Tying Up a Wall

Avid readers of this blog (and there are some out there) may recall the problem we had with our garage wall.

I think I have now fixed the problem, with the wall now being strapped to the wooden frame. I had made some progress on this a couple of weeks ago, but then it started raining, then snowing, and the next stage involved me standing on a ladder with electric tools - outside. This is not only not recommended in the handbooks, but even I can see it is slightly ill-advised (and more importantly, uncomfortable).

We had a brief window of opportunity on Thursday, so I finished the job off. The wall now has 10 metal strips that are screwed to two bricks, then pass through the mortar joints before being screwed into the wooden frame. I have used instant cement to fill the holes in the mortar joints, and this should hold everything nicely in place.

Not the most glamorous of photos,
but all my own work

All we are waiting for now is a week of good weather (according to a passing neighbour spring starts in March, so maybe then) and we can get Alex to render the wall with Chaux Blanche.

Today is Saffron Fair day in Preuilly, so we are hoping for a nice day. Susan went into to l'Image to book for Jean-Michel's special Saffron Fair dinner only to be told they aren't doing a special dinner this year, so we are booked for their special lunch instead. Last year both meals were fully booked, and we think that everyone found it too much pressure.

However, on Thursday Christophe called around to say they had changed their minds, and did we want to change our booking to dinner - which we have done.

Now THAT is customer service!

Simon

The Last Snow Picture for the Year...

...possibly.

I mentioned about the icicles growing off the neighbour's van. Well - here they are. They have now disappeared, along with the remains of the snow.

What I didn't mention the other day was our daffodils. When we were working on our back garden Susan planted about 70 bulbs, These have been coming up over the last couple of weeks, and we should have a good show in our proto-lawn. In the snow the daffodils were particularly brave.

Now the snow has all gone we can see that we are in the running to have a lot of daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses and tulips, and a fair covering of lawn. Soon we will be buying topsoil and levelling the whole garden, giving us a Gazon Anglais and making us incredibly trendy.

Simon

The World's Best

Back in April last year Susan wrote about her Korean stopover. When we went back to Australia in December we had another stopover in Seoul, and once again (actually twice again) we stopped at Incheon Airport.

The gate lounges are all like this, with
enough seats for every passenger

Yesterday, Incheon was voted the best airport in the world for the 5th year running. Having been to the airport numerous times it is easy to understand why this should be so - it is spacious, clean comfortable - and has some really interesting places.

The view from the gate lounge

These include two galleries, an outpost of the Korean National Museum, and a number of "Experience Korea" shops, with traditional arts and music performances. On the upper deck there are chairs you can actually lie down in, and plenty of little corners where you can grab a quiet sit down.

Look at all that space - and this is a busy airport!

There are also two massage places, two free internet cafes, and dozens of eateries. Although Susan and I didn't eat at the airport this trip, I have done so in the past and been pleasantly surprised at the price and quality.

And something French. Our plane back to Paris

All in all - if you have to fly from Europe to Australia, flying via Korea not only makes sense time and budget wise, but the stopover (either a short one at the airport, or a longer one in a hotel) is made all the better by an airport that manages to almost put some glamour and comfort back into flying.

Simon

The End of the Snow

At least for now, anyway.

Yesterday was a lovely day: clear, bright and sunny, with very little wind. It was also very cold overnight (about -10°C). This mean that the snow has started to melt where the sun hits it for any length of time, a condition that precludes our street.

We are seeing some interesting shapes
when the snow melts then freezes again

In a comment on this blog a couple of days ago, Bengt mentioned that their road was snowplowed last Thursday at 10.30, with couple of follow-up treatments (including gritting) the same morning.

We must be in the poorer part of town: We had a tractor unsuccessfully try clear the street on Thursday afternoon - he went as far as he could up the hill, pushing snow in front of him, lost traction, and reversed down the hill again, leaving a wall of snow outside Sylvie and Pierre-Yves' house. This left a nice compact layer of snow which froze overnight into a sheet of ice which has remained in place. The ice was so slippery that the front wall of our house has been in danger of cars sliding into it - some very near misses over the 4 days.

The snowplough retreats, having failed to clear our road

Then on Monday, the road was gritted - by hand. A man in a van, with a bag of salt he spread with a shovel on the worse parts of the ice. This had very little effect.

The ice sheet on Monday.

Yesterday, another attempt was made to grit our road, this time from the bucket of a tractor.

We hope this latest assault will do the trick, because even walking to the boulangerie has been fraught (fraught I tell you) the past couple of days.

