggestions please :)

Then and Now

2010-02-12T04:06:00.000-08:00

Hazel over at Mud Walls & Beams gave me a great idea for today's post. Hazel and her husband, Richard, are a further down the road on their "living the dream" project than we are and she posted some photos to show just how far they have come. They are now living in France full-time so they have had the time to make so much progress and we are very envious, but know that one day soon, we will be in the same position. Their house looks absolutely gorgeous and it gives me inspiration.

When we first saw our house, it was looking quite sad and even the estate agent's ad was entitled "Save Me"! But we were immediately smitten and could see all the potential. You couldn't actually approach the house from the rear or open any windows due to all the many years of overgrowth. That's Mark, our estate agent, in the picture.

I remember how we spent the days after closing (several months later than the above photo, so even more overgrown) clearing all of that overgrowth. Notice also the dilapidated roof.

This is how it looked this summer, two years on. New roof, new dormers, cleared overgrowth, but still plenty of ivy, that really is being a bugger to get rid of and we spent many hours when we were there in December removing yet more of it, it is actually growing in the wall, we cut all the roots a while back thinking that would kill it off.

And this is the rear wall just a few weeks ago, almost ready for rendering. We are hoping to be able to remove the last few bits (and any new growth) when we are back next time, hopefully in April, and get the wall rendered and the area cleared to start a patio. This spot is a real sun trap so we plan to build a gazebo/pergola type construction to provide some shade with roses, jasmine and honeysuckle - doesn't that sound heavenly?

In the first two pictures you can see the door in the rear of the kitchen and the window on the side. As I write, work is underway to change these over so that we will have french doors on the side where the window is and a window in the rear, where the door is currently located. Stand by for more photos.

Thanks for the inspiration Hazel, doing this post has reinforced that we have come a long way, even though there is still a way to go.

Back Again So Soon?

2010-02-05T03:25:00.000-08:00

Yes but I have just finished a wonderful bookand wanted to share. It is "The Girls" by Lori Lansens. It is a fictional "autobiography" of conjoined twin girls. I know it sounds like a strange topic, but it was a lovely book, one that I did not want to finish. My daughter belongs to book club and this is where she heard about it. They read a very eclectic selection of books which isn't always my cup of tea and I will read most things, but this one was a hit.

While I think of it I read another great book recently, again not necessarily a topic I would select in the book shop, again came to me through my daughter, and again one I didn't want to finish, I wanted to carry on reading about those characters. That to me is always the sign of a lovely book. "Through Black Spruce" by Joseph Boyden. A story about a first nations family and how their traditions are sometimes at odds with modern day life in Canada. That sounds like a very dry revue but it was really interesting and I couldn't put the book down.

One of my all time favourite stories is "The Raj Quarter" by Paul Scott. This was made into the classic BBC programme "The Jewel in the Crown" which is a fabulous watch, I have watched itmany times, a beautifully made drama, actually made back in the 80's I think but it doesn't look dated at all, and the books are just as wonderful and evocative of that time in British history. I bought the set for my daughter for Christmas. Do let me know if you have any good recommendations as I am looking for my next read.

Hello February - Roll on Spring

2010-02-04T19:13:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe it is a month since we were in France and over a month since Christmas. We continue to have unseasonably mild weather here in Southern Ontario, with the temperatures hovering around freezing rather than plunging below so no complaining there.

Hubby just started his new job in Montreal and is currently apartment hunting, preferably downtown so that the rest of the family can enjoy weekends in the thick of things close to great bars, restaurants and great shopping. I love that city - although it isn't very temping at the moment as the temperatures are a little more "normal" for the time of year at around -10 C.

The family is taking advantage of our last year here in Canada and are booking their holidays, Dad to be here over Easter and Mother here for a week in May. And friends muttering about booking flights!

We have given the go ahead for work to commence in France and still planning to be there sometime in March, hopefully to coincide with the staircase installation (sorry if I am repeating myself but pretty excited about that particular milestone!).

Not much else of note happening. Just working my two jobs which does not leave room for much else. Almost time to start thinking about taxes etc.

What a boring post, sorry will try better next time. :)

Blogging is Wonderful

2010-01-18T16:36:00.001-08:00

As I was reading all my favourite blogs over the weekend I checked out one of more recent additions Are We Nearly There Yet? and she was talking about Haiti and gave this great link. If you would like to help this is a small but hopefully effective effort.

When I popped by on Saturday to donate they hadn't quite reached their initial goal of 1 Shelter Pack. I just checked the site, and they now have enough for SIX packs. I know it seems like a drop in the ocean but every little helps and maybe these will actually reach someone, rather than be stuck in the bottle neck that is currently Port Au Prince airport.

It's these wonderful efforts, experiences and people that have made blogging a truly rewarding journey for me. I am so glad I started reading them, and then joining them, more than two years ago now, and I don't intend to stop anytime soon, even though some of my absolute favourite ones have decided to do so.

January

2010-01-15T03:04:00.000-08:00

France seems a long way away right now, both in distance and time. But we did have a very productive week managing to organize quotes on various jobs which it would be great if we could get underway before we return, hopefully in late March. So the beams were done, the guy turned up right on time just as we were trying to seal up all the doors etc to avoid as much mess as possible. We could have saved ourselves the time and effort, believe me the mess and dust goes everywhere, was on every surface.

These are the beams in their original condition when we first saw the house, covered in a thick nasty varnish, but they are a beautiful shape, curved in the shape of the tree from which they were cut.

This is the mess you are left with once the sand blasting guy leaves. This stuff is copper slag, they don't actually use sand as it contains silica, which is believed to be a carcinogen. It was 2 to 3 inches deep across the entire room.

We didn't bother to cover up stuff in the kitchen believing the door and the taping would contain the dust. But no, if you click on the picture for a closer view you can see every item has had a dusting. No amount of wiping or mopping quite did the trick. We went out the next day and bought a vacuum cleaner and another industrial mop and things finally started to feel clean.

However we are very pleased with the result. We were worried that there had been some woodworm in the past but everyone we mention that to says its solid oak, try hammering a nail in! So I guess we don't have to worry. We are getting a devis to put insulation in, and board and plaster between the beams. They are about 7-8 inches deep at the moment and that will leave about 4+ inches exposed once the work is done. We have a definite feeling that things are moving on. We also spoke to a carpenter about making and installing a staircase again in oak. It is planned that the staircase will go from the door in the left hand picture above towards the left wall and then turn for three more steps and through to upstairs. The devis arrived this week and it is not far off what we expected considering he also has to open up the ceiling and do some work to cut and support the present beams.

Meanwhile back here in the real world, I am doing a real estate course designed to help me get business by referral rather than prospecting around to find clients. It is interesting but it is taking me outside my comfort zone.

Oh by the way........ if you are thinking of buying or selling a home, or you know of a friend or family member who is, just give me a call with their name and number and I will be happy to follow up. :)

Till next time....

We Survived!

2010-01-10T02:52:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is feeling hopeful and positive about the coming year.

Our trip to France was very successful, not least in the fact that we managed to avoid snow on both the way into and out of the UK on our way to the house. We flew into Heathrow and were picked up by friends who live close by and where we leave our van between visits. Good friends obviously. They cooked up a full English for us while we sat around and chatted and caught up with each other, loaded our van full of kindling and firelighters they had found for us, and saw us on our way to Dover to catch the midday ferry to Boulogne.

Feeling shattered after the overnight flight, we managed to doze for most of the ferry crossing and re-charge our batteries for the next step of the journey, to get south of Paris before stopping for the night.

We have to admit to a certain trepidation about our trip at this point, just how cold and damp and uncomfortable was our little piece of France going to be for a week in December? After an early start on the Monday morning, we set off south, stopped for an hour to pick up some supplies in Leclerc, an electric fire, tools for the fireplace, gas/petrol for the chain saw, wine etc. and we made it to the house around 1pm. You could see your breath on the air and that was inside the house. However, hubby got to work with his chain saw and soon we had the woodburner roaring, electric fires cranked up, bedding hanging around to air and a hot cup of tea to cheer us up.

See how cosy - wouldn't you love to be greeted by this after a 9hr journey?

By the time our son and friend, who drove all the way from Tignes in the Alps (9 hours), arrived around 9pm, the place was very cosy. We cooked up dinner on the barbecue, finished off a few bottles of wine and had a good long chat with him. It was great to see him, he was pleased with his new Christmas/Birthday laptop and to see all his snowboarding gear. Unfortunately due to his and his friend's work schedule, they had to get up early the very next morning and head back to the mountains!

We needed an early start ourselves that morning anyway as the sand blasting was scheduled to start at 9am and we had to clear the room and seal all doors etc.

Next!!

2009-12-26T08:22:00.000-08:00

Christmas has come and gone in the SITH household. Lots of fun, good food, good company and lovely pressies. We should really re-name it "Annika day" as she cleaned up on the present and entertainment front.

So now it is on to France, we are packing a motley selection of items into our cases, bedding, tools, a gas/petrol canister (empty of course). teabags,etc. We are prime candidates for getting our suitcases inspected but these are the ingredients for a productive week in France.

Will report back when I return. We are excited that our son, currently located in the French alps, is making a flying trip over to see us (and pick up laptop we bought him!!) so that will make our festivities complete.

Next job is to drop off the dog and all his paraphanaelia (?) to my kind friend who is dog-sitting for us and make a quick turkey sandwich before we head off.

Have a happy New Year everyone.

One More Thing

2009-12-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

The Christmas list is done and dusted. No more trips to the mall, and maybe only one more to the grocery store. Hubby managed to escape the UK before all hell let loose and the snow totally snarled everything up. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the backlog will have subsided by next weekend, and hopefully less people will be traveling so we can catch our ferry to France without too much delay.

We now have to wrap all the presents, the turkey has started the defrosting process and I am beginning to feel on top of things - on the Christmas front that is. We do still have a little side trip to Home Depot to get supplies for France! We are assuming that all the stores will be closed for the best part of next week over there.

Hubby took some photos of our rendered wall when he was last in France and it is looking good. Hopefully I will have some exciting shots of freshly sandblasted beams when we return. I know try to contain your excitement.

The plan is to stay at the house until we are fed up of being cold and have at least ticked a few things off our to do list, hopefully hook up with our eldest son may if he can make it over from where he is working in the Alps in Tignes, before heading back to the UK for a day or two then back to Canada.

It seems more likely at the moment that we will have a whiter Christmas in France than we are having here in southern Ontario. It keeps falling out of the sky but thankfully not settling, just the way I like it - kind of virtual snow!

Anyway if you do drop by over the next few days, I wish you and your families safe and happy Christmas. Do leave a little note so that I know you were here.

Merry Christmas to One and All!

She's making a list....she's checking it twice!

2009-12-11T03:18:00.000-08:00

I am a list-maker, it is how I organize my life. I find it tremendously satisfying to cross things off, and great sense that all is well with the world - is this normal.....sad.....scary....? I sometimes even add things, just so I can cross them off!

The Christmas/holiday to do list is coming together nicely. I have bought/ordered almost all the presents which are currently on the list, As you know there always others that have to be added last minute.

I did charity gifts to my nieces and nephews in the UK. I was thinking of sending cash, but didn't like how unthoughtful it would appear and then I remembered a gift my brother sent last year, a donation in my name to get vaccinations for children. I remember it being my favourite present, I loved the idea. So I searched around for some appropriate charities and that's what I did, for my nephews I donated money for footballs (soccer balls) to needy children and to my nieces, education and health donations. I think they are all old enough to appreciate that there are children worse off than them.

