La Darnoire

Our letter box is finally installed! We can receive post again! Hooray! Ooh, a bill. Not hooray.

Yet more rain. We went to Leroy Merlin in St. Doulchard in order to get some materials to finally start the renovations. We managed to find pretty much everything we wanted, but as it was getting close to lunchtime we didn’t actually buy anything, because LSS had to get back to the aged FIL to give him his lunch and take him to the lavatory. Instead, we thought we’d just order everything we needed over the Internet and have it delivered. It later turned out this was a big mistake; we should have made the aged FIL wait and bought the things we needed. Especially as he was being difficult as usual and didn’t want to eat.

Wildlife diary: On the way back from town, we’d slowed to walking pace in order to turn into the side road leading to our house, when we saw a very unusual sight; a Reeves’ pheasant. These are fairly rare birds; according to Wikipedia there are only 2,000 birds remaining in the wild. It obviously resented the large green-coloured object invading its territory, because it displayed aggressively towards the car, standing on tiptoes and flapping its wings madly. Just to annoy it, I drove forward slowly. It was completely undeterred. “This is my patch, and I’m not giving way to you, no matter how big you are!”

We watched its display for a few minutes and then left it in peace.

Went to the HSBC in Brinon and filled in lots of forms; my French bank account is finally opened! Of course I can’t actually use it yet, as I don’t have a card or chequebook; but it’s a start.

Unfortunately the aged FIL proved to be particularly incontinent today, with the consequence that not only his pyjamas, but all the bedclothes – including blankets – needed to be – shall we just say – thoroughly washed.

In the evening the first carer turns up to give him his supper and take him to the lavatory (which unsurprisingly he doesn’t need).

Wildlife diary: I’m pleased to report the ducks have not taken my unexpected visit to heart, and are still visiting the nest.
On the way back from town, LSS suddenly said, “Look, dear.”
“Yes dear?” I replied.
“No, dear,” she said.
“What ARE you on about?” I asked.
“Deer. Chevreuil. Things with four legs in that field we just passed.”
“Ohhhhhhhhh….”

We’ve been here a month! And it’s still raining. And cold. Had to check the local paper just to make sure we hadn’t suddenly been transported to Ireland. Nope, it was still France. (Apologies to any Irish reading this, I’m sure it’s not always raining there). Despite the rain, we managed to have a bath by the simple expedient of carrying the bathtub into the kitchen again and heating the water in large pots on the wood stove. The bathwater is a bit more brown than usual, thanks to JP’s efforts yesterday. Still, at least we’re now clean. We’ll never again take a tiled bathroom for granted.

Wildlife diary: We’ve discovered that there are a pair of ducks nesting in the reeds next to the pond. I only noticed the nest because I happened to walk up to the pond from a different direction, and the female duck flew noisily out of the reeds. There appear to be 7 eggs in the nest, all a pale duck-egg blue (obviously). I beat a hasty retreat as I don’t want them abandoned.

An Orange/France Telecom engineer called regarding the problem we’d reported with the internet.
“Eh? We haven’t reported any problem with the internet.” (see 19th April, Engineer number 3)
“Oh, it says here you’ve reported that you’re not getting a 2Mbps connection, only 1Mbps, so we’ll need to arrange for an engineer’s visit.”
“Ohhhhhhhh, I see. No, look, we didn’t report it. The other engineer reported it. We didn’t know it was a problem. We don’t want you touching it, we’re quite happy, please leave us alone, we don’t need any other engineers, and I want my mummy.”

The doctor visited the aged FIL today, and recommended that he get a medical bed, a “lit médicalisé” to facilitate the nurse giving him a bed-bath (when we are finally able to find a nurse that does this, that is). In order to get a bed, a prescription is needed. Unfortunately, as this doctor was a locum (the usual doctor is on holiday) he forgot to fill out the prescription form. So LSS called the surgery, where she spoke to the receptionist/secretary/administrator.

