Bath Christening

Debrah has waited so so long. She has asked if it was possible soon for about a year now. She has begged us to try and finish it as soon as possible. She has pleaded with us to do it more quickly than scheduled. She has vented her anger at us for not getting on with it. She has stamped her feet in frustration and desperation at the thought of it never happening.

The very beautiful and large white double skinned bath has sat in our 'dining room' for far too long. Not before time, it was finally fitted by Chris and I in the last couple of weeks and today, Debrah arrived from London for the first time since the installation was complete.

It was a lovely sunny day and I collected Debrah from the airport with the roof down on the Audi, as is my custom whatever the weather as long as it's not actually raining. The old Audi continues to attract lots of interest - a French guy came up to me at the airport for a chat about my car which he was clearly admiring - then his wife arrived in their new A4 Avant - once an Audi driver, always an Audi driver.

After a look round at all the changes since Debrah's last visit, we went down to the square for a hot chocolate and a brandy chaser. I love the South of France - it's the last day of November and it was minus four last night, yet here we were sat outside as the sun disappeared over the top of the buildings and we weren't alone.

I'd put a beef casserole on the hob this morning that had been cooking all day - you could smell it as soon as you came back in through the front door, a homely welcoming aroma that immediately made you feel hungry. When I took the lid off the pot the beef had gone black in the red wine sauce. It was delicious with boiled potatoes and buttered cabbage and, naturally, a bottle or so of the exceptional local red wine.

Just when I thought Debrah was going to slope off to bed, she looked up over the top of her computer and said "Shall I have a bath?"

So it was the bathroom and the bath was finally christened. Another first for our French home. Apparently the lighting isn't quite what it should be though - too bright with the lights on, not enough with a candle - it seems that we should have fitted a dimmer switch which is another one of those fabulous hindsight insights that have dogged our whole refurbishment.

In the meantime, it appears that the search has already started for a suitable candelabra to give the required bathtime ambience!

Clunch crunch

I just knew we were going to run out of that paint - the paint we have used for all the ceilings throughout all the three apartments. It's a Farrow & Ball paint named 'clunch' and it is just perfect as a ceiling colour for these rooms. Today I painted the office and hallway ceiling in the main apartment and the hallway and mezzanine bedroom ceiling in the studio - all look great as always - but I am now down to the last third of a tin and will definitely need at least one more to finish.

It's not a disaster but will mean some re-jigging of work. Ideally, I'd like to do all the ceilings first but as I won't get the new tin of paint down here until just before Christmas, when I drive down from London (paint being 50% cheaper in the UK than it is in France, for some reason), I'll have to finish all the wall and woodwork painting first - oh well.

Apart from the painting, I put a second coat of varnish on the new vanities and did a bit of tidying up in advance of Debrah's arrival tomorrow.

After yesterday's momentous news of our first booking enquiry (they still haven't confirmed) came the news that my London job received it's first sales order today - it may only be 100 units but it is confirmation that there is a market for the product. We never doubted it but as we are currently seeking a third round of funding it is very timely assurance for our investors - so get your cheque books out boys - I need paying.

Crikey

After four interesting and varied and tiring and valuable days in London, I returned to Carcassonne today. I had arrived in London with a heavy cold and left with the after effects still in evidence.

As a result, Saturday was a bit of a write-off as I spent all day in bed or on the sofa watching telly or reading the papers and generally 'getting better' - not a total write-off as I predicted a Bolton win over Man U which duly followed.

On Sunday I dragged myself out in the middle of the day for a pub lunch with my Mother-in-law and my just turned eighteen year old stepson. Christian bought a legitimate round of drinks and then had to 'borrow' ten quid for the rest of the day - not quite self-sufficient but then who is so I don't hold that against him.

On Monday I was at work all day but managed to fit a haircut in and on Tuesday I was at work all day and didn't finish until 9.30pm which was a bit of a long one but not unexpected.

And so it was that I returned to a sunny France but a cold apartment and to the news of riots instead of strikes (I somehow missed the baton change from unions to youths over the weekend) I still don't understand the obsession with torching cars and libraries - bunch of pyromaniacs - it must be the French equivalent of Guy Fawkes - "giv us a euro an I won't burn ya mota"

The big big news, however, was that we had our very first genuine enquiry about booking the Apartment. Oh bloody hell - that means that people mighty actually come and we might actually have to put the theory into practice. If only we were ready! Still, it's only an enquiry as yet - best not to get carried away, but I better look again at that long list of things we still haven't done and get on with them - no pressure then.