Also managed to arrange to get work done while we are in France. We arrive (after a two day trip) on the Monday after Christmas and the sandblasting guys will be there 9am on Tuesday (I know this is France ...on the week between Christmas and New Year but I have all my fingers and toes crossed). Hubby is buying himself a chain saw (hubby Christmas gift .....check) to reduce all the firewood to a manageable size, we will be usng that quite a bit. Also in the hope that the sandblasting proceeds, we have selected paint for him to purchase in the UKm having read all the blogs that say that French paint is not so good.

So apart from the stocking stuffers for youngest son (yep - the 17 yr old) and a few more items for granddaughter, it is just the food to be bought. How big a turkey does one get when having people to Christmas lunch but then flying away the next day. We usually buy large in order to enjoy cold turkey for several days (weeks) after.

When I was unpacking at this end I noticed that I didn't have many photos of my youngest son, that is probably because he lives with me and I see him all the time, unlike the other son, so I searched and found this lovely picture of my three great children on a wonderful day and I thought I would share.

Progress....

2009-12-06T04:44:00.001-08:00

So I bit the bullet and put up the Christmas Tree, mainly because the boxes were cluttering up the living room and it was either do it or store them away and my conscience wouldn't let me store away the Christmas stuff in December! I have even bought and wrapped a few presents. Who knew!! And what do you know....it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

I took the photo above so you could see the tree in context but I must say I prefer it when it looks like this, with the lights dimmed, much more magical.

From this photo it looks like I put blue baubles all down one side, but that is just the light from the window doing that, all my baubles are silver. Then I have a few touches of red.

Hubby is in France this weekend. He drove over through the channel tunnel with his brother. He has to take the van back regularly to keep the insurance valid, but also of course to check on the house. It is a long drive from the UK so that part I am not looking forward to at Christmas, especially after a transatlantic flight! The end wall has been rendered and made watertight and he is pleased with the results, he has been instructed to take photos so I am sure some will follow. Surprise, surprise a lot of the weeds were back up in the front courtyard, but I guess that was inevitable but he did say the plants we put in in July have come on quite a bit, again photos have been demanded.

He also managed to speak to Steve, one of our many contacts there, regarding the next phase on the inside work, making an opening for the staircase, and renovating the floor/ceiling to the main living room so that we can start the framing for the bedrooms. I doubt much will be done before we arrive in December, in fact I don't really want an opening in the ceiling as hubby says it is pretty cold right now. His brother and him are both sleeping in their clothes. Doesn't that sound appealing, roll on December 26th.

It's a Done Deal!

2009-11-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

So we are all moved and the deals all closed today. The closing was a bit of an anticlimax as we are already moved in but thank goodness we didn't have to wait to close to move, because it didn't get confirmed until 4.55pm this afternoon. Apparently today has been a manically busy day for real estate lawyers here in Ontario, a result of the very hot market I mentioned over the last couple of months.

Anyway it is getting quite cosy and organized around here. We don't have as many walls so there are many mirrors and pictures leaning up against the walls with nowhere to go. All the boxes I can be bothered to empty are empty, everything is functioning well, so I am wondering if I actually need what is in the unpacked boxes!

Daughter and son-in-law have already put up their tree and decorated for Christmas. They were laughing wondering what the neighbours thought of them being so organized having only moved in on Friday. Little do they know the decorations are the only boxes that have been unpacked!

Connected Again

2009-11-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

So we are in, daughter and son-in-law are in - the brain is fried and the knees and back are complaining but we can finally see the wood for the trees - or should that be the floor for the boxes...?! Anyway the boxes are slowly disappearing and things are getting a little more organized.

I have had my traditional Bell moving experience, whereby I don't have internet, then I do, everything is great, Bell knock on my door, I don't have internet .....aarrgh! We won't even mention wireless connection - I am terrified of trying to add that into the loop for fear of losing everything again. The new house is actually quite cosy, mostly because we have too much, too large furniture! But as winter draws in (and temperatures have definitely dipped over the last few days) it is nice to be cosy.

So now I suppose I should start thinking about the big "C" which is tough because I would rather think about France. The Christmas tree and decorations have not quite made it into the basement so I guess I will have to bite the bullet and get into the spirit but not until we are are safely into December.

I am off to play house a bit more and look at my new rooms....see ya next time.

On the road again!

2009-11-24T14:53:00.001-08:00

I have spent the last few days moving boxes from one house to another, but it's getting old. Having moved many, many times I have it down to a fine art, but even so, it is always at this point when I am in the thick of it, I ask myself "why oh why?". Poor daughter is also sick of it, in a way she is doing two moves, her stuff from her house to here, unload, then load up with my stuff to move over to our new place as she is helping me to get all the small stuff shifted. Anyway we are finally on the eve of moving day, almost everything that can be is in a box, tomorrow we will load up all the furniture and my move will be done!

Then Friday we will move daughter and son-in-law's furniture, most of their small stuff is already clogging up my basement. We will all be very glad to get to the weekend and have it all behind us.

On the bright side, we have booked flights for hubby and I to go to France!! Whooppee! We fly on Boxing Day and I return to Canada on January 4th while hubby returns to work in the UK. It is probably going to be cold and damp in the house but it will still be great to catch up with friends, share some festive cheer with everyone and hopefully get to talk to some builders to plan the next step in the project.

Ok that's it, I need to stop procrastinating and get back to it. I will report again once I am settled in the new place, think of me and send me happy, energetic thoughts......

Packing......etc.

2009-11-19T16:09:00.000-08:00

Just picked up the keys to the new house so I can finally start moving some of the boxes that are liberally stacked around the home. Daughter and son-in-law have been bringing over their boxes on a daily basis so when it actually comes to their moving day, a week on Saturday, all they will have to move is the furniture. However this does mean my house is getting a bit crowded. For a newly married couple they have an awful lot of "stuff". My basement and garage are currently half full with their belongings.

I am looking forward to getting settled in the next house so that I can finally starting thinking about Christmas, yes I know it is just one month away but I am in denial!! I just don't have the brain cells to spare for that right now. There is also talk of us (hubby and I) heading off to France for a week or so between Christmas and the new year which is very exciting. Not that I think we will achieve much while we are there but we need a regular fix to keep us motivated. There is a little pressure to make some serious progress as daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter are planning a trip over next summer, so somewhere out of all the mess over there we have to come up with some "accommodation". But you know us, we like a challenge.

The lovely Annika seems to have turned the corner and is finally sleeping through the night, and taking good naps during the day, which has quite transformed daughter's life, she now has a gorgeous chatty little girl to look after rather than a screaming tiger cub to tame!! Check out the boxes in the background!

I will report back when I have managed to clear a little floorspace.

Coming Up for Air

2009-11-11T02:09:00.000-08:00

Progress is being made and I am starting to feel a little less overwhelmed by my life!! You all know how we like it a little complicated around here but every once in a while I do wonder why? I think it boils down to the fact that I have been on the move most of my life, starting with my dad being in the Royal Air Force, we never stayed anywhere for very long. That has certainly rubbed off on me and I tend to get bored if life becomes too steady and predictable.

As we are on the brink of our latest house sale, I have looked back over all the others, which now total 14 in 33 years of marriage so you can see we like to mix it up regularly, and of course these are just the houses we owned, there have been a fair sprinkling of rentals in there. That's where we are off to next, renting a house for a year before we make the next step to France.

It has been a challenge to find something suitable, in the right spot, that is available ASAP. We have seen some grubby ones, some nice glamourous ones that weren't available until January, or too far from son's high school. The one we have finally settled on is clean and tidy, has a two car driveway, fenced back yard for dog, the right accommodation, just not quite in the nicest street, but maybe that is just me being a bit snobby. Anyway I have convinced myself that it will certainly work for a year, 5 months of which are mostly spent indoors (which I will make beautiful) and the rest of the year will hopefully be spent fairly evenly between here and France.

So now I can take a breath, knowing where I am going in a couple of weeks (eek!) and can start packing in earnest, I couldn't get started properly not knowing where we were moving too. Most rentals would start on 1st of the month but this is vacant and they have said we can start moving stuff in anytime but take possession on the 25th, which means I can be out and the house given a thorough clean through, in order that daughter and son-in-law can take it free and clear of all sitting tenants at the end of the month.

Another development is that the colleague I was covering while she was away on vacation, asked me to team up with her as her assistant. Hopefully this will make things a bit steadier, income a bit more regular. Obviously as an assistant there won't be the big commissions but hopefully my cut will come in on a more regular basis and there won't been the constant worry of where the next deal is going to materialize. This agent has been in the business for eight plus years and has a good referral base, the hardest part of the job, and as I can attest to, is pretty busy.

Strange as it seems, I will do a much better job promoting her, than I ever did promoting myself, it just doesn't come naturally. So fingers crossed for a productive and successful partnership over the coming year. That is another thing, she knows I am not in it for the long haul, not looking to build a huge career in real estate and also that I have another little part-time job, so that takes a lot of the stress off as the brokerage frowned on both those issues.

Update

2009-11-01T14:19:00.000-08:00

I have been fighting off a cold for the last two weeks, it keeps surfacing in the form of a sore throat and dry cough, but I take my vitamins and echinacea and it retreats for a day or two. The colleague I have been covering for the last two weeks, returned yesterday and things are a little calmer but I feel I mustn't slow down and take it easy in an effort to recuperate, for fear that when I am recovered from the cold, all the momentum I have gained in the real estate business will have disappeared.

Hubby returns again this week for a few days, so I do plan to pull back a bit while he is here, but I am sure we will still be running with other stuff. We have to find somewhere to rent so that we an hand over the house cleanly to daughter and son-in-law on November 30th. Also we will be sorting through our belongings to decide what can be packed for France, what we will need to survive for the next year and what can go. Sounds restful doesn't it?

Most of the leaves have fallen around here and been raked to the curb for collection this week. The pool has been closed at last and the clocks have fallen backwards, all the signs that winter is almost upon us. Where did 2009 go? It seems one minute we were sweltering in the heat and suddenly we need the heat on in the house. Never mind, we are looking forward to 2010 as, having sold this house, we can make some real progress on the French house. At the moment we have the builders in clearing out the ruin so they can stabilize the walls and render what used to be an internal wall but will now be the end wall of the house. They will render and then do "pierre aparent" (?) whereby they push the render in between the old stones, revealing some of the larger stones. Not dreadfully exciting stuff but very necessary. There is some talk of hubby and I going over to France over the New Year and getting our beams sandblasted and talking staircases with people. Does the excitement never end?

What a Week that Was!!

2009-10-26T03:16:00.000-07:00

Five deals in 9 days, three of which have already firmed up. I am on a roll!! It has been such a crazy week in the city where I live and work. For some reason there are not many properties on the market and with the mild threat of a rise in interest rates in the coming months and the unknown quantity of harmonised tax in 2010, buyers are suddenly feeling a sense of urgency. So many times this week, I have tried to book an appointment only to be told that it is already conditional, or I book the appointment only to hear that there are offers on it before we get to see it, very frustrating for my buyers, some of whom have to purchase now due to their circumstances. I have other buyers who are getting caught up in this craziness when they don't need to panic, they are not in a rush, and if they get carried away might end up overpaying for something. It is all a very heady mix.

My daughter and son-in-law's house finally hit the market last Wednesday, looking fantastic I might add, and yesterday, after a whirlwind open house, we negotiated an offer. Keep your fingers crossed, we just now have to wait out the inspection and financing conditions, AND find a rental for my family to move into. It could all be done and dusted by Christmas! When I say done and dusted, of course they are celebrating more because it means a lot less dusting and escaping with a 11 week old baby every day!! But all their hard work over the last 6 weeks or so really paid off, with many comments on how great the place showed, what a lovely big kitchen, cosy basement etc. They are looking forward to moving to our house and just being for a while rather than have to be doing all the time.

Sorry to be boring!!

