La Darnoire

Right, who left the refrigerator door open? It feels more like February than mid-April; it’s freezing cold!

We visited the aged FIL in hospital in the afternoon, and were looking forward to getting back to our aged wood stove in the kitchen in order to warm up.

Unfortunately we were unable to light it successfully. Smoke started billowing out of every orifice (even some we did not know were there) and the only solution was to fling open all the doors and windows so that we could see what we were doing. I grabbed the barbecue tongs and rushed the smouldering bits of wood outside. I suspect the stove itself has passed its’ use-by date but it could just be something as simple as a sooty chimney. Another job for LSS’s list tomorrow: find a chimney sweep.

A spot of grocery shopping in the morning results in my buying a couple of pieces of meat which would be ideal barbecue material. As it’s turned out to be a nice sunny day, this will be what we’ll do for supper.

LSS has been busy organising some “home help”; basically this is done by a company which specialises in looking after elderly people. Most of the costs will be met by the aged FIL’s insurance policy, but he’ll still need to contribute something. He’s not too happy about the idea but LSS has pointed out that we didn’t come to France solely with the aim of looking after him; we don’t mind helping out, but full-time carers we are not!

I spent the afternoon cutting through the stems of the ivy which is covering the future garage. Although ivy on a building does look attractive, it’s not very good for the brickwork. And this particular ivy has decided it likes the interior of the building as well, so it has to go. Chopping through the base should cause the majority of the vegetation to die off, at which time it should be easier to remove. I’ll tackle the root system at a later date.

At the same time, I prune the grapevines which are being smothered by the aforementioned ivy. It’s probably a bit late in the year to prune grapevines, but too bad.

With the day’s labour complete, I lit the barbecue. But as soon as I put the meat on the grid, it started to rain. However, we’re made of tougher stuff than that. LSS dashed indoors to fetch an umbrella, and I finished cooking our supper under the protective covering of a fetchingly-coloured purple ladies’ umbrella.

“I’m coooooooking in the rain, just coooooooking in the rain…..”

I cut some more wood for the wood burner. Oh it’s so nice to be able to use a chainsaw again! Which is a weird thing to say. Unless you happen to be a Forestry Officer who hasn’t worked in Forestry for over 20 years. Yes, that would be me.

The other good news is that the aged FIL will be staying in hospital until at least Tuesday next week.

LSS takes the opportunity to catch up on some of the clothes washing. Unfortunately the aged FIL’s equally-aged washing machine is just about to expire. It works fine until it needs to either fill or empty itself; at which point it decides it just can’t be bothered and leaks water all over the kitchen floor.

Phone and Internet are now working! WE’RE ONLINE AGAIN! Without having to use a dialup telephone line!
The telephone line is still trailing along the ground though; Orange/France Telecom haven’t yet fixed that.

As the morning is bright and sunny, we decided to work on clearing up some of the front garden which is overgrown with nettles and brambles. It’s so nice not to have to look after the aged FIL for a while!

As the afternoon clouds over, an Orange/France Telecom engineer arrives. He immediately spots the fault; (it’s not difficult to see, remember the line is trailing along the ground). However, that’s not his department. He’s actually come to ensure the internet is up and running (it is). He fiddles around with it a bit, and says:
“Ah, ha! You could have a line speed of 2 Mbps!”
“Great!” we enthuse.
“Ah yes, but, if I set it to 2Mbps it won’t be stable. Because of the distance from the exchange it would be best if I set it to 1 Mbps.”
“Ah, well, as long as we’re online, I can’t see it making much difference between 1Mbps and 2Mbps.”
“No, no, you’re right there. However I will need to report back to head office that you only have a 1Mbps connection.”
“Fine, fine, whatever you say.” (Little did we know…)

We have decided that today is rabbit poo day.

Eh?

Well, the late MIL (Mother-In-Law) used to keep rabbits. (Vegetarians look away now).

These fluffy bunnies were for food, not for pets.

