Monday 18 March 2013

Three weeks in France Part 4

Saturday

First task today - painting the skirting boards on the upstairs landing.  Generally the skirting boards in the house are made of a strange, bendy wood-plastic material and have often only been half-attached to the walls (not enough glue used).  In an ideal world, I would gradually replace them all, but that is a huge job, and given what happened with the downstairs bathroom, it could take forever.

An occasional break from painting to fit new fittings to the bathroom units upstairs.  This is another attermpt to try and tone down the heavy contemporary feel of this room.  Combined with the old furniture, the effect is ok.  But there is nothing to disguise the fact that the exisitng units are not very nice.

With our new satellite TV, I was able to watch the rugby tonight.  So far this trip, I have barely watched anything on tv.  I am usually too tired to even eat much!

Sunday

Today I was initially focused on the white painting of the landing - lots of prep to do for this

Mid morning I drove up to the village of Le Gicq to attend the first brocante I've been to for a while.  It was nowhere near as good as last year's one in Loulay, but I did buy one or two things.  It rained most of the morning too, which rather put a dampner on things.  Not a good indication of whether we will be able to acquire enough stock for the idea we have to re-sell french stuff in the UK

An evening out at Grant and Karen's tonight - the first people I have talked to face-to-face in quite a while (excluding my attempts to speak french to the locals).  A very pleasant evening (and Karen's tour of their chambre d'hote complex gave me some things to think about)

Monday

There have been some big market moves brought on by developments in Cyprus.  This did distract me a little from the last big painting day - the upstairs landing

Also finished today was the back bedroom painting - second coats and touching up the room.  I will do a set up of this room soon, to take some photos for the website.

Radio listening today was mainly Don Letts' radio 6 show.  I haven't heard him before and rather enjoyed it.

The outdoor furniture has been finished and is now outside on the terrace.  It will be very nice there once the sun shines




Tuesday

More work on the landing from 5:00am onwards.  It is odd how it isn't light here till past 8:00!  I work for the first three hours, then go to the bakery and it is only just getting light

I have also finished the next coat of paint for the main stairs - this does look much better


And the pictures have been hung in the lounge


and the back bedroom has been furnished and some linen sorted out so I can take some photos (the main light fitting still needs doing though)


Finally, I have some prep work for the imminent arrival of Jerome and Yvette

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