Yeesss, Nnoooooo, Yes.

Sorted.

Rhume

For the second time in three weeks, I have a cold, or 'rhume' as it is known in France. Just my luck.

I didn't stop for the first one and I'm not going to stop for this one either but it has definitely slowed me down, or is that just that I was feeling a bit knackered anyway - I don't know.

Today I undercoated the studio hallway and the the walls and shelves on either side of the studio kitchen, which were a bit fiddly and took longer than I expected. At 4.00pm I decided that I had had enough - so went for a shower and cleaned myself up. Half an hour later I was feeling guilty at having stopped so early in the day. I thought to myself I could go and varnish the new vanity worktops in the two new bathrooms - that won't be too strenuous and will be one more job done. It is one more job done and they now look as fabulous as the others - but half way through I knew that it was a bad idea.

Consequently, I had an early supper (very early in fact) and put myself to bed with Lara Croft - Tomb Raider on dvd. What a load of nonsense - not real you know - nobody in the movies is ever sat in bed with a pile of tissues around them and a head that feels like it's full of cottonwool. Atishoo.

Reality Check

I slept longer than I had planned and woke up a bit late this morning. I guess with Chris having gone, sub-consciously I knew I didn't have to be up and ready for anyone else.

Chris clearly made the right decision to drive to Paris. Overnight, some militant strikers sabotaged a large part of the TGV network. Personally, I don't think it was a very shrewd move - the country has been struggling to get to work for six days and negotiations between Government and Unions were due to start this morning - if they wanted to turn public opinion against them they couldn't have done a better job - talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Anyway, I had a text from Chris to say he was boarding his plane, which was good news.

After yesterday's slightly heady bit of euphoria, the reality of everything still to be done - by me, on my own, between now and Christmas - hit home today. I think I said no more sanding, but when I looked a bit closer at the office ceiling before under-coating could commence, I realised that it needed a bit of work on it before it looked even reasonable. So, there I was stood on a scaffold, sanding plaster above my head once again, realising that it was just me in this vast apartment and while this bit of plaster was being sanded, nothing else was being done - which was a bit deflating to be honest.

But it got done, and the under-coating of the office ceiling and walls and all the new door frames and skirtings that were fitted yesterday also got done. Actually I think I could do with a day off but I'll push on through one more day of work here before I go back to London on Friday - then I can have a weekend to relax with Debrah which will be wonderful.

On a different tack altogether, when I took some more rubbish out to bins earlier on, I noticed that the starlings are back - not in such great numbers but definitely there doing their dusk time swooping and swirling. So much for false falcon noises and rockets - seems like they just moved somewhere else for a week and then came back. Oh well, another unsuccessful French campaign.

I love France and the French and their ideosyncratic ways but it does amaze me how they have survived as a nation - not since Napoleon marched all over Europe have they really had anything to shout about (and he was a Corsican). You might think I'm stretching the point a bit but I'll happily argue it. For years the TGV and French railway system has been held up as a model of efficiency and wonder, but the truth is you can only use it when the drivers decide you can and successive French governments have ignored the fact that they can't afford to pay for it so continue to put the country further into debt.

It will be interesting to see if President Sarkozy can introduce the same reality check on France that I experienced today in my apartment.

A Momentous Day

It's not over yet, but a watershed point was reached today on the renovation of my three apartments. As Chris and I manouevred the toilet into place in our main apartment bathroom, he turned to me and said "You know that this is the last thing to be fitted".

We had been working so intensively over the last eight days that I hadn't realised the enormity of what was happening there and then, but he was right. Five bathrooms, three kitchens, one ceiling raised, several walls knocked down and rebuilt - no more tiling to do, no more plumbing to do, no more cabling to put in, no more plastering or sanding, no more toilets, showers, baths, sinks, kitchen cabinets or hobs to install, no more vanity units to build. The whole thing took me so much by surprise that I had a lump in my throat thinking about all that had been achieved - the seemingly un-ending hard slog over the last couple of years - the bone jarring and muscle aching labour - the joyous moments of achievement and the frustrated cursing about bad builders and French DIY shops and falling off ladders and being apart from Debrah for weeks on end and the sheer cost of it all. It still hasn't fully sunk in.

Naturally, there had to be a final trip to Tridome for the correct size valve to connect the water to the toilet, which delayed the moment by half an hour. I have a box full of plumbing parts that I will probably never use again but not the right size valve needed for today's final connection.