2009-10-19T14:28:00.001-07:00

What, no comments at all? LOL I should have said I was doing a triathlon and I haven't reached the finish line yet. Two offers over the weekend and another one coming in tonight. Let's hope this one is successful as well. I could certainly get used to this. My what a busy lady the agent I am helping out is. It is an eye opener.

I'm doing a Marathon this weekend!

2009-10-17T04:52:00.000-07:00

A real estate marathon!! This morning was supposed to be wall to wall viewings but that now has to be cancelled because those clients bought last night! One down, we now just have to organize a home inspection before Tuesday evening. Then I am off to deliver a deposit cheque in the next city. Then off to daughter and son-in-law's to get their listing up and running - before the snow hits the ground, believe it or not we have had lows of zero C this week and talk of the "f" word - yep - flurries - yuk!! In there somewhere I have to arrange a quick call in to preview another potential listing when it suits the current tenant!!

Tomorrow, I have a building inspection in the morning and an open house in the afternoon, and that it just what I happen to know about right this minute - i.e. 8 o'clock in the morning, before the phones start ringing. Just to be clear - I am definitely not complaining, after weeks, no months, of laying the ground work things are finally starting to happen. There is a sense of urgency in the local market as there is not much property on the market and interest rates are starting to rise.

Somewhere in there this weekend, I hope to find time to deliver son to girlfriends, hug my granddaughter and call my husband, wish me luck - hopefully I will reach the finish line still upright :) What does your weekend hold? Not relaxing surely!

Where Have I Been?

2009-10-10T05:57:00.000-07:00

The short answer is nowhere!! What have I achieved? That feels like....zip! I cannot believe how long it is since I posted. Just trying to do too much as usual, be all things to all men. Wife, mother, nana, real estate agent, office worker, painter and decorator, friend etc. There are just not enough hours in the day and something will give at some point but not sure which at the moment.

GWE was home for the weekend from the UK last weekend and we had an invite to a 60th birthday party. Typically, for someone who never goes anywhere, life collided and I ended up chasing an offer for clients which didn't fly in the end, just late enough on Saturday evening that it wasn't worth heading out to the festivities.

It was cool and rainy weekend, so although we did manage to address some outside work, getting the leaves out of the pool and pulling out the tomato plants not a lot else was achieved and before you know it, he was back on the plane to the UK.

I have been busy helping daughter and husband whipping their place into shape and it is looking pretty good. We painted all the kitchen units and walls, including a fake brick wall, and it looks great. I think any prospective buyer will now just think "nice big kitchen" rather than "OMG we have to rip out the kitchen!" plus we added a wall in the basement to create a third bedroom and laid a good quality laminate floor throughout the basement to cover the tiled floor, never a good idea in a basement, as it makes it feel cold down there. The new floor has really warmed up the space.

Just a case of whipping the outside into shape now with some weeding and trimming. A bit more tweaking inside with tidying closets (buyers will open them you know) and it should be ready to go on the market. However they are away at the cottage with the in-laws this Thanksgiving weekend, so I will go over and have a tidy round and do some weeding on Monday.

My favourite role at the moment, of course, is that of Nana to the gorgeous but troublesome Annika. I know from the picture above it is hard to believe, but she is proving to be quite a handful in the evenings leaving daughter exhausted and tearful so I gave them an evening off on Thursday while they went out for an evening and I walked the floor with the screaming little madam. It is crazy to see, one minute all smiles - she loves the bath! and her floor mat - gooing and chatting at the smiley face above - hysterical - the next minute screaming as if we are sticking pins in her. However, I did manage to get her off to bed at 9.45 and she slept through to 6.30 apparently so not too bad. But when the screaming fits are happening you do feel helpless.

France seems a long way away at the moment and I was looking back at the old photos trying to my inspiration back. The next step is to restore the end wall on the ruin end, we have had quotes to get the ruin "tidied up" and made safe and the end wall rendered but leaving some large stones exposed. This will really help to restore the look and structure of the wall. But then we should be able to get back to the fun stuff inside, sand blasting beams and getting a staircase installed, etc. etc. While I was looking at the photos I came across these two below which certainly help to keep me motivated when I see the transformation that is possible.

Which do you prefer? Cold and scary .......or warm and inviting

Morning!

2009-09-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

I thought fall had arrived a few days ago and rashly de-nuded my toenails of their summer polish. Well it has been months since my last pedicure (before I went to France - I know!) with many repair jobs since. It really was time to let my poor nails see the light of day. But summer has sneaked back in and the nails are back on show, without, sin of sins, their lovely polish. So this morning I really needed to rectify this. As I type I am up to my ankles in suds, I have my exfoliating gloves and all my foot spa related lotions to hand and am about to make those toes respectable again. When you are as blind as I am becoming this is more of a chore than you might think. Someone gave me a great idea the other day, when, as us ladies do, we were discussing such matters. She sits on some steps to do her toes, not being as flexible as in days gone past, this has been my problem. Not being able to get the toes within focus range!! So I will let you know how it goes.

Babysitting - Not for the Faint Hearted

2009-09-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

The day of my first big gig came and, I am pleased to report, went off smoothly. Which is doubly remarkable considering previous reports that my charge could be "brutal" in the evenings and it was carried out in the middle of a construction zone.

Work to whip daughter and husband's house into market ready condition has commenced, so this gave me an added challenge. However, both the priming of all cupboard doors and carcasses went off smoothly as did mine and Annika's evening and a lovely time was had by all.

She was a little fussy but daughter had pumped off several ounces so I could offer her the bottle if I needed to and she took that with no problem, in fact I had to ration her as I did not want to use up all my aces in one sitting (mixed analogies - sorry :) But it was most enjoyable and granddaughter and I spent the last hour of the evening just cooing and smiling at one another. I think the new parents were duly impressed and I will get a call back!!

I am back there again today with son in tow. Lots to do, finish off painting all the cupboard doors and painting the walls. I think it is going to look terrific, my husband said not to make it too nice or they won't want to leave (and buy ours!!). I will report back with more photos.

What have you all got lined up for this weekend? It is going to be a gorgeous one here in Southern Ontario, too nice to be indoors really but needs must. Have a good one!

One Year On

2009-09-12T03:53:00.001-07:00

Today is my daughter and her husband's first wedding anniversary. What a difference a year has made, and I get to babysit tonight! It is early morning here and this time a year ago, my husband and I lay in bed before the mayhem commenced and just chatted about the milestone taking place in our lives, and braced ourselves for the day and all the emotions that lay ahead that day. My husband gets very stressed (like father like daughter!!) at being the centre of attention, i.e. walking the bride up the aisle (while tempered with pride was also scary to him) and the speech - likewise. So I was pumping up his confidence while trying to remind him that no matter how stressed and scared he was today, his daughter was ten times more stressed and scared and to tread carefully!!

Anyway as you know the day pretty much went off without a hitch, everyone had a truly wonderful time and all the stressing and preparation paid off and 24 hours later we could look back and thank our lucky stars that we didn't have to go through that again anytime soon LOL.

Wish me luck this evening, Beautiful Annika morphs into Angry Annika in the evenings, that's how I picked up the gig. I offered a couple of nights before she was born and was told they had thought they would probably take the baby with them to dinner as it seemed to early to leave her - ha!

One Month Old Already!!

2009-09-07T09:19:00.001-07:00

Check out the link here for another beautiful picture of my daughter and her baby. Their friend is starting a professional protography business and doing a wonderful job.

That was taken when Annika was just 6 days old and yesterday she was a month old. My goodness me. Today it is Labour Day and I am getting a visit from the family. I think they take pity on me because I am always on my own, hubby being back in the UK. He was home last weekend for the Christening and he pronounced the newest addition to our family as "very nice" when asked by everyone with typical British understatement!! But I think you can see how chuffed he is here, can't you LOL~!!

It has been Ribfest here in our city - a really big deal apparently, I don't get it myself, I am not really into lining up for my food and then sitting at long tables with strangers to eat expensive and messy ribs. Anyhow I managed to sign up youngest son for volunteering (I know what a great mum!) and he has managed to get his forty hours required for graduation done in one fell swoop. I just had a text from my friend who he was helping to say how proud I should be of him and how helpful he was - which of course is very gratifying to hear/read!!

Apart from that life continues as normal with me on the hunt for my next real estate prospect, enjoying the lovely (less humid) weather we have been experiencing over the last week (next stop the weeding) and getting my house ready for market. A bit of a development on that front. It seems daughter and her husband would like to buy it if we can manage to sell theirs. That might be more of a challenge as it is out in the country but I'm game. It is also very nice that they like our house enough to want it - being in the city, close to amenities and not such a money pit as theirs, it is probably a good fit at their time of life. Fingers crossed it goes ahead.

Time is Flying

2009-08-25T04:41:00.002-07:00

It cannot be August 25th already. Where did August go? It has been very hectic around here, what with my little part-time job, the real estate (where I have been challenged to do three deals before the end of September ! due to lack of productivity the rest of 2009), the arrival of Annika, and hubby back this coming weekend from the UK for short break, I do not have enough hours in my day.

Amongst all that I hosted the baby shower at my house last weekend, twenty plus adults and small children, lots of baby gazing and pink presents - that was fun!

If I had my heart's desire it would be to spend every day camped at my daughter's house gazing at my new granddaughter but somehow I don't think I can get away with that. Next down the list would be at least one real estate deal to take a bit of the pressure off, and I am working my butt off trying to get that!

A few hours in the garden would be nice, the ground elder is back in full force and I just cannot get out there to tackle it. I did manage to get into the pool for the first time last weekend but have to say it is not so much fun when you are out there on your lonesome (cue violins....I know, I know ....poor SITH floating around in her pool on her own! )

Plus with all that going on we are seriously considering listing our own house which will entail some touching up and tweaking here and there, I guess I could combine that with the major cleaning and tidying blitz that is required to herald hubby's return....ha!

My mind feels like a butterfly, flitting here and there but never quite settling on any one thing for an acceptable or productive amount of time. Well actually a combination of butterfly and bee hive, because there is also constant activity and it is very hard to calm everything down.

One day when I am in France, I expect I might yearn for such a hectic life, but I am not yet convinced LOL

Love at first sight

2009-08-14T04:36:00.000-07:00

She's adorable - no question. I cannot believe how smitten I am, we all are. And how excited.

My daughter just said the other day how it changes your life, a few weeks ago she was a marketing assistant and suddenly now her whole reason for being is to sustain this precious life, to keep her happy, fed and healthy.

It certainly took me back to those first weeks as a mother, when your whole life is broken down into minutes and hours, how many minutes on each breast, how many hours apart were the feeds, how many hours sleep were you able (or more likely, not able) to get. Although it is all seared into my memory, it also flashed by in an instant, and that is my greatest wish for the new parents, to enjoy each and every second, no matter how stressful, if will all come to an end far too quickly, and before they know it, they will be looking at their baby with her baby.

She's arrived!

2009-08-10T16:17:00.000-07:00

My beautiful baby granddaughter arrived yesterday August 9th, on her due date - bless her!

She is gorgeous and we are all totally smitten. In fact, mum, dad, nana uncle spent many a moment just staring at her.

Talking to my daughter about her birth experience obviously brought back many memories. Where did those 28 years go?

Daughter day one

Granddaughter day one

Another mother and daughter - starting their journey together

Meet Annika Rose, 8lbs 1oz

Blond hair and blue eyes

(Well you can certainly see where the 28 years have gone when you look at the two photos of yours truly LOL)

Back in France!