Simon

The Abbaye of SuperU

Like supermarkets all over the world, SuperU has its "own brand" produce. The really cheap stuff is called "bien vu", but they also have a higher quality line which just displays the "U" trademark.

When we buy beer (which is rarely these days) we tend to buy either mass produced stuff (for people like visiting uncles) or Belgian beer (for people like Susan and I). For a while now, the Belgian beer we have been drinking is Leffe, which is brewed by the monks of the Abbaye de Leffe. It's a strong brew - 9°, so not to be taken lightly.

Imagine our surprise then, when we discovered that SuperU hav their own brand Abbaye Beer. It isn't as strong (only 6.2°) or as dark as Leffe, but it isn't bad at all. It is brewed at the Abbaye de Brogne in Belgium.

I suspect that only in my fevered imagination
does the Abbaye de Brogne look like this.

And now the weather: The snow has just about gone now and we eventually had our road salted - by hand, yesterday afternoon. Last Thursday the commune tried to scrape the snow off with a tractor, but he only got just past our courtyard before giving up, leaving a wall of snow 18 inches high across the road.

It was really cold last night, so all the melting snow has frozen into weird and wonderful shapes. We have a mini lava-flow sculpture in ice at the foot of our drainpipes, and the van parked in our neighbour's driveway has amazing icicles hanging off its bumper.

We are expecting warmer weather for the next couple of days, but I wouldn't be surprised if winter has a sting in its tail.

Simon

There's a Specialist Tool for Everything

What do you use to spread Nutella?

Well, since our friend Liselle introduced us to the delights of Pylones in Paris, we use a green silicone Nutella spreader. As the staff at Pylones pointed out, it's great for butter (if it's soft), honey, jam and peanut butter. They didn't suggest Messmör, but that's because, in the nicest possible way, it comes under the heading of 'Weird Swedish Food' (scroll down to August 2007 in the link).

Note that the squirrel on the handle is cleverly designed
to enable you to hang or fix the spreader in a variety of
ways on the edge of your jar or plate.

You will notice that I don't pay the extra euro to buy real Nutella. I buy the supermarket own brand chocolate hazelnut spread, which as far as I can work out from the ingredients label, is exactly the same. Chocolate hazelnut spread is so ubiquitous in France that not-Nutella is just called 'paste to spread' (which is what pâte à tartiner translates as literally).

The digestive biscuits are there because that's what I spread the chocolate hazelnut spread and the messmör on. They are also nice spread on crêpes, but I am not very keen on bread or toast spread with either. Butter and honey (miel) is what goes on toast.

Susan

brrrrrrrrrrrr!

By now, anyone who reads a French blog should have realised that it's turned cold again. A couple of weeks ago it was uncommonly mild (temperatures in the mid teens) and we were looking forward to an early spring - somewhat misguidedly, it turns out.

On Wednesday we had snow flurries, and Thursday morning it snowed properly in between the poubelle men (5.00am) and us getting out of bed (later). This snow has hung around, and the weather has turned seriously cold, causing an interesting effect. In our driveway, anywhere that I stood on the snow I compressed it - and that has turned into ice. In some places the snow has cleared (or been cleared), leaving just the icy footprints. These are now incredibly slippery, so anyone following in my footsteps: be warned!

Friday we went shopping - the Thursday marché in town was somewhat curtailed by the snow, and our street hadn't been cleared (it still hasn't), but by Friday we needed to shop. On our return we waited in our very narrow street while someone unloaded their car, parked outside their front door. There was no way I could reverse back up the street - I had stopped on a big sheet of ice. In the end, Susan had to get out the car and ask him to move - because although I had the brakes full on our car was sliding slowly towards his!

That means that for the past few days we have been inside, working on both our plans for the house and our business plan. We have been burning a lot of firewood - and one or two other things besides.

Susan asked me what it was she could smell burning. I had no idea - I could smell something nasty burning too - but I couldn't see any embers on the carpet (usual suspect). It wasnt until I went to put on my fireproof glove that the mystery was solved.

Simon

Good Value in Paris part 3

Aux Arts et Sciences Réunis is one of our favourite restaurants in Paris. It's on avenue Jean-Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement. The closest metro station is Ourcq, but we always walk from our hotel, only five minutes away. The restaurant is part of the headquarters of the Compagnons Charpentiers du Devoir du Tour de France (the Master Carpenters' Guild). According to Routard, they are 'heroic defenders of the arts of stone, wood and...the dining table.' (You can always trust le Guide Routard, by the way. If a restaurant is in Routard, you are guaranteed a bon rapport prix / qualité, or good value for money.)

