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!

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