2009-08-06T04:28:00.000-07:00

Yep GWE is back there, very briefly, to pick up our blue blob of a van and take it back to the UK so he has some wheels. One good thing about the blue blog, it is very easy to spot in a car park, unlike my silver Jetta. In fact when we were in the UK recently my son and I were caught trying to get in to someone else's charcoal grey generic car (which we had rented) - whoops - we had to explain sheepishly, it was identical to ours LOL

Anyway GWE reports from France that the weeds have be kept to a minimum since we were last there but not sure if that is a result of all our labours or the amazingly hot temperatures they have had recently. Our great neighbour, who picked him up at the airport (these people are wonderful) says that their thermometer has been registering 40+ degrees! Here is it going to be a wonderful 22 degrees but will get much warmer over the weekend, might have to get into that pool at last.

Also we have managed to acquire a couch in France, it seems we are to be the recipients of anything anyone else in the street no longer has a use for! It is not the greatest couch in the world but we have so much more work to do, it is not worth buying any good stuff yet. Anyway the word is out, that couple at the end of the street are living like squatters, give them your junk. haha

So GWE is just there overnight, out to Fish and Chip night in a nearby village with our friends this evening, before he sets off back to the UK tomorrow.

Aren't you glad you dropped by. It's all happening here!

He's not in Wichita anymore!

2009-08-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

Yes GWE (alias hubby) got his "get out of Wichita" ticket (sorry Wichita) and he couldn't be happier. Well he probably could right now, he is back in the UK and probably feeling a little jaded and jet lagged after a very long journey which ended with coach trip down to his parents on the south coast. I had couriered some stuff to him including some UK bank cards, cash and our daughter's wedding dvd. Guess what somehow between Canada and the UK, US Customs (!?) opened it up and now no cash!! What is the world coming to?

Anyway I am trying not to dwell on it (not very successfully as you can see LOL). GWE is now in the UK to start a job in a week. In the meantime he plans to fly over to our house in France and pick up our French "wheels".

The reason for him working in the UK (or wherever) and me here at home in Canada is that we are waiting for teenage son to finish high school before we can then travel together or go to France. No problem - obviously I want our son to finish well and go on to college/uni as he wants to become a commercial pilot. Yes I am in full agreement with this plan, but on sunny holiday weekends like this one, when hubby is somewhere, son is away at a friend's cottage and I am here on my lonesome, the plan doesn't seem so great!!

But on the sunny side of life, it is just one week until my daughter's due date - whoo hoo

Our Week in France

2009-07-29T15:28:00.001-07:00

You might be forgiven, after seeing the photos of our transformed bathroom, for thinking that our petite maison boasts fine accommodation but as you can see from today's photos, there is a little more work required.
Note the well appointed kitchen...

The cosy bed sitting room....

The .......squat!!

You can now appreciate how it was a little difficult to "chill" in such surroundings. In fact my mind was in overdrive for most of the time just thinking of all the steps required .........which step to take first.............who is going to take those steps for us...

However having said all that we had a great time, eating al fresco....

Exploring the ruined end of the property....

Stopping to admire the flowers....

Oh to be in France again.

The Generation Game

2009-07-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

It is just two weeks, one day until my daughter's baby is due. It has come round so quickly and we are all very excited. I have been busy at my sewing machine helping her to make custom bedding as she didn't particularly like the ones in the stores, either too gender specific or too cutesy.

I have made a roman blind for the nursery and made cushions for the rocking chair. Tomorrow morning I will go over to their house to help put up the blind and put the room to rights.

It is really hard to believe that my baby girl is about to have a baby. It has brought up lots of memories as you can imagine. Here are a couple of shots of the mother-to-be.

Transformations

2009-07-20T19:05:00.000-07:00

The jet lag really knocked me for six last week and then over the weekend I went down with a cold ( not swine flu - although I did check the symptoms ). So it has been an uneventful few days, but I did read a couple of good books which I can highly recommend.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova and
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar.

Both very compelling and very readable.

But more news on France, when we finally arrived, we were itching to see what have transpired in our absence and couldn't wait to see the bathroom transformation:

The before and after:

As we first saw it back in 2007, with ivy coming in through the window, a toilet you wouldn't want to sit on and a scary looking hot water tank in the corner. Looking at the picture it actually doesn't look as bad as it did in reality but even so I think you will agree the present state is a great improvement. Note the vanity unit built by son!

Click on the pictures for a closer look.

We were thrilled with the results of our neighbour's handiwork and rushed up the road to introduce ourselves and convey our delight. What a lovely lady - within minutes were were sat in her back garden with a glass of wine to hand - those are the kind of neighbours we like!

A little later back at the house we found we were in need of a corkscrew (I can't believe son and girlfriend survived for three months without one) and a bread knife to cut the bread made by same neighbour!! So she joined us for the rest of the evening to partake in several mugs of wine (yep - no glasses either). Welcome to France :)

Another transformation later in the week was the front yard. Everytime we get there we have to cut back all the weeds so we decided to take the matter in hand and we totally cleared out the beds, and cut back all the unwieldy "shrubs", put down some membrane to inhibit the weeds and spread gravel. It looks a bit clinical but we are hoping that the lavender we planted will eventually give the yard some colour.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

2009-07-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Bewitched by our little piece of France, just love it and never want to get back on the plane; by all the lovely people we have met over there;

Bothered that we cannot get there permanently just yet; that it will live up to the dream when we finally do;

Bewildered and befuddled by jet lag and hence the delay in posting.

Don't know where the title popped up from but it kind of sums up how I feel right now.

It was, as usual, a whirlwind trip, three days in the UK visiting friends and family, attending a great family party, my brother's 25th wedding anniversary. A wonderful time was had by all, it was three in the morning as we poured ourselves back into the taxi!

Sunday morning included a fabulous British breakfast which certainly help to diminish the hangover before we had to rush off to catch the plane to Nice. Wow it was very warm and beautiful there.

We met up with son and girlfriend and drove along to Antibes where they are staying, another few drinks (it was a very liquid vacation!) down in the old town of Juan les Pins, very lively with lots of lovely street stalls selling jewellery and baskets. Then we went up to find our hotel which was in the hills above the town amongst all the lovely villas, dripping in bougainvillea.

This is my handsome son and his gorgeous girlfriend and the view from our hotel balcony.

Then it was out to a very nice dinner with them. When we got back to the hotel, they tried to call for a taxi (it was just after midnight) but nobody responded so they had to crash on our hotel room floor, it was very cosy LOL (This photo was taken the morning after, wish that I looked that good after a night on the floor!)

We left them back in town early in the morning as they had to get to work and then we set off on the marathon 8 hour journey back up to our house. The van they had purchased is ideal for picking up building materials, furniture etc and pootling around the villages, but not ideal for this journey. It was very, very warm, no a/c, plastic seats......it was a long 9 1/2 hours by the time we reached our destination but it was worth it!

And we're off!!

2009-07-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

Yes I think almost everything is done, just Ralph to the kennels, pick up one more gift from the Liquor Store and hand the key over to our neighbours so they can take our mail in for us. GWE is currently stuck in Chicago, flight delayed, so our turnaround window is shrinking, typical! Looks like he will be landing around 3.30 - 4.00 and then back home in rush hour, re-pack the cases and back to the airport leaving home around 7.15!

It has cooled off a bit today but still very sticky. However I spoke to our "tiling neighbour" yesterday and she said it is very warm over there, 40+ degrees. I don't think we will need to light our wood burning stove!

One positive thing is that the boat is sold, I had to meet the buyer down at the marina at 10.15 this morning to do the deal! That is a weight off our minds, and a little bit more in the bank account. Perfect timing.

So watch our Europe, we are (almost) on our way.

Countdown!

2009-06-29T03:53:00.000-07:00

Just three more sleeps and we will be on our holidays! Getting excited to see family and friends and of course get to the house in France.

With all that has been going on recently, the courses, the revising, the exams, the possibility of new job for GWE, new job for me etc etc I had completely forgotten that Wednesday is Canada Day!! I.e. all the shops and banks will be closed. So suddenly I only have two days to get everything I need done, for example, get some euros. The banks need a bit of warning so that is one of my first jobs this morning.

Youngest son needs some new shorts, I need a manicure and pedicure, we all need travel insurance, and I still have some gifts to buy. I think the next three days are going to fly by.

Also I have been in touch with our neighbour in France who is tiling our bathroom out of the goodness of her heart (yep - I know!!) and she assures me everything should be ready by the time we finally arrive at the house on the 6th. I have asked her to give me a UK shopping list so I can try and repay her kindness!

Did I mention we are flying into Nice to see our son and girlfriend and pick up the van? From their photos on Facebook, it looks gorgeous down there, well we all knew that the south of France was gorgeous, but it makes me even more excited to get there and take a (very quick) look around before we head back to the house.

Once at the house we plan to do as little as possible, apart from taking many, many photos that I can bore you all with on my return! There may be a little drinking, and possibly some eating, but hopefully mostly just sitting around soaking up the peace and quiet and reading books and chatting with friends.

So Debra at Us In France, look after Misty and I will hopefully see you in Le Dorat sometime next week.

I may find a few minutes to post again before I leave, but if not, a bientot, mes amis!

R.I.P. Michael

2009-06-25T17:02:00.000-07:00

Reeling from the shocking news that Michael Jackson has died at the relatively young age of 50 ! (From one who's now 51 :) Remembering the good times ...the wonderful 80's - fabulously talented, strange yes, but fascinating.

Are you ready for your close-up?

2009-06-21T07:12:00.001-07:00

It's been pretty hectic this week doing the course and doing a deal at the same time (whoopee!), actually it is my first referral so that was exciting. Someone I previously worked with passed along my name, so very gratifying.

I really enjoyed the course although as usual a lot of information to take on board, and manage to retain until the exam next Saturday (and beyond, of course!!).

It has also been a very rainy muggy week so I had to take another walk around my garden to check on everything and couldn't resist a few close-ups. The peonies are gorgeous, these are my second clump, you can see the lighter pink ones in my previous post, those have now go over and got trampled by the rain.

The lupins are pretty splendid too. Check out these enormous, almost rain-forest-like proportioned hostas. I think we have had a longer spring than usual and this has had an impact. I put the pool broom in the picture to give you a perspective. The broom is probably more than a foot wide!

What else has been happening? Well we have been trying to work out how we will retrieve the van from our son who is now down in Antibes working in a bar but not sure of their next move. We might fly into Nice rather than Limoges and drive back up and get to see some of the south of France but of course this all reduces the days at the house.

Debra over at Us In France and I have made contact and hope to try and get together while we are there, even if just for a coffee and put a face to a name :)

Oh and I start my part-time job tomorrow so we will see how that goes, perfect timing as now the weather has decided to change and it is predicted to be up in the high 30's this week.

School is almost out, youngest son has one more exam and then is lined up to do some volunteer hours this week. As part of the graduation requirements here students have to do forty hours over their four years in high school, son moves into his last year in September and has about three under his belt!!

That pretty much cover all the exciting news from this part of the world.

So soon...?

2009-06-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

I know two blogs in three days, you're getting spoiled.

Anyway I thought it was time for a walk around the garden again, I will miss this garden. It is almost all of my own making....and I have the blisters and bad back as a result. When we moved into the house four years ago, the previous owners who had lived here 23 years had a deck that was more like a fort, only one measly little set of steps down into a field of grass with one or two variegated euonymous and that was it.

We opened up the deck the first roasting summer, temperatures verging on 40 degrees C, I remember we had to move the patio umbrella around the work area to keep the midday sun off, because of course us Brits were out there!! The following year we had the pool installed, it is not a deep pool, just 4.5 feet at its deepest, but as long as I can float around on the air bed, we can sit around it drinking a glass or two with friends, or just look at it, it cools me down on the hottest day. Definitely something we want to repeat en France.

