I got up pretty early again today and went down to check my email first thing. Changes are happening at Vn and I was keen to see if there was any news from Em. There wasn’t. However, Mr Laine and Mr Faye joined me soon after. Mr Laine had rung Mr Faye the previous night to ask him to come back (we had previously asked him to stop working until we had his quote for the work). The quote was fine and I wanted him to connect the new hot water tank so that I might be able to take a shower soon. Mr Laine is pestering me for colours and wall paper so I promised I would have it all decided by Monday. So we had a look on the internet for shops that may sell the sort of stuff I wanted. It was good trying to work out the results of French Google with the 2 artisans, they were very helpful and are keen to improve my French.
Bird Flu Precautions
I took Joe for a walk down the village and it wasn’t long before I was halted by a neighbour who was keen to shake my hand and welcome me back to Savennes. It was Mr Turner who lives next to my Dad’s cottage. He has a large flock of chickens and had noticed that I had brought chickens and ducks with me. Daviid, our cockerel, maybe the only gay in the village but he has a manly voice (for a chicken) and so I think he gave the game away. Anyway Mr Turner was asking me lots of questions about how I was keeping them etc. I managed to keep up but was struggling with the point of the conversation other than just friendly banter. Then Boris turned up (as he tends to out of nowhere) and got involved in the conversation. He told me about the notice that had been put up in the town hall and that everyone owning a chicken would have to have them locked up indoors by the 1st April 2006. After this the Gendarm were going to come around and ensure that there aren’t any outside. I think Boris and Mr Turner were trying to wind me up slightly but I knew it was a big deal and so I went to look at the notice. Sure enough, he was right, and I also have to have my enclosure inspected by a vet to make sure that it is suitably protected from wild birds. So I will have to get this organised in the next few days.
Chicken Run 2
So as it turns out my efforts yesterday in constructing the chicken run were wise after all. However I realised that it wasn’t going to be good enough for my birds to be stuck in such a small room. So I decided to upgrade them to the suite next door. This was full of junk that Mr Martin had left behind too:
So I cleared it out and moved the run into it. When night fell they found their way inside and made themselves at home. I checked on them an hour later and both Vichy P and Daviid had climbed up into the nesting box (the old rabbit hutch) and were looking very comfortable. The ducks are too stupid to work out how to get up there so I put some wood shavings on the ground so they could sleep below.
Broadband is on its way
I spent the rest of the day responding to emails and moving boxes around. By evening I had cleared away enough so that there was space for Joe to join me in the restaurant where my office is. It is nice and warm in here and I am tempted to get it totally cleared and set my bed up too so that I can almost totally live out of one room (seems a bit silly when there are so many other rooms!).
The best news of the day was from Eddy who called me this afternoon to organise my broadband connection (they simply call it AH DE S ELLE here). He had set up a 3 way conference call from his office at France Telecom with someone else from FT who was had all of my account details. FT have a new product that allows them to extend the reach of their ADSL even further so the Chateau is now within reach whereas last year it wasn’t. This is great news because I am really fed up with Dial up so I can’t wait to have it connected. It should all be done within 2 weeks.
The bad news of the day was that the Plumbers and Mr Faye managed to blow up (literally – there was even a small fire!) one of the electric water heaters. They tried to sneak it out of the building without me noticing because I think they were a little embarrassed about it. They had replaced it by the end of the day so it was no big deal.
Workshop heaven
A man has to have a shed but if he doesn’t then a workshop will do.
This evening I completely cleared out the workshop, swept it and made it look very pretty. I have stiff competition because Eddy has the most amazing workshop at his farmhouse down the road and so it is going to be difficult to impress him. I will take a picture of Eddy’s workshop next week when they are visiting – you’ll be amazed! This allowed me to finally unload the trailer (which was mainly filled with the contents of my old shed) so the workshop now looks messy again (hence no photo yet) but fear not I will get it sorted and one day may even put Eddy to shame (unlikely!).
I am glad that job is finally done because tomorrow I have a big day ahead of me and need to drive off in the Land Rover. I am going on a Wallpaper, Lighting and general decoration reccie in Clermont Ferrand. I am hoping to find some brilliant wallpaper for Suite 1 and 2.
Wish me luck. I’ll let you know how I get on and if you’re lucky I might even get around to photographing the progress that is being made on the suites.
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