Renavoidance?

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, no harm was done. Paint is frightfully expensive here in France; I had a choice between paying either 18€, 28€ or 68€ for a 10 litre tin. I went for the 28€ tin, of course. It says on the tin that it'll be true for ten years. Let's hope that it does what it says on the tin.

As you can see, the doorways are now tiled and grouted. Kevin did the tiling, and I did most of the grouting. We haven't managed to source the door sills yet. We've butchered some chunks of wood, but we're still not happy.

Kevin's been on his hands and knees tiling the curved steps from the terrace to the 'garden'. We're using anti-slip bathroom floor tiles left over from doing our shower room.

Step by step, he's getting there. He enjoys the fact that it looks like a wedding cake. Of sorts.

Meanwhile, I've been on my hands and knees in the master bedroom, sanding paint and plaster splashes off the floorboards. I religiously used a plastic sheet to prevent this happening, so goodness knows how it happened. They're now stained with splashes of sweat and blood. Coarse sandpaper moving at speed can cut! 

Last week, we took our customary day off to explore our local area. This is a habit we started in order to be able to point our gite guests in the direction of local attractions. We're never going to have a gite, but the habit continues. We headed off to a micro-region we've never before experienced, between Egletons and Treignac, a small slice from the Parc Naturel Regional de Millevaches:

We headed off through Correze, a town we know well, to see what we could find at Sarran. There is a small mountain, Puy Sarran, which is 819 metres tall, a beautiful lake, and the Musee du President Jacques Chirac, who grew up in this area. It was closed, but it has been recommended to me by a Frenchman who cornered me on the top of Suc-au-May last year, so I'll return after COVID. We then headed for St Yrieix-le-Dejalat, and then upwards towards Chadebec, near Bonnefond, because we were seduced by the little ski-ing symbol there. What we actually found was not a ski resort, well, not the sort you might be thinking of, but the source of the Correze, the river that cuts through the valley at the bottom of our home slopes!

I imagine that many sources of great rivers are rather underwhelming...

After our adventure into the deep unknown, we headed to Perols-sur-Vezere where we were (pathetically) too embarrassed to order just a coffee when we saw that the hotel there, Chez Pauda, was all set up for grand lunches. There's something sacred about the French lunch that makes me not want to Englishly disappoint, and have to suffer watching them sweep away all of the posh things from our table.

Still hankering after a coffee, we travelled to the larger town of Bugeat, where we knew we might stand more chance of grabbing just a coffee, which is precisely what we did. The owner of the little cafe by the church was determined to speak to us in English, despite my speaking to her in French. They do this a lot at French cafes, and I'm sure they think they're helping us, but how can I improve my French if they all speak to me in English!

I really enjoy when towns show a large photo from yesteryear of the scene it occupies. I think it looked better before.

After a little walk around Bugeat, to find that nothing other than the cafe was open, we headed for the Cascades de la Tine at Pradines, which I always see as 'pralines'.

We stumbled upon the sign by accident. I was impressed by how chic the female roundhead was, striding out with her pert bosom and short skirt. There was very little room for parking, and there was already one other car taking up most of the space. As we clambered down towards the falls, we came upon a couple (I stifled a huff at their selfish parking, raising my eyebrows only very slightly, but smiling in greeting) with three spaniels. The man was carrying one of the spaniels, and we assumed that it was just old and tired, but no. The woman stopped us to give us an impassioned warning about hornets. Down by the falls is a little wooden-slatted rope bridge, she told us, and we were not to go near it! Apparently, the unfortunate dog had taken one sniff too many at the bridge, and what should be lurking beneath the slats? Not a troll, but a nest of aggressive hornets; the poor dog had been stung several times. I have an aversion to hornet stings, so I almost asked Kevin if we could turn back and see the falls another day. But, at that point, we were entranced by the most incredibly beautiful aroma! No, it wasn't wine. No, nor beer. It was slightly citrusy and sherbety, and took me back to the uber-delicious smell of the rich lady in the lift in Aldwych House in 1984, who was so intimidatingly posh and fragrant that I didn't ask her what the fragrance* was, not that I could have afforded it. I think this little scent-echo of that non-encounter was being produced by the pine forest on either side of the footpath, and, hence, we wandered onwards in olfactory bliss. 

Oh yes, we saw the bridge, but we obediently kept well away. We didn't see any hornets.

We decreed that this was the perfect picnic spot and vowed to return with the children and grandchildren one day, hoping that the bridge would be open for business as usual. We headed homeward via Chaumeil and St Augustin.

We have family coming to stay with us soon, so serious renovation work has been curtailed by general cleaning and finishing off. Such chores as washing the caravan, painting the front door, de-vegifying the crumbling wall opposite the front of cottage #1 and sealing up the bottomless well have taken precedence. This is a valid excuse for not starting the big difficult jobs, as well as it being far too hot! And, anyway, quite a lot of my time is taken up on the battlefield of my vegetable patch at the moment. I did have two perfect lines of multi-coloured gladioli. Not now. Every day, a monster from the deep is eating the bulbs and letting the beautiful blooms topple to the ground. See them one last time and weep! It's also taken the roots of a tomato plant and half a beetroot. The first thing I do every morning is stand over the patches with my hands on my hips, with my Miss Trunchbull eyes drilling into the soil. There are two wild cats that carry out this duty when I'm not there, so, hopefully, the underground menace will be brought to justice soon enough.

It rained suddenly today, and I was so relieved! The terrace is now washed! That's one job I can tick off the list.

What do you mean, it's a bit puddly? Rude. 

* You'll think me petty, but I've spent a lifetime trying to find this perfume, so I own a lot of nearly fragrances, but have never found the target elixir. I imagine that it's not the sort of perfume that you can just spray up your arm at Boots or in Duty Free, so, unless I become a billionaire**, I'll probably never find it.

** Yes, I know. This is highly unlikely.