“We need a prescription to get a medical bed, a ‘lit medicalyse’”.
“This prescription, is it a renewal?”
“!”
I told her she should have said, “Yes, he’s finished eating the old one.”

The cousin of LSS, a farmer chappy whom I shall call JP (because those are his initials), turned up with his wife to say hello. During the conversation about how we were getting on and what we were going to do next, we happened to mention we didn’t think much of the French way of storing cold water, which is by means of a pressurised ballon. The setup we inherited means that when you want to turn the tap on, you need to go and switch the pump on in order to fill the tank. This then works fine for about 24 hours but over that time period the pressure leaks out of the tank – so no further water comes from the tap. You then need to go into the shed to switch the pump on again.

“Ah, non!” says JP. “That’s not the way it should work. You see, it’s completely automatic. The water pressure drops, the pump switches itself on, pumps the water up from the well, and fills the container. The pressure rises, the pump switches itself off, and voila, you have constant water.”
LSS and I looked at each other blankly. This was definitely not the way it was working.

“Ah, look, I’ll show you. You’ve probably not switched it on correctly.”
So we all trot out to the shed where he gets his first view of the ballon.
“Hmm. You have a leakage of air here. You need to undo this tube and re-tighten it. Do you have a spanner?”
I pointed wordlessly at a pair of the aged FIL’s aged spanners which were lying on top of the aged ballon – presumably for just this eventuality. Personally I hadn’t liked the look of these spanners, as they didn’t appear to be any good for anything. Unless you needed a couple of paperweights. And didn’t mind rust-marks on your paper.

“Ah, bon.”
He struggled with the aforementioned bits of metal (I hesitate to call them tools) for a few minutes. Finally:
“What is this merde? Don’t you have any decent spanners?”
I fetched my Bahco shifting spanner. Which works.
“Merde. Why isn’t this switch working? Ah, I see, you need to drain it first.” We connect a hosepipe to the bottom tap and drain the entire 200 litres of water into the garden. He then switched the pump on. The ballon filled. And the pump kept running. Pressurised water started to leak from sundry connections. At this point the rest of the interested onlookers namely myself, LSS, and JP’s wife, retired hurriedly to the garden.
“Merde.” He unscrewed the pressure gauge, and was immediately soaked with a deluge of rusty water. Hurriedly, he switched the pump off, and then proceeded to dismantle the pump connections.
“Bon!” With this grunt of satisfaction, he switched on.
The electricity supply tripped.

Having rewired the switch for the third time, the pump finally groaned into life. However, no water was entering the ballon, because all the water in the pipes had by now drained back into the well. We had to pour two bottles of water into the pump in order to prime it again.
“Merde. It shouldn’t be doing that.”
No, really? You don’t say.

Finally the ballon was full again. Then drained. Then filled. Finally admitting defeat, he said he had the feeling that the pressure switch was faulty and should be replaced.

So two hours of labour later we were back where we started. With a manually-operated, non-pressure-retaining, ballon.
However, instead of being a very pale brown colour, the water is now dark brown with all the rust which has been stirred up from the frequent emptying and refilling.

“Remind me not to ask him to fix anything else for us,” I said to LSS as they drove off.

Rain, rain, rain.

It’s rained every day this week! The ditches are overflowing. Still, at least the pond is filling up. In between showers we feed the carp with stale bread. There are some nice sized fish in the pond – some over 40 cm long.

LSS tackled the water tank (“ballon”) and managed to get water to appear at the kitchen tap. It’s pale brown in colour (the water, not the tap) probably due to rust in the pipes. But it’s wet, and we’ll at least be able to wash the walls and floors with it.

