Guarding the Dog

Clare and Ilan have a new dog.  It’s a nice dog: a border collie, just three months old. She arrived via a friend who, it seems, is allergic to dogs.  She has a lot of energy and working out in advance what she will do next is like anticipating what a child will do - a child with sharp teeth who gets very excited and jumps on everything and ... has very sharp teeth. Very sharp teeth. She likes to chew things: feet, clothing, straps, electrical cords, furniture, toys, books, toes, skirting boards . I think it is a sign of affection. 

Lael distracted

She  prefers to sit on soft cushions on the lounge instead of in her nice soft padded bed. This is discouraged, not always successfully. When she is in the house, someone has to be there all the time to prevent her from damaging anything. A silent dog is a source of anxiety.

Although she is a puppy, on her hind legs she is as tall as Joshie and almost as big as Isaac. Joshie is quite frightened of her. If she is in, he has to be carried across the room, although now he will walk, with trepidation, if someone holds his hand.

 The children all need to be trained how to freeze and unlock her steely grip from their clothing.  We have quite a few torn items of clothing and the number is growing. I noticed she was chewing the bottoms of the coats hanging on the coat rack and went to get a doggy-appropriate soft toy to distract her.  She took advantage of my 5 second absence to climb on the sofa and chew the corner of my MacBook  screen. 

Lael attacks soft toy.

 She is asleep in her bed now, at my feet.  She hasn't moved for about 20 minutes. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But she can’t fool me. I am staying here on the lounge, alert and ready to protect

Let sleeping dogs lie.

"Good fences make good neighbours"*

The geomètre and her assistant came and went on Tuesday so the boundary is now marked out between our house and Georges’ empty one next door.  After they left,Georges and Spouse  worked happily together  preparing the formwork for the foundations of the fence/retaining wall to divide our properties. “With a bit of good luck,” we thought, “we’ll get this done before we leave next week.”  Thinking they were finished for the night, Spouse turned to attack the fig tree and Georges continued to put up the forming. 

Alert as always, Spouse muttered to me that one of the tiges (metal spikes inserted by geomètre) seemed to have migrated towards our house, so we diligently dug around and moved it back.  “C’est mal mesuré?” said Georges innocently.  “Bien sûr” we nonchalantly replied.

Georges went off saying he’d be back on Friday to pour the concrete, as he had another commitments in Bordeaux. This was fortunate, as during those 2 days we had time to assess the work he had done. Not only was the forming extremely crooked, it was crooked in Georges’ favour and our little path was becoming narrower and narrower. Having excavated the metre deep , 1.37 metre wide path by digging out the rubble Georges had dumped there,  we wanted the wall on our side of the boundary to give us control of it. Repairing the wooden wall damaged by the rubble was an expensive and time-consuming task for Spouse and we had paid for most of the materials for the cement wall.  Nevertheless, we felt a little guilty for I am not sure what reason, as we pulled the forming down and rebuilt it. 

Time was running short as  Sunday came to a close. Our departure was set for Tuesday and Spouse was determined to have the wall begun and therefore clearly in place.  At the end of the day, Louis from across the road sauntered over, made approving noises about the forming and suggested that he and a couple of other neighbours come and work with Spouse on Monday. As Georges had made no appearance, either to help with the wall or to sign the geometre's official document, this offer was gratefully accepted. Joy oh joy! Help and expertise!

As well as finishing the little wall, we are repairing the wood on the side of the hangar and will coat it with the black mixture of sump oils that seem to be most recommended to preserve the wood. This quaint practice explains the plethora of black sechoirs/ hangars/tabacs in the surrounding properties. Many have been converted into  two storey dwellings; others sit rather forlornly on fields, used as storage sheds, vestiges of another era.

And we have good news about the fountain (“delivered in three days” said the company website.) It is now 17 days since the order was made and 15 days since it made it to Bordeaux. However after sundry complaints to Mondial Relay and to Oogarden (I know, it’s an odd name), it has finally arrived and Louis has promised to install it in our absence.

It’s always chaos when we leave but at least we will have made some progress. Paris here I come!

at least it is calm inside

* From "Mending Wall"(Robert Frost)

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Autumn, the “season of mist and mellow fruitfulness", has arrived and with it, a torrent of falling leaves. In the waters of the canal, the trees, changing from green to russet, seem to have multiplied.

To protect it from the leaves, we have put the cover on the pool and ripped down the bougainvillea and la vigne verge  (virginia creeper) leaving the house a little bare and sad. Still as one summer fades, we can look forward to the next.  It is good to be here at this time of year as we can attack the garden with relish, knowing that next year, it will be less dominant. 