So everything else you see is pretty much the result of a lot of hard work on my part, and I have enjoyed every minute. I find when I am on my hands and knees, up to my elbows in dirt and weeds, these are some of the few times in my day to day life when I am actually right in the moment, it is so calming and relaxing, and of course, rewarding.

As you might imagine, I am already making my lists of plants for the garden in France and lavender is up there are the top of the list, all varieties, I just love it. A lot of the plants you see are what my gardening mentor in England would call "orphans", off the sad 50% off as I am about to die shelf, or cuttings begged and kindly bequeathed by friends and neighbours, free plants always grow the best, don't you find.

I have a few garden accessories, of course, my stone lady near the lilac, my milk churn on the deck (actually bought by my garden mentor when she came to the wedding last year - we found it in an antique shop and she said I must have it), also I just bought a wrought iron obelisk for a clematis ( which I must remember to whip out next spring to take with me, before the clematis gets going (note to self)) but my favourite and absolutely essential garden accessory is the big soppy black hairy thing below, Ralph.

Click on any of the pictures for a better view.

Also as a footnote, very relieved to report that I passed my Property Law exam, just, 76% and I needed 75% to pass ....phew!! Glad that is behind me. On Monday I start the final requirement of my articling period, I have been told it is one of the harder courses, typical, so wish me luck, I can also see the light at the end of the tunnel.....or wait a minute, I see what it is ....France....my reward.

And so..

2009-06-12T04:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry to have been so lax at blogging recently but quite honestly I have been waiting for something interesting to happen for me to blog about. It really is the same old, same old here. GWE is back in Wichita and life is a little easier now as he is house-sharing and they have wireless internet.....well maybe I should say they have "access" to wireless internet!! He says it is sad how much better that makes life but it does, it also is a little easier on the phone bills as we can Skype each other. Still waiting for the job god to wave his magic wand or whatever and whisk GWE off to somewhere (ideally) the other side of the pond. Only ideally from the point of view that that is where we want to be long term, not so ideal when it comes to trips home but hey can't have everything.

Also, the BIG news is we have finally booked tickets to France and we leave early July, a couple of days in the UK at the beginning of the trip and the end, but then a week in France ...at the house....yes in the house...eeek. Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for wonderful warm and dry weather. Son and girlfriend have taken themselves off to the south of France, Nice and Antibes (very nice) looking for summer work. All of the work on the house (in this year's budget) has pretty much been completed and they felt they were just killing time towards the end. I don't blame them for moving on....three months without showering facilities..I know I would have gone much sooner. Anyway as I write the bathroom is being tiled (by a very nice neighbour!!!) and then the plumber will come back in and finish off the plumbing and hey presto, we should have showering facilities when we are there in July. Very excited as you can imagine.

The real estate market here is very active unfortunately I am not managing to take advantage of that this year, this time last year was very hectic for me, but I have a challenging listing which is in a neighbourhood a little off the beaten track and it is taking a while to sell. There nothing wrong with the house, it is a very nice four year old bungalow in great condition, it seems to be the location and as you know....location is everything. Anyway I do have a couple of buyers I am working with but nothing on the scale of last year. Also I have been busy finishing up my articling courses, and am awaiting the result of the last one and start the next one on Monday.

I have been offered a little part-time job, 20 hours a week, made up however I want, so that is ideal. It will allow me to continue to do the real estate as well, without leaving me with so much time on my hands, and a nice little "regular" amount of money coming in.

Also been keeping busy helping my daughter getting the nursery bedding and soft furnishings made. We spent most of last Saturday making a crib dust ruffle. It is so strange to see what a domesticated little lady she has become from the scary wild teenager that gave me many sleepless nights and grey hairs!! Quilt making and paint chip toting as she is now, I had moments when I didn't think we would ever get here. We joke about karma, and how she is banking on her husband's good karma (he was a good child/teenager) canceling out hers. She was a challenging baby too so I have my fingers crossed for her :)

So before I start the next course on Monday followed by the start of the little part-time job and then our trip to France, I have a roman blind and rocking chair cushions to run up for the nursery, that should keep me out of mischief.

We did have a couple of people interested in the boat but no firm sale yet. However season is definitely getting under way so hopefully there will be a few more bites and we will be able to get it sold before our holiday.

Blimey this seems like a really boring post with no interesting photos ....sorry will try to do better next time...if you can bear to come back.

A change is as good as a rest

2009-05-31T06:07:00.000-07:00

First of all many thanks to http://wifeofbold.blogspot.com/ for a lovely award. There are some rules that go with this and I promise to get to those in a future post. But wanted to say thanks. As you can see having technical difficulties which will hopefully be resolved in the next post. :)

Hubby is due to return to darkest Kansas today but we have had a lovely week, the weather didn't always cooperate but there has been some sunshine. We are hopeful there maybe a new job for him on the horizon unfortunately it hasn't quite materialized yet but we have our fingers and toes crossed and I will of course keep you posted.

We pottered about on the boat, now it is back in the water, we didn't actually sail anywhere but spent the day cleaning and polishing so it ready for any potential buyer, so if you know of anyone :)

FOR SALE/SAIL !!

We lazed around for most of the week, hubby just enjoying access to the internet, cable TV and movies!! But it has been good for him and he heads back, maybe reluctantly, but refreshed.

Yesterday we spent a lovely afternoon with our daughter, now very pregnant, wandering around the lovely town of Niagara on the Lake enjoying the Garden Tour. Daughter had bought us tickets for Mother's Day (you might remember last year we did the B & B Tour down there). Anyway it was a gorgeous day, not too warm, wandering through the lanes nosing in people's gardens. I must admit to more often being impressed by the gardens that were not on show rather than the ones that were.

Check out this fabulous wisteria. One of my absolute favourites although it requires some commitment as it takes several years to establish and bloom and as you know we haven't stayed anywhere long enough in the past. I guarantee this is one plant I intend to include in my pergola/cobbled courtyard garden in France.

He's not a happy camper

2009-05-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

No I am not referring to son, he and girlfriend are off to Paris for a couple of days, so they are pretty happy, although they may be camping in the van!

No I refer to GWE who was without his wheels in what we refer to as "deepest darkest Kansas" all weekend. They have cut back on hours are work so he is not able to work weekends to kill the time. He finds it very quiet down there after Montreal (well in between dodging the tornados and gun toting locals) and feels quite trapped.

When he works away, he is quite happy to work long days and weekends because he is away from home and time lies heavy on his hands. In his type of work this is the unwritten agreement between employer and contractor, I am away from home to earn money so I want to work lots of hours. However, the economic crunch is biting and everyone is looking to save money, so they are limiting the hours to week days only. He had booked to come home the weekend after next, flying on the Friday thus losing a day's work. He has just discovered it is a long weekend in the US this coming weekend, i.e. another three long days to kill, only three days work and then home.

So he is escaping - driving back over this weekend to spend the week back here, and then driving back to Wichita the following weekend. This means he will be able to pootle around here, at home, in his garden, with his boat, fiddle with his car, watch TV (he hasn't bothered to get that down there), catch up on all his email, on line newspapers, potential work connections (unable to do this at work) and generally kick back for a few days. Let's hope that gives him renewed vigour to face the mid-west again.

It's all a blur

2009-05-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

I have been on a course this week to continue my education for the real estate. It is Property Law so you can just imagine how much fun it is. Plus my colleague and I are driving 40 minutes back and forth each day as they aren't offering the course any closer in the time frame we have left before our two year articling period is up in August. It is interesting in parts and sometimes I feel we should have been through this before we were let loose in the industry, but they have just changed the format from essay answers to multiple choice and this seems to have caught everyone, including the instructors, off guard so our instructor is recommending we read every chapter 4 or 5 times - right - like that is going to happen. I have trouble reading it through once. It is a little tougher as I used to work in a law office so am quite familiar with a lot of it, therefore I find I am skimming across the pages and not taking it in very well. Ho hum, fingers crossed next week is a little more enlightening.

Meanwhile, a major leap forward in France, we have a land line to the house (remember no dial up internet or anything) but this does mean much lower phone bills. Whoo hoo,!! This is just seven weeks since son put the wheels in motion. Also I am just sending off the agreement and cheque for EDF to replace the electric meter and supposedly the work should happen within the next six weeks, what do you think?

Son is busy building a vanity for the sink in the bathroom to stand on and from the photos on Facebook, the results will be pretty impressive. (sorry still no photos because they are on FB - does anyone know if you can get them off there to upload them here?) He has been sealing and priming all the interior walls - just white but it looks some much lighter and brighter, the kitchen is actually starting to look like a kitchen. Almost all the electrics are now done, except for the light and outlet by the vanity, which has to wait for that to be put in place, which has to wait for the plumbing to be done and then some plastering where all the plaster came away with the old tiles, I know it just goes on and on.

The plumber is due back mid-week and will be turning off the water so son and girlfriend are planning a three day trip up to Paris, son said that girlfriend has been wanting to do this for weeks :)

GWE (the great wage earner) had a bit of a hiccup this morning in deepest Kansas. Went out to a bar last night and "sensibly" left the car and caught a cab home, this morning he went to retrieve the car only to find it had been towed because he had parked it in a parking lot that is used for a farmer's market on Saturday mornings. Unfortunately, the car he has down there is in my name (while I am driving the one in his name up here - doh!! - this was all due to the availability - or lack of it- of diesel down in the States). Anyway the car is in my name and they wont let him get it from the pound without a "notarised" letter of authorization from me. It's a long weekend here and so he is basically screwed until Tuesday when I will be able to get something notarized. You can imagine how thrilled he is.

He has had quite a week. Thursday night, a shooting took place at the bar that he and his colleagues had just left a hour earlier, one person injured. Then Friday night he called me to say they were in the midst of a major tornado warning, an amazing lightning storm and sirens blaring! Then this morning..... The sooner he can get out of there the better. He has travelled the world with work over the years, and I honestly think this is the riskiest place he has ever been.

I will close now, I know it is all or nothing with me. Until next time......

France Update

2009-05-08T11:51:00.000-07:00

I know these France updates are sorely lacking in pictures - tell me about it - I am constantly nagging son and girlfriend for more photos so they put them on Facebook, which is great for me, not so good for the rest of you, sorry. Let me assure you it still looks pretty bleak.

Now that they have satellite TV they are privy to the world fear of Swine Flu - they hadn't heard a thing about it through the village grapevine and so it was pretty intense to get the full on version on English TV, however living in rural France I don't think they have too much to worry about. A bigger concern for them is the possible ill effects brought about by discovering the septic tank under the bathroom floor when in the process of laying in the mains drainage. That created a horrible stink as you can imagine but fingers crossed this can be resolved with a lot of concrete!!

The basic rewiring has been completed so now we have a new fuse box located in the small bedroom to the right of the front door rather than in the prominent place of right beside the front door in the living room. Apparently we still have to have the meter in that position when EDF come to install it but it wont be as large and unsightly as the last one, or that is what I am told. So now they have safe modern electricity in all rooms and more outlets so they can re-locate the fridge and toaster oven back in to the kitchen rather than the utility room.

Apparently because we have a small bathroom (about 5ft x 11ft - which come to think of it is not much smaller than my bathroom here and we are allowed ordinary lighting) we have to have an IP 65 light fitting in there, and all the ones I have seen on the internet at Leroy Merlin etc look like pool lights and factory lighting, nothing attractive. I could understand it if the light was actually in the shower but it will be about 6ft away above the vanity. So we are still on the hunt there but may have to make do until EDF have signed us off and then replace it with something more attractive.

But we do have external lights front and back and an outlet in the barn so we are pretty happy with that. I know, it is sad what you can get excited about.

Looks like son and girlfriend are planning to move on to Barcelona when the plumber has finished in two or three weeks but hoping to get back up to see us if and when we get there in July, fingers crossed.