Aux Arts et Sciences Réunis
161, Avenue Jean Jaures

The food is simple, generous and traditional, and exceptionally good value for Paris (the lunchtime three course menu is €13, dinner is €19.50). There is almost always a group of spotty apprentices who've put on ties for the occasion, as they will be dining under the eye of any number of weather beaten middle aged carpenters and their wives. The last time we ate there, in late January, it was the day before the organisation's portes ouvertes (open house), and there was an exhibition of photographs showing carpenters and masons at work, and best of all, a selection of the astonishing chefs d'oeuvres (masterpieces) that journeymen carpenters make to qualify as a master craftsman.


We've written about these pieces before, because there is a museum in Tours dedicated to all the Compagnons de la Tour de France, and many of the objects are very visibly stored in ground floor rooms offsite. They are artefacts of immense skill and beauty, and often wonderfully fantastical.

Susan

Aquatic Mammals on the River Claise

A couple of weeks ago a friend told me he had been walking along the river bank in Preuilly and he had seen a dead animal about the size of a cat floating in the river. He thought it might have been a beaver and suggested I go down and have a look. I went down a few days later, not really expecting to see anything after that time had elapsed, and indeed, the dead creature wasn't there. I thought it was most probably a coypu, as these are very common, and classified as vermin, so it would not be unlikely to see a dead one, perhaps poisoned.

A Unionidae freshwater mussel shell.
This one is 13cm across, but they can grow to twice that size.

However, I was intrigued to see a dozen or so fresh water mussel shells up on the bank. Maybe the deceased hadn't been a coypu after all. Coypu are strictly vegetarian, but their smaller cousin the Musk Rat, also a common, introduced, nuisance species, are particularly partial to a nice juicy moule d'eau douce. Otters will eat them too. Does Preuilly have otters? It almost certainly has Musk Rats and it's possible that there are otters in the Claise, but they will be much rarer.

Vole holes.

Close to the mussel shells was a group of vole holes in the grassy bank. I don't know what species. Not Water Voles - I caught a glimpse of a little face peeking out of it's hole, and it was not big enough for a Water Vole. Probably a Common Vole. Anyway, it wasn't voles eating the mussels, as they are vegetarian too.

Freshwater mussel shells scattered about on the riverbank.

It wasn't beavers either. Signs of beaver activity on the Claise at le Grand Pressigny was reported recently in the newspaper, but once again - they're vegetarian.

It's worth keeping an eye out for any of these aquatic mammals, especially early in the morning or in the evening at dusk. Some species can be quite hard to tell apart until you've had some practice, but even the nuisibles are fun to watch.

Here's a quick overview so you know what to look out for, in order of size:

Northern Water Vole

Northern Water Vole Arvicola terrestris (Campagnol terrestre in French): The biggest common vole species in France, a rodent that lives on the banks of slow flowing rivers rich in vegetation. Ratty from the Wind in the Willows is this species. About 20cm long excluding tail, which is about half the length of the body and thin.

Musk Rat Ondatra zibethicus (Rat musqué in French): Native to North America, they were introduced to Europe by the fur industry. This rodent lives along slow flowing watercourses, richly vegetated étangs (fishing lakes) and marshes. About 30cm long excluding tail, which is nearly as long as the body and keeled (thicker from top to bottom than from side to side). A large Musk Rat and a small Coypu can be very difficult to tell apart.

A Coypu swims across an étang in the Brenne.

Coypu Myocastor coypus (Ragondin in French): A large rodent native to South America which was introduced to Europe by the fur industry. A herbivore, it has few predators in France and can be a problem in crops as well as causing damage to river banks with its burrowing. About 35-65cm long excluding tail, which is about two thirds the body length and cylindrical. Coypus have white whiskers and a grizzled muzzle. The muzzle colour and tail shape distinguish coypus from Musk Rats and Beavers.

European Otter Lutra lutra (Loutre d'Europe in French): The otter very nearly became extinct in France, a victim of hunting and pollution in rivers and wetlands. In the last 15 years its numbers have increased, but it will never occupy all the territory it once did, and sadly, the Touraine is not one of its modern strongholds. About 60-90cm excluding tail, which is about half as long as the body.