I should perhaps explain about this ballon thing. There is a well at the property, which has been the sole source of household water since the house was built in eighteen hundred and something. By the simple method of tying a large washer to a piece of rope, and lowering it into the well, I have determined that it is just over 4 metres deep, and the water depth is 3 metres. A pipe runs through a hole in the brickwork about half-way down the well and disappears into the water. The other end of this pipe runs underground to one of the outbuildings, where it terminates at an ancient electric pump. From this pump, a short length of leaky bandaged pipe runs above a collection of jam-jars (to collect the drips) into a galvanised steel drum (known as a “ballon” here) which is supposedly able to withstand a pressure of 10 bar. The idea is that when the pump is switched on, water fills up this ballon, and once the pressure inside reaches around 3 bar, the pump switches off.

However, up until today we have not been able to get any water to enter the ballon at all. Examining the setup, LSS discovered a small bolt on the pump inlet, and after some head-scratching we worked out that this must be the inlet used for priming the pump. Pouring two litres of water into the hole with the aid of a funnel meant the pump was finally operational.

Whilst LSS was busying herself in supplying the household with rusty water, I finished working on the fruit trees in the orchard, pruning off the dead branches. LSS then assisted me with removing the remaining brambles. I have never known plants to have such long, persistent roots!

All this time, the wood stove was burning quietly away in the kitchen, and as LSS had had the brilliant idea of sticking some foil-wrapped potatoes into the oven side of it first thing this morning, we now have some roast potatoes for dinner.

One of the first things we had to do when we arrived, was to empty the house and barn of junk. In the barn was an old horse-drawn cart which was covered with bits of wood and fruit boxes.

Anybody want this thing? It’s yours for 10 euros. The only catch is that you need to collect it.

Of course the woodworm/termites had been busy; nearly all the wood pieces were infested. Mould was in evidence too. The wood scrap simply had to go. But instead of just throwing it away, we decided to extract whatever remained of the calories of energy it contained by burning it in the kitchen stove.

Of course if we had told anyone (especially the aged FIL) what we were doing, there would have been gasps of horror. “You can’t burn that in the kitchen stove! It won’t burn well! You’ll block the chimney! Go and cut down a nice tree instead!”

Well, chimneys can be cleaned, n’est pas? The way I look at it is that we have wood to burn which would otherwise just be thrown away.

I reflected for a moment on a documentary about Ethiopia we saw on British television a while back. The camera crew followed one young woman who lived in a tent made of animal skins. Her earthly riches consisted of the tent, a cooking pot, and a goat. Her husband was off somewhere patrolling the border with his AK-47. Of course the area around her tent, for as far as the eye could see, was bare. Not a tree or a blade of grass in sight. So when it came to deciding whether to burn our wood in the kitchen stove, I pictured this woman wandering along with her goat and seeing something on the ground. “Ooh, a twig! I can heat my house for a week with that! And cook a goat.” Riches are relative.

Yes, we did have to have the chimney cleaned. But then again, we don’t know when this was last done, so we can’t blame the poor quality wood for that!

The fruit boxes have been stacked in one of the outbuildings which will see later use as a chicken coop. If we can’t use the fruit boxes for anything else I’m sure they’ll come in handy for lighting fires.

Also in the house were two large cupboards which had not been moved, dusted, or otherwise touched for about 30 years. Of course the woodworm and/or termites had had a field day here too. The first cupboard simply fell apart when we tried to move it. This, too, ended up becoming a pile of wood ash at the bottom of the garden. The other cupboard was in slightly better condition, because only the doors fell off. I did consider using this cupboard in the workshop for tool storage but decided my tools would be better off without it. I suspect it will suffer the same fate as the first.

Orange/France Telecom turn up again. Engineer number 4. This time it’s only one engineer, but with a proper high-lift cherry-picker vehicle. I suspect he’s the divisional manager because he does a thorough job; undoing the work of engineers 1 and 3 and re-doing it properly by fixing metal extension arms to the EDF pylons so that the telephone line avoids the tree branches. This is handy because when the local roads department come past once a year with their tree-branch cutting machine, it would have been a certainty that our telephone line would have been chopped into little pieces in several places.