Still waiting on France Telecom, surprise surprise.

However all the work they have done means when we finally get there we will have heat, hot water, electricity, a bed and if we are really lucky some home grown vegetables as they are planting tomatoes, zucchini and onions plus a few herbs - apparently one of the neighbours has promised to keep an eye on those once they leave.

As you can imagine, I am saving all my pennies to make sure we do get there in July and then I will have loads of photos.

A few more rounds would have been nice!

2009-05-07T02:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I am back. Were you worried about me? :) No I thought not. Well that was a long way to go and a lot of money to spend for a fight that didn't even last two rounds. However the spectacle was still quite something, thousands of baying fans (us included). I was really surprised to see so many Brits - the place was heaving, who says there's a credit crunch? It was really the fans that made the weekend, all the singing that kept breaking out in the casinos and corridors, on the sidewalks. I think the Brits probably outnumbered the opponent's fans so a lot of disappointed people on Saturday night.

There did seem to be an awful lot of flesh on display, I know it is Vegas, but even so. I am not a prude but was astonished at the amount of breasts, fake and real, on view, OK they were dressed but only just. I guess it is a bit of a meat market, or "shag fest" as GWE so nicely put it. I guess I don't get out much but I wouldn't let my daughter out looking like that! I am talking about the guests not the staff. It certainly is a place to people watch, such a cross section of life wandering around.

The rest of the weekend went by in a LOT of walking, the casinos/hotels are enormous and it seemed to take forever to walk anywhere. You just about work out where all the short cuts are and it is time to leave. There was a bit of drinking, as I said, a lot of walking, a fair bit of eating, not too much gambling on our part, although our friends were more into that and won a decent amount. Three days was certainly long enough for me. It was nice to see our friends who had flown over from Germany. As they say, a change is as good as a rest.

Vegas here I come

2009-05-01T01:52:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, and I have trouble myself, but I am off to Las Vegas this morning to meet up with GWE - we are in town to see Ricky Hatton (British boxer) defend his title or some such. I know - I have trouble with that sentence too. Every time I tell someone I feel as nonplussed as they look.

And what great timing, I will spend a few hours in a germ incubator followed by several days surrounded by thousands of people from all over. GWE jokingly said we should try and market some souvenir Union Jack emblazoned face masks!

Wish me luck - my plan is to pre-emptively (?) self medicate with the free alcohol they serve while you gamble - please tell me they still do that or it could be a very expensive weekend.

All being well, I will report back on Tuesday.

The Sun has got his Hat On....

2009-04-29T09:38:00.000-07:00

It is a beautiful day, a little brisk, but nice enough to have all my windows and doors open, even though it is now warmer outside than inside - you know one of those days....a hanging out your laundry day.

Everything is coming up at an alarming rate. The magnolias and forsythia are putting on their once a year show. Love these plants but such a shame their true glory is so short lived.

A bit like spring around here so I plan to make the most of it. Soon it will be too warm, hence the pool is being opened. It was 28 degrees here Saturday and Monday so we are honestly not being premature.

So lots of nice sunny photos.

I know, this needs a bit of weeding but I will wait till all the forget-me-knots have gone over, they are too pretty.

Meanwhile in France, they now have satellite TV. I hope the progress doesn't slow too much because of this :) Son was out today with the electrician buying all the materials and work should commence tomorrow. Son has also dug a trench in order to connect to mains drainage but the plumber can only do that job when it is raining and he cannot be on his other job!! So guess what, the weather has turned gorgeous over there - typical, if we were having the roof done........

France Telecom finally made an appearance only to inform us that apparently they got the address wrong at the beginning of negotiations and it seems we cannot have dial up internet, apparently we are too far from the central station (?). Which seems strange when our neighbours across the street have dial up. What's all this I read about 99% of the Limousin having access to broadband by the end of June? You watch we will be that 1%. Son raised this and the guy is going to look into it further and only installed the phone only cabling (!) and we are now waiting with baited breath to actually be turned on. We are praying we can get dial up and that it is all (a further) misunderstanding because to get satellite broadband we have been told will cost 650 euros - if you know different let me know.

Progress

2009-04-23T09:31:00.000-07:00

Has it been a week? It must be because my zucchini seedlings are three inches tall and need thinning out, there are buds on the trees, some blossom starting to bloom, the baby afghan is complete - so you can see I have been busy, I do have excuses for not blogging more regularly! I mean, how could the blossom bloom or seedlings germinate without my constant vigilance :)

En France things continue apace, we may not have a shower yet, or a toilet that works properly, no mains drainage and very make do kitchen amenities, but ......we will have satellite TV in a week's time. We know our priorities ...sad isn't it. Anyway another major breakthrough is that EDF ( or I should say their representative) actually came to the house this week, he did not DO anything but issues were discussed, questions will be raised and one day we might get the meter updated and moved but we are not holding our breath.

The same with France Telecom, they keep calling to delay the connection. Apparently the wire has been cut and needs to be replaced and once this is done (hopefully 27th) it will take another week to get service connected. Pourquoi?!
I am tempted to send them copies of my phone bills which scarily arrived this (eekk) just to show them what they are missing out on. Phone calls are now on a time limit. We have lists before we call. Next week the electrician comes to re-wire and the beams are to be sandblasted, plumbing might possibly commence.

Also we have seen the evidence at last, girlfriend uploaded some photos to Facebook - boy it does look rudimentary, but I would still rather be there than here. Once I have worked out how to get the photos from Facebook (maybe you cant) I will share them. They have planted seeds and are planning on getting a few chickens but the most exciting thing in their lives at the moment is that they are getting fish and chips from the chip van that travels around the villages. Home Sweet Home!

How Time Flies!!!

2009-04-17T03:18:00.001-07:00

Today is my birthday and another year bites the dust! I am sitting here in bed and so far I am the only person that has acknowledged the fact. That's how it goes I find, the more birthdays I get under my belt. But I just remembered my sister-in-law called me yesterday to wish me happy birthday, she thought she was already in the 17th! I know that feeling! Anyway she called as much for a chat as to let me know as it was their 25th wedding anniversary this year, and if I was going to France to make sure I planned it around a certain date. Well now that does make me feel old to think they have been married 25 years, I remember that day clearly.

My daughter was a 3 1/2 yr old bridesmaid. I had made the dresses and the page boy's outfit so was running around making sure everyone looked wonderful while also trying to keep a 3 1/2 yr old and 18 month old happy. I remember we went shopping that morning and, as is tradition in English weddings, we bought the bride a good luck horseshoe. (Actually it seems strange now but it was a foil covered cardboard horseshoe on a ribbon!). Anyway when the time came for my daughter to give it to her, much excitement on my daughter's part, followed by much screaming when sister-in-law had the audacity to actually take it!! Luckily my mother-in-law had a handbag full of sweets and after much bribery peace once again reigned, with daughter in possession of the lucky horseshoe.

When I look at the photo now I think how brave of me to take on the task of making the outfits, although I did sew a lot more in those days, making the children's and my own clothes (it USED to be a money saving effort - it would not be so today). Note the strange expression on daughter's chubby face, a cheek full of fruit gums as I recall.

Footloose and Fancy Free

2009-04-14T04:00:00.000-07:00

The wanderers have returned. Apparently they took a little side trip with their friends, by way of Bordeaux and San Sebastien, they made their way down to Barcelona. They loved the city. They have lots of friends there who new all the best (for that read cheap!) haunts and all the best places to see. It must be nice to be so free. They drove back to the French house on Saturday in monsoon-like conditions and I think it has been pretty wet and miserable since.

They were a little down on Sunday when I spoke to them as the house was chilly from having been left for a week, it was rainy and very quiet in the village, it being Easter Sunday and all, plus they couldn't get anything done until today, when life kind of returns to normal.

One of the things we did decide is that they will look for a reasonably priced washing machine. They said they haven't done any washing for THREE weeks, poor things :) Also we went over the list of chores etc. they can be getting on with. I looked at the long range weather forecast and it doesn't look promising. That area had a very dry March and apparently garden fires have been banned, but April seems to be making up for it!

Here however the weather has been more cheerful and I spent my weekend in my garden raking up all the winter debris and cutting back everything (a little late I know but my plants seem to survive despite my ruthless ministrations) and my garden looks a lot more inviting. It was warm enough to work out there but not quite warm enough to sit out there. We moved in to this house four years ago this coming weekend and I remember once all the stuff was unloaded we sat on the deck for a few hours soaking up lovely warm sunshine while dispensing with (quite) a few beers - so I am keeping my fingers crossed for similar weather this weekend as I have two open houses and the good weather tends to bring out the buyers. Having said that it has been known to snow later than this in previous years. So keep your fingers crossed for us.

I have also started a major de-stuff (that's my terminology). It was one of my new year's resolutions. As we are planning a major move in the next 18 months, a downsizing, life changing move, I thought we definitely needed to have a big sort out and get rid of a lot of "stuff". So I started with my bedroom yesterday and have packed up a box of breakables that will go to France with us as they are precious but I don't actually need around the house at the moment. So one box down, god alone knows how many more to go.

Ou sont-ils?

2009-04-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

Well son and Australian girlfriend seem to have gone walkabout (!). We haven't heard from them since Saturday. At that time all was well with the world. They were reveling the their heat and hot water. Like every mother I keep telling myself "no news is good news" while, of course, thinking up much worse scenarios. Probably the most likely is that the phone is lost, has gone back to Austria with their friends or some such idiotic reason.

So instead of more blow by blow accounts of my French house renovation, I am posting a picture of my crochet-in-progress. I have been taking lessons as I was taught by my left-handed aunt and could never get the hang of it, I think I have it now. This is to be a baby blanket.

After getting a sun tan on the deck Sunday afternoon, we had SNOW for the next two days, but now we are back to more normal spring weather, bright but cool. Hope the weather is as good where you all are.

What a difference

2009-04-06T03:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday here in southern Ontario it was a truly gorgeous spring day, sunny all day long. GWE is home for the weekend and we spent the entire afternoon sitting on the deck soaking up, if we're truthful, a bit too much sun, but it was hard to resist as it has been many months since we have been able to do so. He was happy reading and I was crocheting and resisting the temptation to get my hands dirty. Then in the evening it was over to daughter and son-in-law's for dinner, a lovely Sunday. This morning we have woken up to the wild winds and rain (monsoon-like) that we experienced on Friday. What crazy spring weather.

I am glad to report that son and girlfriend are now the happy owners of heat AND hot water, what is the world coming to :) They also picked up the van which meant they could return the rental car. They had some friends drive over from Austria for a couple of days, (they had given them fair warning of the amenities) and they were sleeping in sleeping bags on cardboard....I guess you have to be young. They were having a bonfire and cooking steaks when I spoke to them so I guess everyone was having a pretty good time. The only hiccup in the new facilities is that they cannot have the hot water tank plugged in during the day when they want to use other electrical appliances so have to remember to turn everything else off before they go to bed and plug in the water heater. The electrics in their current state just aren't up to it!

The builder who installed the new hot water tank brought over some "junk" he was throwing away; some plastic lawn chairs, a barbeque and an "ugly" but much appreciated brass bed frame for which they will purchase a mattress, so that was very good of him. A nice bit of recycling.

Also they have had a couple of devis in, one for re-wiring which seemed quite high considering the current size of the property (3700+ euros), one for plumbing in the bathroom, which includes taking up the floor relaying the waste pipes in order to connect to mains drainage and all other first fix plumbing to make it a shower room and re-connect the toilet (approx 2000 euros), this one has son doing a lot of the digging labour and doesn't see that unreasonable and a third one for just relaying the waste and connecting to mains drainage (500 euros). Son is going to get a couple more so no decisions are being made yet.