It's not ALL over yet though - there is still a large acreage of wall space to be painted, a new carpet to be laid, a wooden floor to be sanded and stained and varnished, some plug points and light fittings to tidy up and some shelves to put up here and there - but that's all cosmetic really compared to what has already been done.

Chris and I had planned, quite rightly, to go out and toast this moment with several bottles of the very drinkable local red wine, but this being France, the French had very different ideas about that. They wouldn't stop us drinking red wine, of course, but they have stopped anyone moving around the country very easily for the last week.

Chris is booked on a plane from Paris to New York in the morning and had booked an overnight train to get him there from here. Well, as the French rail drivers strike entered it's sixth day and they were joined by the civil servants and the air traffic controllers and anyone else who didn't fancy getting up this morning, Chris had no option but to hire a car and cancel his train ticket - which meant that instead of getting slightly happy and sleeping all the way to Paris, he had to put his tired and aching and very sober body into the hire car and drive through the night. I don't envy him that.

So suddenly, I am here on my own again. I have already planned my jobs for tomorrow - no point letting up as it all needs to be completed asap. We are now listed on two travel websites and there is press interest apparently. It looks like a new phase in the life of 42 rue victor hugo is about to begin and with it a new phase in my life. Bring it on.

Nearly There

What a week it has been.

When I returned to France and found out that Chris had booked a trip to the States - not for the two weeks we had discussed, but for four weeks up to the 19th December - it took me a day or so to work out the full implications of the work still to be done and the work that would be needed to be done when he came back. When the subject was raised, I thought for a while that we were about to fall out about it, but we didn't, and Chris understood my concerns about the timing so fully that the last week has been the most intense period of work we have undertaken here.

We have just finished eight days in a row working an average of twelve hours a day - Chris cramming into that period two bathroom fits, one kitchen fit, some shelving, a lot of tiling, two door frames and a host of general electrics and other work and me painting rooms as he went along to enable final finishing as well as general rubbish clearance, materials buying, work for a critical stage of product development in London and, very importantly, making coffee at a very constant rate all through the day.

At this very moment, late on a Monday evening, I can honestly say we are both very proud of what we have achieved in the last week and are both totally knackered. Chris is probably a bit worse for wear than I am because he has done more of the work - but as he rightly pointed out, I am paying him to do it and he will be sat on his arse for a while in the States whilst I still have a massive amount of painting to do between now and Christmas. Oh joy.

It is so difficult to put into words the genuine excitement I am feeling - the end really is in sight. Every day sees another completed bit of work, another sink in place, another wall painted, another room nearly done. I have now packed up the tile cutters and moved them into the cellar for storage - there is no more tiling or tile cutting to be done (the neighbours will be pleased - actually one of my neighbours moved out this weekend and I did speculate if she had had enough of the noise from downstairs and how ironic it was that she moved on the day the tiling was complete) .

All the old offcut tiles have been thrown out as well as a host of other stuff that we have been hanging onto 'just in case' it might be needed. Even now, I am still deliberating between putting odd bits of plasterboard or chipboard in the cellar or the bin. Put them in the bin for God's sake.

I still have a couple of tonnes of rubble down in the disused room on the ground floor, which nobody has complained about so far but is probably only a matter of time. I decided today, whilst in rubbish removal mode, to take a few bits out and so deposited a toilet and a couple of bags of concrete in the local bins this afternoon. I figure that a couple of bags a day should get rid of it in about six months, give or take.

Earlier on this evening, the doorbell rang and I was faced with two guys wearing flourescent yellow coats with the SITA logo emblazoned across the front and back. SITA is the local sub-contracted rubbish removal / dustmen company who do a fabulous job of emptying the bins three times a day seven days a week. I prepared myself for a question about broken tiles, plaster or rogue toilets - but actually just got a request for the Christmas fund. When they discovered I was English they turned tail and fled which was a shame, because if there is any group of workers in France who deserve a Christmas tip from me it is they, for they have hauled an awful lot of my building crap away over the year and nothing seems to faze them - I must try harder!

Naturally, life would not be complete without some last minute crises to keep everyone on their toes. Late on Saturday I had to dash to the specialist tile shop for another bag of tile adhesive which I managed with about five minutes to spare and late this afternoon I had to dash to the DIY store for some more grout for said tiles, which I also managed through the rush hour (rush 20 minutes) traffic.