Everything grows so quickly here. We have cut down the fig trees (growing entwined) down near the creek that makes one of the boundaries of our land, although they will probably return next year. Their wood has been stored for next year's heating and I indulged my primeval passion for fire, by burning off some of the trees we cut down last year.

However the huge crop of figs has not been wasted. Its bounty: jars of fig jam, spicy fig chutney and figs in rum.

Of Tiles and Trenches

There’s  bit of a lull in the proceedings here at the moment. Autumn has come and it’s cold and wet. I have spent quite some time searching for an online template so I could make round labels for the tops of my spice bottles  that sit in a drawer and hence can’t be identified. Then I dried the garden herbs (basil, tarragon, thyme and oregano) and threw out the old purchased ones which were well beyond their use-by date.  Pathetic I know, but it’s cold and wet and what can you do? From upstairs at the computer came for a few hours, the drone of Spouse at the computer humming ( or was it singing or even groaning, “John Brown’s body lies a- moulding…..”) Seemed appropriate under the circumstances.

Dried basil

The tiles with their regrouted joints are finished, I think. I can’t say they look a lot better. When the trusty workers took a lunch break last week, I went out and inspected their work.  It looked pretty awful so I tried to improve on it, and then called Spouse to take a look. Admittedly he was in the middle of some Much More Important Computer-based Work, and not in the mood to discuss the problem so he hosed out all the joints they had done in the morning. 

On their return, they assured me, that they had not finished and had the final stages planned for after lunch. As they started again, with little good grace, our neighbour, Arthur, who is chef de chantier dressed us down for interfering. Rather chastened by this, we took the opportunity to escape to the local village pick up point where our new fountain was supposed to be ready for collection. It was not there. 

Yesterday, I got to work with acid and a power hose trying to clean up the concrete that seems to be everywhere on the dalles.  I guess they must be finished as we got the facture for their labour.  Could be an end of month bill though.

On a more positive note, Spouse and  Georges are making progress with the trench next to the hangar.  As I’ve said before, it looks as if we are ready for the next World War 1. They seem to have come to an agreement and we are waiting for the geomètre (surveyor ) to come next week to confirm the bornes.  These are the markers that delineate the boundary. It is illegal to take one out as they define property lines.  Georges produced one from under a rock while he and Spouse were digging. Apparently it is common practice for the locals to keep theirs in their barns and to insert them in the ground when needed. Sadly, we will still need to pay the géometre his 750 euros when he comes on Tuesday

Une borne

The Napoleonic Code

Land ownership and division in France comes under the Napoleonic code which can make things rather surprising if not totally chaotic.  The shape of a piece of land can be very peculiar. The rules about who can do what are amazingly complex. But every Frenchman seems to understand them

We are expecting a visit from our neighbour, Georges tomorrow.  Well when I say neighbour, I mean the man who owns the derelict house next door.  It has been empty since we bought our house and is in a disgusting state of repair, including the garden.  Occasionally I climb on the wall between our gardens and spray weed killer into his three metre high growth. We’ve been philosophical about the fact that our entry is through his land ( une servitude) and consequently is rather unattractive. George has also tipped huge piles of broken bricks and tiles and concrete against our hangar which is the first thing you see when you arrive at our house.

Georges'garden

Entrance

But all that is about to change. We plan to build a wall between his hangar and ours and claim back the land he has gradually appropriated. 

Between the two hangars

This map  (le cadastre) of the three properties in our little bit of the world shows the issue.  Our irregular piece of land is coloured in green (lot 315). Georges’ is 313. The little bit in question is the thin green strip along our hangar on the left of the cadastre.  It’s partly of matter of beatification and partly of security. In our Acte (mortgage) the language is more obscure than the old systems titles if you’ve ever seen one.  That’s not surprising because the ownership and division goes back to 1824. Hence the “Napoleonic Code”. The house would have been a farmhouse and an attached “tabac” for drying the local crop of tobacco. I would love to find more about the history of this little place.  We know the village dates back to roman times because there are many remnants of mosaics in many of the cellars of this tiny village..

Cadastre

We’ve contacted a surveyor who will (at great cost) point out the markers for our boundary and then we can lay the foundation for the wall. Spouse has already dug out  the rubble against our hangar. 

I hope Georges is happy about our plans.

Tiling Chaos

According to Chaos theory seemingly random events can be traced to minor apparently unrelated ones. The fluttering of a butterfly wing can induce wind currents causing havoc elsewhere. Chaos, in all its definitions, seems pretty normal here in France.