European Beaver Castor fiber (Castor d'Erasie in French): This species very nearly became extinct in France in the 20th century, due to hunting for the fur trade and the destruction of its wetland habitats. A successful reintroduction programme has meant it is now well established in the Loire Valley. It is the biggest rodent in Europe. An adult beaver can be 1.4m long including tail and weigh 35kg. The flat tail is the best way of recognising this species. Where they are present they are most easily seen on summer evenings. They are remarkable wood cutters, capable of felling an 8cm diameter tree in 5 minutes.

Susan

Célestine's Back Seat

I wrote the other day "Not Célestine".

Well - this time it is. When we were in Chambray we called in to Mondial Moquette (Carpet World) and looked at rugs for Célestine's back seat. They had some really nice woollen rugs, but not at "carpet protector" prices. We ended up buying one at Conforama, which is a good shop for deco items. The rug will be easier to remove and clean than the fitted carpet, which is is important when you live in an area that doesn't always run to pavement.

It's turned cold again, with snow. This has severely reduced the amount of work I am willing to do outside, and of course once one is inside the allure of sitting by the poêle outweighs doing stuff in an unheated room.

Two years ago I asked "Alpine Preuilly?" and illustrated
it with a summer photo. This morning I ask again!

Thus I have been sitting by a nice fire, redoing our plumbing plan. Everything has changed since we last did a plan (the devis we got for that one caused a long period of sitting down and struggling for breath) so the plombier called in yesterday morning, looked at what we are thinking about, made some intelligent (and money saving) suggestions, and went off to draw up his estimate. I have also started thinking about what I need to do to amenage the grenier.

Winter could end up being an expensive time if I keep getting all this thinking time!

Simon

Look for the White Vans

It is well known that to find somewhere reasonably priced to eat you have to chose somewhere the locals frequent. One of the easiest ways of doing this in France is to look for the white vans.

Anyone who has had building work done in France may find this difficult to believe, but all French builders aren't millionaires. Masons, carpenters, electricians and plumbers don't carry a packed lunch with them here. They all drive off for a proper lunch at a restaurant around midday, and all have to have somewhere cheap to eat. Luckily for the value hunter, most builders drive white vans with the business names on the sides; therefore all you have to do is look for a concentration of white vans at 12.30 and you have found your lunch. Don't be put off by the appearance of the restaurant. These places are all about good food at good prices, not getting a Michelin star for the quality of the decor.

Business is obviously good

On Monday Susan and I ate at a Routier (the French equivalent of a transport caff, but much more) we have often noticed on our travels. We were amazed at how full the car park was, the reason for which soon became evident: 4 courses for €11.50. A big buffet salad entrée, main course of meat (ham or steack or pork chop) served with chips or seasonal vegetables, cheese (help yourself) and dessert. The plat du jour was petit salé ( which amazingly, neither of us had even though we love it) and the dessert of choice seemed to be either peach Melba or crême caramel, although there were other choices too. The clientele was a mixture of tradesmen, truck drivers, husbands and wives like us who had been shopping along the 'strip mall' of Chambray-lès-Tours and the occasional family (who had probably also been shopping - it's the school holidays here). I did a quick calculation and reckon their turnover is probably 1 million euros per annum - not bad for an unpretentious restaurant.

La Saulaie is a routier
(the faded blue and red signs says as much)
and is frequented by long distance truck drivers

The car park is visible from space - I have marked it here.

Simon

The Chappe Telegraph

Anyone who has been to Chambray lès Tours looking at bathrooms (or indeed anyone who leaves the A10 in Tours to drive to Preuilly) will have noticed this construction in the middle of the road opposite Conforama. I realised immediately (mainly because of my avid readership of Hornblower books as a boy) that it was a semaphore/telegraph.

When we were looking at bathrooms yesterday we happened to do a U turn around the base of the telegraph, and I noticed it had a sign explaining what it was: "Telegraph Cl. Chappe".

Claude Chappe was born in Sarthe (not a million miles away from Tours, coincidentally) in 1763, and with his brother Ignatius worked on a number of different schemes for transmitting messages long distance. This telegraph shown here was the third such scheme and was invented in 1793. By 1852 the telegraph system covered most of the main cities in France, and was capable of sending a message vast distances in a very short time - Lille to Paris, for instance took 9 minutes under optimum conditions.

This semaphore seems to be in position 34: there is more about the code here.

Simon

Not Célestine!

but one of her aunts:

When we were at RetroMobile we noticed this, and took the best photo you could get that shows just how much legroom you get in the back of a Traction Avant. As I am not planning on taking Célestine's doors off anytime soon, you will have to be content with someone else's car.