While GWE was home this weekend, we took another look at our original plans for the house, and we have decided we won't draw up anything definitive for the barn end of the renovation, apart from installing the floor, until we are on site and can actually stand in the space. For now we will concentrate on making the house truly habitable and start on the attic of the house, which will eventually be our bedroom with en suite and walk in closet. There are lots of things son can be doing in the meantime; sandblasting the varnish off all the beams, taking down the kitchen ceiling to expose the rafters, insulating under the kitchen floor, getting estimates for building and installing a staircase to the attic, repairing and sanding the oak floor boards in the kitchen, stripping walls and painting and of course, when the bathroom is plumbed, decorating that room. I think that list should keep them out of mischief, depending on how long they continue to enjoy the quiet life in Limousin. If they just stayed until the bathroom was complete and we had the phone line installed they would have done us a big favour, so anything on top of that is gravy.

And she's back!!

2009-03-31T16:21:00.001-07:00

But trying hard not to wish she was you know where. I did my first real estate deal in a while last night and I am feeling really chuffed!! This will lead to a new listing next week so I am getting my feet nicely wet again. My last day of temping somehow spilled over into this week, yesterday was a little stressful, having to work full time and prepare for the offer but all went well and my clients seem very happy. I have been busy today with the paperwork and organising inspections for tomorrow. It is a country property (Gill) and so of course we need to check on the septic and well as well as the house, so a little more involved. Oh and the temp job is done and dusted.

Son and girlfriend had a good result today. They have been driving here and there through the narrow lanes of rural France looking for a suitable vehicle to purchase for us. Ideally we were looking for a small van, but had been unsuccessful so it seemed we were going to have to settle for a people carrier or estate car, but today they struck gold and we are now, apparently, the proud owners of an electric blue Renault Kangoo and they pick it up on Saturday. He now has to organise the insurance and teach his girlfriend to drive a stick shift so that they can both drive a vehicle and get the rental car back.
I guess it looks something like this but without the strange roof ornament.

When I spoke to them this afternoon, they were feeling "tres heureux" with themselves having had such a productive day, sitting out in the field, in the weak spring sunshine with a beer, church bells tolling in the background. Doesn't that sound perfect.

What a Week that Was!

2009-03-29T04:43:00.000-07:00

I have just finished my (at least) once daily phone call from eldest son and his girlfriend in deepest France. God alone knows what my phone bill will be like while they are there! Anyway, they have been very busy and seem to be really enjoying the challenge. My son seems to be managing the French language very well, even though it has been many years since he was in the Immersion Program when we moved to Montreal back in 1990. At that time he and my daughter spent an intensive three to four months in this program learning the language before they entered the French school system and it is certainly paying off now. He didn't actually stay in the program while daughter did, but it is all coming to the surface now.

In this last week he has been in contact with French electricians, EDF; the electricity company, France Telecom, La Poste and is getting all the systems working in his/our favour. I am very impressed. He has set up a bank account and got money out of it!

However, as far as the amenities are concerned, it is a case of three steps forward, one back! They do now have a small hot plate/toaster oven and fridge, duvet and pillows, plates etc. but son decided he could manage to fix the toilet so now they have to use the public one in the village! I suggested going to the local sports centre to swim so they could have a nice hot shower afterwards so I think that is on the horizon pretty soon as they say the sponge baths in the freezing cold bathroom are not much fun.

Apparently they should have telephone/internet service within 15 days, does that sound too good to be true! It would certainly help the phone bill. EDF are supposed to be calling on Tuesday to make an appointment to come and move the fuse box, but they have been chatting to the neighbours and one has been waiting since January for this to happen so......

They are still looking for a van to purchase, missed out on one by an hour, which was very galling especially as they had been ready to view immediately and were put off for a couple of days. But have seen another couple of promising ones which they are going back to see tomorrow.

They spent the morning with another neighbour of ours helping set up a chicken run in a nearby field and got 6 fresh eggs for their labours. Son's girlfriend wants to get chickens and plant herbs etc. so they are obviously thinking long term. When she mentioned the chickens son did respond by saying they would be leaving at some point and then what would happen to the chickens to which all the locals just said "well then you eat chicken for the last week!". This son was a vegetarian not too long ago!

I am so glad they are enjoying it, although the quiet life might be a bit too much for them after a little while. Son did say we might have to fight them for the house in the future. I need to get there ASAP. I did point out that the ruin on the end is vacant!!

Pleasantly Surprised!

2009-03-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

That was eldest son and girlfriend's reaction on finally seeing the French house - they finally got there last night and went over to our Dutch friends to pick up the keys. Our friends also very kindly lent them (took pity on them!) an airbed, lamp and heater. What with all those home comforts we'll never get them to leave ..LOL!

Anyway they were "pleasantly surprised", it has walls and floors!! I think they thought they were going to be staying in the barn. However even though it has walls and floors it is still freezing and when they called they urged us to get the woodburning stove ASAP. So that is my next project.

When I chatted with them this evening they seemed to be enjoying themselves, but did say they had been looking for a bar/restaurant where the patrons were more varied than "four old French guys". I wish them the best of luck with that search!!

They are full of plans and busy car hunting at the moment as well so they can take back the expensive rental car and spend that money more wisely elsewhere. Things are looking up, and I am getting excited at the real prospect of making some progress. Our Dutch friends (our saviours) have arranged for an electrician to go over tomorrow to give an initial devis for the work to get the wiring safe and upgrade it to take the initial improvements of some kind of cooking apparatus and a hot water tank. Stay tuned.

Buried

2009-03-21T15:13:00.000-07:00

Buried under paperwork - when I should be out in this lovely "spring" day raking my garden. But it had to be done. What with the temping AND the real estate, everything has been going to the dogs. Anyway I feel much better now, I always do when it feels slightly like I am in control. Just the taxes to do now, ugh!!

Well the temp job comes to an end next Friday and not a moment too soon as far as I am concerned. Itching to get back to my old life, of coffee with friends when I feel like it, out to lunch if someone invites me.....er I mean real estate of course. He he No really, I have been talking to colleagues and we all feel things are on the turn, people feeling a little more positive around here and the sales board in the office is very full, I want some of that!

On the France front, eldest son is almost there. Yesterday, after being stuck in Geneva for a couple of days waiting for the French railmen (sorry is that sexist) to return to work after striking, he managed to get to La Souterraine. I had mentioned in conversation that this town was "fairly" close to the house so when he heard it called out, he jumped off. As it turned out he should have stayed on until Limoges as public transport in our part of rural France seems to be fairly non-existent and there is really no way to get to our village without a car. Being a bit of a hippie, eldest son doesn't have a "valid" credit card so has to wait for his girlfriend to meet up with him in Limoges to rent a car. What would these guys do without us women!?!

Anyway I chatted to him this morning and he was heading on to Limoges to wait for his girlfriend and to find an internet cafe, something else which is thin on the ground around there. Being a good mum I also told him where the Irish bar in Limoges is located. I wonder where he is right now!>!>

So now we are waiting for an update, once they have picked up the rental car and made their way to the house. I will be very interested to hear what they have to say as you can imagine. I hope it is not too much of a disappointment. Our Dutch friends are standing by to hold their hands if they are prepared to stick around for a while and help us get some work done. Needless to say I am sick with envy that they are there and I am not. Stand by for the next installment.

Is it Spring Yet?

2009-03-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

Today it could be, yesterday was wonderful, you could feel the warmth of the sun - it was great. A "good to be a live" feeling. Today is meant to be even warmer, might even get to sit on the deck for a few minutes. GWE is home from Wichita for the weekend so a "no real estate" zone for a couple of days - no open houses.

The temp job has confirmed that 27th will be my last day and although I have enjoyed the company and routine, the actual job is pretty mind numbing if hectic; so I am glad to see the end in sight. Unfortunately that also means the end of regular pay checks for a while but back to the real estate in earnest and hopefully that will start to pay ....again.

So no April in Paris for this girl, just not going to happen, now hoping (with fingers and toes crossed) that we will get several weeks out there in July. One bright spot on the French house is that eldest son and his Australian girlfriend have now left Austria and are hitching their way to the French house!!! We have offered him the option of some project managing work, i.e. hang around the house for a couple of months so we can organise artisans and schedule some work.....but we have given them the option of going there and checking out just what the living accommodation offers before committing, so stand by on that. As you can imagine it is pretty basic and that's kind of how they live anyway but they tend to like hot water so that might be an issue ....that and heat of course.

That's all for now folks, cannot hang around blogging when the sun is shining!! Have a great Sunday. I hope the sun is shining on you too.

How Time Flies !

2009-03-07T03:40:00.000-08:00

I have just noticed that I haven't blogged for two weeks; I think that might be a record for me but I cannot be bothered to check and that just about sums it up folks. As we are on the cusp of spring, clocks "springing" forward tonight in fact, the blues of winter have hit me and I cannot get motivated. This is strange as all the snow has gone, well apart from a few mountains of disgusting grey stuff in the parking lots, so I should be feeling more positive so what's the problem?

Well first of all it seems we won't get to France now until the summer, what with one thing or another, so I am kind of sulking about that! Secondly it has become very busy at the temp job as the project they hired me for is in full swing. When I say "project" I am sure it makes all of you think of something very high tech but basically for the most part it is a lot of sorting of paperwork and stuffing of hundreds of envelopes! I am in the "not enough hours in the day" mode.

And probably most influential on my mood is the feeling that I really need to get much more serious on the real estate end of things, as the market is warming up a little bit around here, and I am frustrated that I am temping when I should be concentrating on this instead. Still I know I cannot be in two places as once, so I am full steam ahead at weekends - this weekend doing an open house both Saturday and Sunday. Last weekend I sat a $750k house and was amazed to have a very busy open house and made some good connections, so hopefully something will come of that.

So that is where I am at currently, very busy ...but unmotivated... and sulking. Probably a good thing that GWE is safely away in Wichita until next weekend.

On the bright side it is supposed to be pretty mild and sunny today so I might be able to get a few minutes outside in my garden. No better pick me up in my books. Have a great weekend everyone.

The Common Cold

2009-02-23T02:51:00.001-08:00

We have had a visitor at our house this weekend and it was most unwelcome. First of all my 16 yr old left school early feeling unwell and lay about on the couch requesting hot lemon drinks and small helpings of food at regular intervals while I tried to keep a safe distance!

Apparently once it is in your house and on your couch there is no safe distance and come the weekend I was starting to feel the symptoms, even though we both regularly take Echinacea, we were both still felled by this germ. It never ceases to amaze me how unwell it can make you feel. It went straight to my sinuses giving me a terrific headache.

I spent the entire day on Sunday on the couch, after a very feverish night's sleep, in my dressing down under the duvet feeling very sorry for myself. I couldn't even be bothered to knit, that's how lethargic I felt. So as son was on the road to recovery it was his turn to play nurse and pander to my every whim.

However it is now Monday morning and I am feeling a lot better, and will struggle into work like a good soldier.

La la la la - I'm not listening!!!

2009-02-18T15:27:00.000-08:00

Is it just me? I am sick and tired of depressing "economic crisis" news stories. In fact I would go so far as to say they are not news stories, they are not telling us anything new, they are just beating us down and making us all feel more depressed and powerless.

I have just quickly changed channels as the Business News section came on. All it will tell me is how many more jobs have disappeared, how many more people have lost their homes, how many companies are going under ...........why? I cannot do anything about it....apart from feel more insecure and less likely to spend my money or invest my money. How does this benefit society?

I think it is time for some propaganda. Some good, positive information. Let's all turn off when they are being negative on the TV. Vote with your remote control. Ratings are important to these people, let's show them we don't want to hear anymore bad news. We get it.....the world is in recession.......the powers that be have no idea what to do about it.....let's move on.