(Right, vegetarians, you can start reading again). Whenever the cages were cleaned out, all the detritus was just dumped in a pile in the garden. Over the years this gradually turned into a very dark brown, rich compost. There must be several tons of it. Well, we decided instead of just leaving it there, we’d dig it into our garden. I managed to start the tractor, and as there was a large metal carrying box already attached to the rear, simply used this to carry two 44-gallon drums full of rabbit poo to the other house. The now-empty 44-gallon drums will become our new compost bins. And every time we visit the other house, we’ll bring back a large tub of the stuff.

LSS started washing the kitchen walls, which are brown in colour. I didn’t say the paint was brown, I said the walls were brown in colour. I think the paint used to be white originally. The ceiling is brown too. I have no idea how we’re going to clean it sufficiently before painting it; I suspect even my industrial-size tub of sugar soap won’t be sufficient. I do have a Karcher pressure washer though. Hmm.

The aged FIL is taken back to hospital for a scheduled operation. He has diabetic feet and is due to have a sort of balloon inserted into an artery in one leg in order to improve the circulation. However, he insists that he doesn’t have diabetes.

“Yes you do; it’s why you have diabetic feet.”
“No, I don’t have diabetes. I just have a problem with something the doctor described as blood sugar.”
“Yes, that’s called diabetes.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that. I thought I had a problem with blood sugar.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Hah! You see! I don’t have diabetes!”

(Repeat until bored).

Today was the day we attacked the pantry! Yes, pantry. That small room where you store food. It’s right next to the kitchen, obviously, but strangely the floor level is lower than that of the kitchen so you have to step down into it. Nobody thought about doing anything about the height of the doorframe though. It’s about 4 foot 6 from the floor, which means I have to remember to duck when entering the room. Even LSS has to be careful, and she’s shorter than I am.

The thing is, the shelves were attached to the wall by means of wooden brackets. And not only the shelves, but the wooden brackets too had all succumbed to the dreaded woodworm. (Why do they call it woodworm? It’s a beetle!) Anyway, all the old shelving and the brackets were removed with the aid of a hammer. This was probably overkill; I suspect they would have fallen off by themselves if I’d left them alone for another few days.

LSS used the vacuum cleaner to remove the spiders and cobwebs from the ceiling. It’s a wet-and-dry vacuum cleaner, which is probably just as well. Mind you, I don’t think the spiders were particularly concerned about which type of vacuum cleaner it was.

Could it possibly be Sunday again? Where does the time go?

We went to a restaurant in Salbris with three of LSS’s cousins as a treat. They had not seen LSS for a very, very long time. Twenty years? Something like that.

Not much progress to report; the aged FIL is still taking up much of our time. We did manage to plant the tree seedlings which we brought over from the UK; four elders, two (possibly) peach trees – at least the leaves look like peach leaves but we can’t be sure as neither LSS nor I can remember planting peach trees; and something which could possibly be a cherry tree when it grows up.

I managed to clean up the “orchard” (simply a row of about 8 trees in a small clearing in the woodland – the trees had been planted about 15 years ago and abandoned). None of them are as tall as they should be, which is not that surprising as they were choked with weeds and brambles. They’re looking a lot tidier now. I think two of them are walnuts. There are a couple of apple trees, and two dead sticks. And an anthill.

For the first time we boiled some water using the kitchen wood burner – came in extremely handy for our bath in the garden! I used a couple of my old army ponchos in order to screen the bath from the prevailing winds…

Orange/France Telecom visited today! They connected up the telephone line but obviously it’s not working yet. Once they had gone we wandered down the road to see how they had installed it. They had used the existing EDF electricity poles, and simply strung the telephone line from pole to pole. Not very well, either. The cable was tangled in some tree branches next to the road (the branches that are regularly pruned by the local Department of Roads branch-chopping machines), and the last bit of the line (furthest from the house) is trailing along the ground. We can’t even call them yet to tell them to come back to fix it!