Other than that, our research on where we can get DIY stuff is proving to be very annoying. Shopping for DIY stuff in France is not simple. Unlike Britain where companies have websites where you can add stuff to a basket, click Checkout and it tells you how much delivery is, this is not the case here. Yes, all right, we live in the middle of nowhere, but still! Come on people, this is the 21st century after all. Take Leroy Merlin’s website as an example. Half the stuff we wanted is not available to buy online. LSS called them to enquire about delivery charges, and was told that it depends on how many pallets are in the order. To deliver one pallet: a massive 79 euros! She then called Castorama – they charge 160 euros for delivery no matter what size the order! The small company in Aubigny called Weldom offers a 30 euros delivery charge, so it looks like we’ll be buying stuff from them.

This obviously explains why so many people here have car trailers. It’s our intention to get one of these as well, but the car will need to be re-registered in France first (because we’ll need a number plate for the trailer). This process is in hand but like anything here, it takes time.

We were originally intending to get 4 x 1000 litre water containers for rainwater recovery; these turn out to be too expensive so we’ll get 6 x 500-litre barrels instead.

In between showers of rain we managed to plough up the vegetable garden using the rotavator. It was the first time LSS and I had used one of these machines but after a while we got the hang of it. Two hours later, we were rewarded by the sight of a large expanse of turned-over soil. It will need to be done a couple more times before we’re ready to plant anything though.

Following our dusty labours, we carried the bathtub into the kitchen and had a well-deserved bath next to the warmth of the wood stove. Note the steam rising from the bath, and the colour of the water.

A strange sort of day. We fetched the aged FIL from Vierzon hospital, and once again there was no communication regarding his post-operative care. Very odd indeed. We’re starting to think that this is the norm for the French medical system.

LSS received a letter notifying her that her bank account is finally open. Unfortunately she is unable to transfer any money into it because she doesn’t have an electronic card reader. So if you’re reading this, have a Natwest bank account, and want to do an online transfer from the UK, make sure you have an electronic card reader before you leave. As for me, I can transfer funds quite happily because I’m with First Direct in the UK. That is to say, I would be able to transfer funds quite happily, but am currently unable to do this because I still haven’t managed to get a French bank account.

We’re currently also researching buying a wood stove with back boiler so that it will provide domestic hot water with hopefully a couple of radiators (especially in the bedroom which is a bit cold!) After all, there are 30 hectares of woodland so we shouldn’t run short of fuel!

Today I received an email reply from a UK supplier of wood stoves. I had seen on their website that they had wood stoves with back boilers, and wanted to know whether it was possible to have one delivered to France. Unfortunately this information was not forthcoming. Instead the email basically said (regarding back boilers) “Don’t do it! Rather buy the biggest woodstove that money can buy and rely on other methods of heating water. We’ve now stopped supplying stoves with back boilers because no British plumbers know anything about fitting them.”
Er, what?

LSS has written a letter to Honda France enquiring about getting a Certificate de Conformité for the ST1100. This is apparently needed before you can get a “Carte Gris” which is the name for the document which registers the bike in France. She also wrote a letter to Hyundai so that she can get her car registered here too.

Oh, and Orange/France Telecom turned up to look at the problem with the line. Let’s see, this will be engineer number 3.

Unfortunately they haven’t fully explained the problem to him. He can see that the line is trailing along the ground; however, as the only equipment they’ve given him is a ladder and a wooden stick, there’s not much he can do about fixing it to the EDF pylons at twice the height of his ladder. You think I’m joking? No, I’m not. This is what privatisation is all about, people. Departments not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing.

Success! We have a working wood stove again. The problem was partially the chimney and partially the wood stove. I now know how to dismantle this particular chimney pipe for cleaning purposes, and how to semi-dismantle the woodburner in order to scrape caked soot from its inner workings.
Note to self: Buy some chimney sweeping brushes.