And, Chris is due to leave tomorrow evening on a train to Paris to pick up his flight to the US. Which is all well and good, except that the 'lazy French fuckers' (my wife's description) who operate the French railway have been on strike for 5 days and show no signs of getting back to work anytime soon - and all because they think it is reasonable to retain the right to retire on full pay at age 50. Ahh - this is France - if they had got wind of our working hours over the last week there would probably be a protest outside the appartment demanding that we slow down a bit and stop for lunch.

Oh well, what will happen tomorrow - Chris has a last few jobs to finish - he may or may not get his train to Paris and therefore his flight to the US - he may have to hire a car and drive - who knows. It will probably all work out in the end - it usually does.

Nearly there.

Hectic

To say that the last ten days have been hectic would be an understatement. Work has reached a critical, time intensive and very pressured stage in both London and France.

In London, we are on the cusp of selling the new product but have frustratingly come to a halt because of lack of funds - so we are looking for a further round of investment to get us over the last hurdle and into the market. It means a temporary hiatus in being paid - as always, just before Christmas, just when you are stretched to the limit already, just when you can least afford it.

In France, we are on to the final push. I vowed that all would be finished before Christmas but that vow is going to be put to the test.

As I type, Chris is still laying tiles in the new studio kitchen at 11.30pm. We have a very definite and very intense schedule of work to complete between now and Tuesday evening when Chris leaves for the US, to shoot animals and ride snowmobiles and frame a couple of houses. As he is not back until five days before Christmas, all the major work needs to be done now - hence the late nights.

As ever, nothing is plain sailing.

We bought most of the mdf needed for the new kitchen shelves two weeks ago, but since then they have been out of stock (this months national shortage a la France). I found somewhere else that supplies it but they are wholesale and you have to buy the whole sheet rather than just the bits you need - and I don't need a whole sheet. So we have two shelves made and the batons for the third in place.

Meanwhile the extra tiles that I ordered arrived from Italy in two weeks which was something of a miracle and about four weeks earlier than we expected. We shouldn't have got carried away though by this fabulous news because, although they are in the same packaging and carry the same identifying reference numbers, they aren't quite exactly the same colour or thickness and there are only four to a box not six, which means we are still going to be a bit tight and have nothing left over and let's hope nobody else notices eh?

Half way through today we ran out of grout for the mosaic tiles on the kitchen wall - just a poxy square foot left to do. Yesterday I had spent a bit of time mixing grouts to get the right colour from the fairly basic selection available here, which of course meant we had to make up a new batch from some new grout and hope that we got the mix correct or else we'd be able to see the join - not good.

It would be so damn easy if it all went to plan - but where is the fun in that?

No doubt there will be more minor traumas tomorrow.

Other news - the starlings have gone. Whether they were scared off or whether they just emigrated anyway, nobody knows - but gone they have and the Christmas lights have gone up in the street outside and all the other streets in town, which is quite exciting really.

Startling starlings

The first we knew about it was a strange noise passing by outside, sometimes loud, sometimes faint. It was definitely coming from a vehicle of some sort and felt like one of those odd movies where a car keeps appearing or crossing at a different junction just out of sight or just behind you - which in the grid of streets that make up the bastide town is very plausible. It sounded like a very bad impersonation of Donald Duck being throttled.

The next morning, Chris was awoken before seven by the sound of explosions at random intervals. He thought to himself, and I quote, 'What the fuck are those mad French bastards up to now?' Quite.

I told you about the extremely spectacular but slightly scary flights of thousands of starlings at dusk - well, there is apparently a more unpleasant side to the evening show of aeronautical prowess. Shit. Lots and lots of bird shit. Also noise. Walk anywhere near the squares where they congregate in the trees and the noise of chattering and cheeping birds is deafening - must be a nightmare to live right next to it.

There is no mistaking that there is a touch of the Alfred Hitchcock about the whole thing and 'Le Mairie' has decided to do something about it. A 'fauconnier' has been hired.

Once upon a time, a falconer would have turned up with a falcon to scare the shit out of a mass of starlings - not that the town needs any more shit to come out of them. These days he turns up with a new Renault Clio, a loudspeaker and a recording of a falcon played on a CD. He drives around the town at dawn and dusk, from one nesting place to another, playing his strange falcon / strangled duck tune and every now and again he sets off a big blast type banger, which is supposed to scare the starlings, but actually gets everybody in town wide awake from whatever dream or nightmare they were in at 6.30am or makes them spill their pre-dinner pastis at 6.00pm. Neither does much for the nerves - god help the war veterans.