OK I feel a little better now.........

Let's talk about the weather

2009-02-12T02:39:00.000-08:00

It is early in the morning here, still dark outside, my cup of tea is made and I am now sitting in bed listening to what sounds like the end of the world outside. Crazy winds. I am sure it doesn't compare with what you all experienced over in Europe a few weeks ago but it sounds pretty intense! We have had record plus temperatures in the last few days so the piles of snow, well mountains of snow, that filled up every spare space around the neighbourhood just a week ago have rapidly disappeared and we are left with the filthy grey depressing leftovers. It was pouring with rain most of last evening and overnight so I expect there has been some flooding as well.

Of course none of this compares with the devastation and tragedy we have all witnessed on the news from Australia. That doesn't bear thinking about and my heart goes out to all those affected by the dreadful fires. Nature is a very powerful, awesome thing in all its shapes and forms.

I have to get dressed soon and head outside to walk the dog. I loathe this transition in the weather every year. Everywhere is muddy and grey, and everyone, especially the dog, treads it into the house. The seasons in this part of Canada are not really to my taste, too cold to do much during the winter, a very nice but far too short spring and autumn, and too hot summers.

Well I think that is enough of that for today. Have a good one everyone, no matter the weather :)

Photo Tag

2009-02-06T04:27:00.000-08:00

Toni at Expatmum (my links give me problems when I am on my Mac and I cannot be bothered to log onto the PC - how lazy is that) tagged people to see what the fourth photo is in our fourth photo folder and this is mine. It is the wonderful viaduct across the valley in Bellac which a market town in our area of France. (You can click on the photos to get a closer look). I took these photos in July 2007 when we were in the area house hunting. As you can see the weather was "changeable". We stayed near Bellac when we first discovered, and fell in love with, the Limousin area back in 2003 and it was towns like Bellac, Montmorillon and Confelens that had us smitten. Quiet, uncrowded and picturesque.

It is a beautiful spot and so I added another photo of Bellac showing the view back up from the river to the medieval church up on the hill. We were sitting by the river next to the 12th century bridge at a lovely little restaurant. Great food and a nice spot to while away a few hours in Bellac.

And another one (can't have too many as far as I am concerned) this one of Montmorillon. The structure up on the hill (to the left of the church) is a Laterne de Mort - which translates as a death lantern, not sure the origin of these. Look at the dramatic sky, it gives you an idea of the kind of week it was, rain was always just around the corner. Notice how high the river is, they had been having non stop rain for weeks prior to our trip. In fact the day we saw "our house" it was tipping down with rain, and we still loved it. We thought that was a very good sign!

So anyone dropping in today, feel free to join in and if you do, leave me a message so I can come over and check it out.

A bientot.

All Change!

2009-01-29T15:06:00.000-08:00

A change is as good as a rest, don't they say. I have been meaning to have a bit of a spring clean and finally got around to it. Changing the template is about as adventurous as it gets here at the moment.

Also changed are our plans to get to France in March, instead it looks like it will be April as the firm I am temping for have asked me to stay on until the end of March so I am being virtuous and obligingly changing my plans. On the bright side at least the weather may be a little nicer in April. April in Paris sounds wonderful so I am seeing the silver lining in the situation. Also I am being a little premature on the "spring" cleaning as we are still amidst snowstorms and frigid temperatures around here. Hazel over at Mud Walls and Beams mentioned she has already seen snowdrops and crocus ...... that seems a long long way away.

I decided to "go green" in an effort to reflect my sentiments in the current greedy material world. Leaving a smaller carbon footprint and generally trying to use our world more gently is part of our reasoning behind our eventual move to France.

So fairly short and sweet today. However I would just like to thank everyone who stopped by my last post to leave a comment, advice and suggestions for our forthcoming trip. Thanks!!

PS: If anyone is interested, I also updated my profile.

Where in the World....?

2009-01-25T04:16:00.000-08:00

My daughter and her husband are in a frigid Montreal this weekend. This was their Christmas present to each other. My daughter loves to travel and I think she has found someone very similar in her husband. Her husband although only in his early thirties has already lived and worked abroad in the UK and in Germany so I think they are a good match.

My eldest son as you probably know is bumming around Europe with his Australian girlfriend, presently they are in Austria at a ski resort working to pay for the lift passes, but in the last four months since the wedding they have been to Hungary, Germany and Italy and driven through a few others en route.

Youngest son also has itchy feet and is always planning a trip, for several years he talked about his project to walk in a straight line around the world and did lots of research as to the easiest (and safest) way to do this – I think he will do this one day. However more recently he has been contemplating trips to Latin America and Japan. As he is in his penultimate year in high school he is constantly thinking of how he can combine uni, work and travel.

So where did our children get these “gypsy” genes? Well we have never lived a particularly settled life, as a child myself I was moved from pillar to post as my dad was in the RAF so I went to several schools and always loved the new countries (maybe not those first few days in a new school!). My husband though had never been outside the UK before we met at 15 and 17. His first trip abroad was a day trip to France and then we went on a ship to Denmark for a weekend!

However he is in an industry (aerospace) where job opportunities are global and we have taken advantage of that and moved regularly with the job. Here is a run down of our moves over the past 25 years.

1985 – 1986 Israel

1986 – 1987 back to the UK were GWE spent 6 months of that in Scotland

1987 – 1990 San Diego California

1990 Savannah Georgia

Oct 1990 – Jan 1993 Montreal Canada

1993 to Oct 1996 Toronto Canada

Oct 1996 to Apr 1999 Seattle Washington

Apr 1999 – Aug 2004 me in the UK ( in 6 different houses – 3 of which we bought and sold!!) while GWE was in Taiwan, Germany, Italy

Aug 2004 to Mar 2005 Seattle Washington

Mar 2005 to present – living in Canada while GWE has been to Germany, Montreal and now Wichita Kansas

Is it any wonder? And of course you know it is next stop France!!

Suggestions Please

2009-01-19T17:02:00.000-08:00

I am planning our next trip to France in March. It is never for as long as I would wish due to school/work commitments but this time we have actually promised ourselves some time in Paris and I don't mean overnight in the hotel at Charles de Gaulle airport.

We want to be in the thick of things, say Montmartre / Left Bank, so I am looking for hotel suggestions from all you who have been lucky enough to have the occasional weekend in Paris. Obviously budget is a big factor, rather not be in a chain hotel but if that's the most reasonable. I am hoping that Paris in Spring will be nice enough to sit in street cafes and soak up the atmosphere. To wander streets just like this one would be my idea of heaven.

I would say suggestions on a postcard but probably in the comment box would be more appropriate.

Other than that the plan is to get stuff done. Don't we say that every time?! Anyway this is the current wish list:

meet up with potential electricians/plumbers
purchase a wood burning stove
purchase a shower stall

purchase vanity unit and toilet

purchase a kitchen unit (as in photo) this will be our stop gap kitchen (funny thing isn't it - I have only ever seen these in Europe - but just what we need)

The idea is that we achieve hot water, some usable electricity and heat so that on our summer visit we can stay in the house and not waste money on gites. Keep your fingers crossed for us and send in those suggestions.

It's so cold that....

2009-01-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

The real estate market has been pretty quiet for the last couple of months, hence the temping, however I am keeping my hand in by doing open houses and I have another one this Sunday. So yesterday I went out to hang out my shingle on the for sale sign. Its not my listing so I had an appointment to preview the property. It was so cold that my fingers froze, I did have my gloves on, but fiddling with the plastic ties was quite a challenge.

Anyway after five minutes of that, I could not work the lockbox to get the key. It was this type of lockbox in picture 1 (which I hate because they are so temperamental, even on a good day). So after all that I couldn't get the key out so get inside.

I much prefer the button type box in picture 2. No having to remember 2 turns left 1 right etc.etc. Just press in the code. Anyway after that little episode I am wondering if I am a fairweather agent. Sunday it is only supposed to be -7 C so hopefully my fingers will work and I will be successful in gainng access, otherwise it could be a little awkward. The other fun part of Sunday will be clambering around in the snow putting out the open house signs to direct traffic. After all that, fingers crossed that I meet some lovely people who would be delighted to have me show them some houses and I can stop feeling like a secret real estate agent.

What a lovely bunch you are

2009-01-12T18:25:00.000-08:00

It's amazing what a little whining can do!! :) Thank you all for taking the time to leave me a note. I have been consciously making the effort to comment more over the last few days and I have realised what my stumbling block is - I want my comment to be witty!! but now realise from what we have all said that that is not the point, just a note to say you where there, you took the time to stop by, to click on my blog that is sufficient. I will no longer hover over the comment box waiting for the right witticism I'll just go for it.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts behind commenting, it is intriguing...I must agree with a lot of the points made, there is just not enough time in the day to comment everywhere, but I mean it sincerely when I say, if you have posted I will get around to reading it, usually on a daily basis. This could account for why I don't post as regularly as I used to - too busy visiting. I have really loved becoming part of the blogging community and really feel I have got to know a lot of you very well. Even planning to meet up with Debra as Us in France some time in the future.

BTW welcome back Carolyn - I hope you find some time to blog again this year, I love to hear about life in your corner of the world.

I am repeating myself here as I did make this comment in response to all of yours but just in case you are not obsessive like me and don't re-visit to see if there is a response to your comment... ha ha .....getting to know all my little obsessions now.

Comment Protocol

2009-01-05T14:01:00.000-08:00

I have to admit to a certain amount of comment envy - only two comments on my last post, both of which are gratefully received, no doubt about that but what are the ethics and niceties of commenting? I visit many blogs, in fact I have subscribed to no less than 53 through Google Reader and be assured if you post, I will read it. However, I don't always feel the need to comment. I am not shy and retiring by nature so it is nothing of that sort. I just feel that it is not always necessary to leave my mark.

Is this the case with everyone else, is this why I have so few comments while others have sooooo many? It has crossed my mind that the content is just not as stimulating, hilarious or downright brilliant as are many of those I read.....but it is not that ...surely. :) Also, is it the done thing to respond to everyone that leaves a little note? Do tell, I don't want to be rude. Be assured that I love to receive your comments, maybe I will start just leaving little notes everywhere and see if it has any impact.

Anyway I just felt the need to bring up the topic, so if you do drop by today maybe you will just leave me a little hello so I know you were here. I am sure there is some high tech way of seeing who is reading but I have no idea what that might be.

Just to bring you up to date with the comings and goings (boring though they may be (!)) at Chez Soft, GWE did in fact drive off to Kansas over the weekend. The project he was working on in Montreal has been moved on to Wichita and so has he. It was touch and go there for a while as the immigration guy was hell bent on not giving him a work visa but he was persistent and he had to give him one. Believe me the immigration officer was not happy... to put it mildly. In fact he was downright rude and threatening. His job description must require him to try and thoroughly piss people off. GWE said the whole experience was degrading and he was treated in a totally unprofessional way.

He decided to drive the 18 hours to get there so he would have a car at his disposal rather than renting a car. He was very lucky with the weather considering the storms we have experienced over the last week or so, clear and sunny all the way, with just a bit of fog in Illinois on Saturday night as he was looking for a motel. In the end he just pulled off into what he described as "Bates Motel". When the proprietors queried his accent, he mentioned Canada and they pondered if that wasn't where "that presidential candidate" had come from. He enlightened them that they meant Alaska but he said it was an eye opening experience all round. But you get what you pay for and it was only $42 for the night!!!

Anyway he is now safely in the land of Dorothy, Toto and the Wizard of Oz. For the rest of us it is back to normal. Christmas is well and truly done and dusted here, now looking forwards into 2009 to see what it holds for us all. Back to school, back to work....ho hum. Maybe it is a little boring around here.