This year we finally had the pool fence finished replacing the old legal but ugly black mesh one. We had to relay some tiles because the area on the creek side of the pool had dropped. This was because some years ago when the pool was installed, the person introduced to us by the pool company (WaterAir) actually had no experience in pool installation at all.  He dug too big a hole and then had to fill it in with dirt that of course did not compact immediately. This resulted in a gradual collapse on one side of the pool.  In those days, we were intimidated by French speaking workers and so just continued to dole out money while the work continued. Nothing much has changed since those days except that now we understand the process better. Gallic shoulder shrug.

Early this year, our neighbour (who shall henceforth be known as Pascal)  worked to rectify this collapse around the pool with “Jean-Jacques”, a crusty septuagenarian with a heart of gold. He has worked with rocks and blocks all his life and dauntingly plugs on carrying the huge dalles and setting them in place. A few weeks after working on our job, he collapsed at work and was taken to hospital.  Now he has been released, he is straining at the bit to get back to work.

Pascal and Jean-Jacques promised to get the job  done before we left. We had friends coming to house-sit in our absence and we wanted everything to be nice for them.  At the last minute, they volunteered to do the joints between the tiles as well. Accepting this offer proved to be unwise. See below.

Now we are back in France, we are having the terrasse tiled.  We had two artisans expressing interest: one an English bloke living here in France and the other our local neighbour Pascal, who functions normally as electrician. Both are jacks of all trades.  In the end we settled upon the English one (John) because he had done a good job tiling our pantry and laundry. Pascal was a bit miffed but  his commitment to any job is, at best, occasional.

John has been tiling valiantly against the odds of rain and heat. As long as he is sustained with cups of coffee and words of appreciation, he perseveres. His understanding of chaos theory is evinced in his continual analysis of how tricky tiling is.  One millimetre out and the knock on effect is catastrophic, he assures us regularly. He works solidly all day and makes acerbic comments on the obligatory 2 hour French lunch. Pascal visits and gives condescending words of advice, translated through Spouse. John accepts stoically.

The problem with the pool tiles was not the butterfly effect: it was the joints, the space between the tiles, that we discovered on our return to be filled with very thick dark cement, not at all like the light coloured (ton pierre) mortar we had used elsewhere around the pool. In a word, it was ugly.

Fortunately we have other neighbours to come to the rescue. Louis, who lives en face, made disparaging comments on the laying of the tiles around the pool and in about an hour had dug up about three square metres of tile and concrete, not around the pool but at the junction of the terrace tiles and the pool dalles. It was to do with the level, he assured me. Spouse, who had unfortunately been responsible for this part of the work, had rather gone to order more tiles at the time and was rather perplexed and stressed when he saw what had been done.

 A linguistic note: there are three sorts of tiles in French: dalles - the thick cement and stone ones which typically are used for paving, carrelage - the ceramic ones used in paving and also in bathrooms and kitchens and tuiles, which you find on the roof.  Using the wrong one, as I often do when speaking French, causes chaos as well.

Pansies for the winter

Finished at last

                                                                     

PS The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Locksmith

We had to replace the key to the back door because our friends who help with maintenance in our absence, haven't been able to get in. We were told there was a serrurier ( locksmith ) at the local hardware store. They, in turn, directed us to the village next to ours, where one could be located. You will have to go to his house, they advised parce qu'il  est sourd (deaf).

Spouse found said serrurier, (Francois) mowing his lawn but he agreed to come round later. Hearing impaired (or indeed destroyed), he may be but he spoke local dialect French very loudly and very rapidly and with much animation. I wasn't sure whether he would find me easier to understand when he read my French speaking lips than others find my  French speaking Australian  accent. Anyway, we all got by and he replaced the lock and we ordered 4 additional keys

I also asked him to look at our safe. This enormous and very heavy piece of solid iron, we purchased with the house. It had a quite complex and old fashioned set of locks and a key which rather unfortunately had disappeared years ago. To my disappointment, he confirmed that it was impractical to break into it. I guess it will just stay there, black and forlorn, in the pantry, locked, empty and useless, a relic of the  past of our house.

Today he sent an email saying the keys would be ready at 6 but Spouse forgot because two of our neighbours turned up to discuss some work we need done and stayed for an apero or two. One seemed to have had quite a few beforehand  as well.  At about 7 Spouse went around  and banged on the door and shouted but to no avail. Either Francois was locked inside in his silent world sheltering from the heat, or 6 pm was a definite appointment that we missed.

We'll send another email and try again tomorrow.