Tulle & Shadows

Our nearest big town is Tulle. It's a fascinating town with a terrible history. Once I'm not so 'breakneck' at renovating, I'll take the time to share some of that history with you, but not now. Tulle is a contradiction of beauty and ugliness, but the better I get to know it, the more beauty I see. There is no shortage of people in Tulle. This photo was taken at around 7.30 am, when everyone is driving to work. Kevin and I were driving to Brico Depot, nice and early again to benefit from the free coffee. We like to stop off in Tulle when we do this, to ease the pain of an early start with a couple of warm croissants from the boulangerie.



I'm fond of shadows. Not just any old shadows, I mean the sorts of shadows that become works of art.



I've been painting the front door. I've opted for 'Dauphine Grey'. The paint is quite glutenous, and after applying a good thick coat as instructed on the tin, I watched with dismay as big globulous drips began to bulge from my smooth shiny surface! I must wait 36 hours until I can sand it down gently and apply a second coat. The paint dries incredibly slowly, which has meant a night without a front door on. The little insert that you can see below, like most of the doors and windows on this farm, is daubed with little black crosses, presumably to ward off evil spirits. I appreciate the act, but I'm stripping them off, along with the layers and layers of dirt-coloured paint. Actually, a lot of it is just dirt...



 Yes, there's the drippy door, and also the stripped insert.

 A casualty of today's painting operation... It needs painting anyway! 

Brigitte, our fabulous French neighbour, has already commented on my brash painting technique. When she saw me painting the skirting boards white while suspended between two chairs (the skirting boards, that is, not me) she noticed the generous dose of white paint on the chairs. She will be furious at today's performance!


 Bless him...

I'm painting the window mongery glossy black. Kevin attached the bits to a piece of wood for me so that I could rub them down and paint them more easily. I started with sandpaper, but, do you know, there's a wire brush that you can attach to a drill which makes the whole job much quicker and more effective. The one with the silver face has already been zapped!





 Painted insert.

 Blackened mongery.

 Yes, I'm squeezing a lot of enjoyment out of this tulip!


 Window's in! Just the leading and tiling to do now!

 The new sit-on mower leaves a lot of mulchy mess! But.. I can do the lot, three hectares, in two hours! Hah!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The tower finds itself in high demand

Image
I've been asking Kevin to hurry up and finish the work on the south wall for AGES as I wanted the tower in order to paint the north wall. FINALLY, he scaled it and reattached the flailing planks and the loose edge-tiles. He also finished and painted the outside of the little window frames, installing mosquito nets too. It's such a relief to get all of these little jobs done! But was I to get the tower? No. Kevin fell into a frenzy of loose tile fixing all around the house! Eventually, I did secure ownership of the tower and repainted the grubby-looking north wall. No, you can't see the finished job, as, to be honest, it's still a bit grubby. And, after our aerial efforts concluded with no dramatic falls, we returned to some familiar territory of bygone renovation days: fluff puff! We have never managed to finish our master bedroom, mainly because we were waiting for a stretch of good weather in order to build the second dormer window. However, due to Covid-19, we didn&#
Read more

The sad ending we never expected to see

Image
You'd probably guessed, but we've sold up and moved back to England. Six years of renovating in our Correzian paradise had to come to a sudden end due to the folly that is Brexit, and the plague that is Covid. These unpredictable twin horrors meant that we could no longer flit between two countries with ease, and neither could our family and friends.  I thought you'd enjoy seeing some of our last views of our little French farmstead.  What do we miss the most? Friends Freedom Stunning scenery Great restaurants Beautiful villages Vide greniers Good wine at good prices Sunshine Empty roads Over and out. Thank you for following our adventure.
Read more

Renavoidance?

Image
Don't ever buy a property with 8 acres of land. Unless you have a vast array of top grade farming machinery. I'd like to be sharing with you our achievements with the renovation (and I know that's what you're here for!), but most of our time has been spent mowing, strimming, raking and visiting the dechetterie. Our ride-on mower has more or less given up the ghost, and I really don't think it'd be worth mending/servicing it. I'm not sure how we're going to continue to tame the land with just two push mowers and a scythe. We've decided to leave a lot of our land as meadow, with creative paths mown through it. Farmer Joel has very kindly mown and gathered hay, but this has exposed acres of dry, unpleasant stubble. And you wouldn't believe the amount of dust and grass seed that's kicked up during the processes of cutting, turning, lining up and baling! The time of dust coincided with the time of refreshing the exterior white paint. Thankfully, n
Read more