There is a time and place for modern technology and I suppose we should embrace the new world, but I bet everyone I know would rather see a team of falcons let loose above the skies of Carcassonne in an orgy of culling after which they would turn up on the menus of the towns restaurants, which is probably what used to happen several centuries ago and was, no doubt, regarded as a great delicacy. Our sensibilities are far too refined these days to consider killing the birds, never mind eating them, and there is probably some directive that says you can't turn up with a real live falcon because it would be cruel to let it loose and behave in a totally natural way.

Instead some fat French bureaucrat drives around in his, government provided, car all day, playing his stupid tune and letting off fireworks every now and again. It's probably the closest France has got to celebrating Guy Fawkes night - one event in British history that they remain totally in ignorance of - as opposed to all the events that they either deny (defeats) or twist into glorious resistance (pleas for help).

And what will this new humane method of startling the starlings achieve - it will make them go somewhere else where they can't afford to pay for the fireworks and yet another member of the civil service - and then they too will have a shit problem and an evening display of mass flying power. Well, maybe.

So far, two days into the operation, the starling numbers look undiminished and the aerial displays continue. I bet the 'fauconnier' has negotiated a daily rate with no guarantees of success. No need to set a 6.30 morning alarm for a while then.

Not going to plan

It's always the same. Debrah arrives here in France and I get a bit distracted, inevitably and understandably, from the daily process of writing my blog. Somehow, I just don't seem to find the time. Those last hours before bed, that I fill with my thoughts when I am on my own, disappear entirely. I'm very glad they do because something would be amiss with my relationship if they didn't.

But four days without posting a blog is quite long enough, so it's time to catch up with the events of the last few days.

Sore throat turned to snot and turned into the dryest most painful cough which turned into, well, just phlegm that seems to go on forever. All of which couldn't be more annoying when you are just trying to get on with stuff, but get on with stuff we did - Chris got on with the tiling in the studio and I got on with undercoating the new bathroom and the utility room now that the plastering and sanding has been done. I had quite forgotten how big the rooms and walls are in this place - one whole day and ten litres of undercoat later and I had just done the two rooms. Need to buy more undercoat I think.

Debrah arrived on Friday and in the back of my head was a niggling feeling that the faithful Audi might have been left just a day too long without use in the, now, cooler weather of November. So it proved - early on Friday morning I tried to venture out to Tridome only to find a flat battery - then having whipped the battery out and brought it inside, the fuse blew on the battery charger because I hadn't noticed the setting was on 24v not 12v - ahhh. I hot footed it to Monoprix for a new fuse and ended up buying a whole spare light kit for the Audi, which in France, you are supposed to carry by law - so now I was legal and I had a fuse for the charger and just enough time to get the battery charged before heading off to the airport to collect Debrah.

I was so excited about Debrah arriving - because I hadn't seen her for two weeks and because we had achieved so much on the renovation - and I just knew she would be as excited as me. I hadn't factored in the dust situation though and the sight of our beautiful apartment not just under dust covers but literally under dust was a bit too much to take - I guess I had got used to it and despite trying to prepare Debrah for the worst, it was still too much to take for her.

The never-ending mess just happened to coincide with the latest funding crisis in London and so there was also much agonising over money, and as I haven't been paid for the work that I have done in October, general depression set in all round for a good twenty four hours. I always try to be positive about everything but I have to say that even I feel very depressed about our finances, and the amount of time we spend apart from each other and what may happen in the future and, although it should be obvious how to resolve those issues, it somehow sems very complicated and difficult.

Today, we managed to forget some of those cares for a while. It didn't look all that promising as we set off for a drive - the forecast said sun but the reality was definitely cloud. Even so, the Autumn colours were spectacular and Debrah shouted "Hello ponies" on several occasions to a variety of horses we encountered along the way and we put the roof down and put our coats on as the sun came out and the wind howled as we drove through the unbelievable Gorge of Galamus and then we found a little village happening in Caudiés de Fenouillédes where we stopped and ate oysters and moulles and frites and tried and bought some local wine and stroked the noses of ponies and donkeys and sheeps and a very bad tempered looking goat before wending our way back home feeling very excited and thrilled and refreshed.

I then proceeded to ruin the entire evening by drinking too much red wine. So I am writing this blog and Debrah has gone to bed and that makes me more unhappy than anything I can imagine.