As for the hospital doctor’s meeting, the MATTERS TO DISCUSS was not a meeting with the doctor at all. It was a meeting between LSS, myself (as a not-yet-French-speaking-observer), the aged FIL, the doctor, and THREE administrative staff of the hospital. They were basically highly upset about the letter which LSS had written to the director, and took great pains to point out that it was, basically, all the fault of LSS.
“You didn’t tell me whether he needed any sort of special care or not,” LSS stated.
“You should have asked,” was the reply.
“He wasn’t offered the option of a wheelchair,” LSS said.
“You should have asked.” was the reply.
“I wasn’t told whether he should have a special diet or not,” LSS said.
“You should have asked,” was the reply.
“How do I know what questions I should have asked?” said LSS.
“You should have asked,” they said.

At this point the aged FIL interjected that he knew nothing about any letter, did not at any time discuss the writing of the letter, and even after he had discussed the writing of the letter, didn’t actually agree that it should be sent at all. (See post from 04/04/2012)

“Gee, thanks for the support, Dad,” muttered LSS under her breath. At least I presume that’s what she said. It was, after all, in French. And rather short. And I don’t actually think you can translate that word as “support”.

So THAT was a complete waste of time. But still, the fact that the hospital staff at Vierzon decided to bring that many staff to a meeting in order to intimidate LSS, was, to my mind, an admission of guilt.
Oh – and if someone at the Vierzon hospital happens to read this – Please. Next time you want to intimidate someone, take the trouble to find out a bit more about that person first. LSS is not a simple village person who has stayed in the same village for all her life. She’s lived in another country for 20 years, and is not likely to be intimidated when faced with superior numbers of opponents; in fact this has the opposite effect as it presents more of a challenge. So there.

We’re still researching the best place to buy DIY stuff for the house. So far, we have a short list: Castorama, Leroy Merlin, and a place called Weldom in Aubigny. We visited a place called “Point P” but were not that impressed – it seems to cater more for the trade than the public.

We’re also looking for somewhere we can order a replacement wood stove. I want one with a back boiler so it can supply some of the domestic hot water. We found a website of a place in Neung-sur-Beuvron and paid them a visit. Eek! Talk about high prices. Not our cup of tea at all.

Today we visited Brinon in order to meet the bank manager of the local HSBC to get an account opened for me. Oh my goodness, the amount of paperwork required! They need lots of documents which we’re getting together in order to hand them in next week. LSS was able to find a local chimney sweep and has requested an urgent visit tomorrow. I think that chattering her teeth during the phone call was a bit of overkill, but it may have the desired effect. I will be paying close attention to how it’s done so that I can do it myself in future when necessary.

Unfortunately the lack of a working wood stove means we have to sit in the kitchen wearing several jumpers and jackets. We have plugged in a small electric fan heater, and this has managed to raise the inside temperature to around 8 degrees. For entertainment we watch the electricity meter whizzing around merrily.

Tomorrow we’re off to Vierzon hospital tomorrow to visit the aged FIL and also to meet the doctor who apparently has MATTERS TO DISCUSS. They refused to give any further details over the phone, so we’ll have to wait and see what it’s about.

LSS called a chimney sweep who promised to call back and didn’t. I’m starting to wonder whether we ought to get some huskies.

In the end we drove into town to visit LSS’s aged aunt and beg the use of her hot shower. We did stop off at the supermarket on the way in order to buy an apple tart as a bribe. This was quite successful because she is particularly fond of apple tarts. But as punishment for trying to bribe her, she force-fed us lots of pancakes.

This turned out to be a GOOD THING. We happened to notice a bathroom scale in the aged aunt’s bathroom, and tried it out. I had noticed my trousers were becoming slightly loose. Ah-ha! The LSS has lost 4kg since coming to France, and I’ve lost 9kg. This lifestyle of running around after the aged FIL has some use then!