This is the Traction Avant used in "Les Misérables", a 1995 update on the Victor Hugo classic set during World War 2, and starring Michel Boujenah.

Today we are off to Chambray les Tours. The part of that fine ville (and it is not a bad place once you get off the main road) we are going to is the stretch along the D910 lined with large hardware, kitchen, bathroom and car shops. On Wednesday we have the plumber coming to give us an estimate for the work we want done, so we will spend today looking for the actual bathroom fittings we will get him to fit. We have changed our plan again, so it means a whole new devis.

I am not expecting to actually enjoy the day, but it could be "interesting".

Simon

Hello Again, Winter

It was a bit cool yesterday

Not those brain freezing, sub-zero temperatures we had in early January, but on and off sleet, a bit of a breeze, and the sun coming out almost long enough for a bloke to get his boots on and get outside. As it was, the sun would come out, I would put my boots on, and get outside just in time for the next squall of rainy sleety blowy stuff to arrive.

You don't need more photos of bad weather: This is the
garden of the Hôtel de La Rallière, Preuilly's second chateau.

Because it was wet I felt disinclined to finish the task I had set myself: screwing the garage's brick wall to its new frame. The job is half completed, but I now have to put in the ties on the upper section of brick. This means putting up my échafaudage and using the electric destroyer to chase out the mortar between the bricks where the tie rods are going. This has to be done from outside, drilling in. Talking of chasing out mortar, I have learned something last week - bricks don't take to being hammer drilled with an SDS drill - they split. Rather, I have been using the SDS set just to drill for both chasing out the mortar and drilling the holes in the bricks, and it's worked fine.

The Hôtel de La Rallière was built in 1649, but never
properly completed. Until recently it was used as the
retirement home. These photos are from summer.

So instead, I tried to make our new web page (see right) work. It all looks good, but I can't get the contact page to work. After a lot of plumbing talk I decided that the problem lies with the host and not my sketchy programming skills. Therefore, it will have to wait until next week when the hosting service are back at work after the weekend.

All this techie talk - anyone would think I knew what I was on about...

Simon

The Things we do...

I was crouching in the gutter, next to a cluster of wheelie bins, trying to get an interesting angle, and checking the camera settings through the lens before taking the following photo, when a mother and her two children wandered by.

"Mummy - why is that man taking photos of rubbish?"

Simon

Catching a Train

One of the mysteries of France, and something I am sure puts off a lot of visitors to the country from travelling by train, is the apparent complexity of the system.

There are a couple of little tricks that make using the system easier, if not totally simple:

To find a train don't use the SNCF (French railways) site. For years now I have been using the German railways (DB) site because it is more forgiving: it finds stations if you don't know the exact name: for instance typing 'Charles de Galle' into a destination box will bring up both stations at Paris' busiest airport, the SNCF site may or may not according as to how well disposed towards you it is feeling. The DB site also gives you some bus and RER connections whereas the SNCF site doesn't.

A TGV at speed in the depths of winter.
300km/h all day every day. Amazing

Once I have found the train I want and noted its timings, I go to the SNCF site to book my ticket. This I do in French saying I am in France: doing that stops the site changing to a RailEurope site near you. (If you're in the USA, RailEurope doesn't have the two cheapest types of ticket, and if in the UK it doesn't do PREMS, which are the cheapest of all). If you buys a PREMS ticket you can print them at home (don't forget to carry photo ID that matches the name on the ticket when you're on the train).

Most TGVs from Tours actually call at Tours St Pierre des Corps
on their way to/from Bordeaux. To get to Tours St Pierre des Corps from Tours
Central you need to catch the Navette - a shuttle service which
takes about 5 minutes and leaves Tours Central 10 minutes before the TGV is due

If you buy any other sort of ticket you take your email receipt and the credit card you used to buy the tickets (a replacement won't do, it has to be the same card) into a station or ticket agency and collect your card tickets. You can do that either at a window or a machine.

I had fun last time we went to Paris: the machines you get your ticket printed at are touch-screen computers that react to heat when you touch them. Susan sent me off to collect the tickets (with credit card in hand, naturally) while she ordered coffee at the station café - and I was gone ages.

A ticket printing machine

The reason? My fingers were cold, so in between every press of the screen I was having to breath on them and rub them up and down my coat to warn them up. Trouble is, it was taking so long to warm my fingers up that the machine would keep timing out and going to the start page again. I finally managed it by rubbing the fingers of one hand while touching the screen with the fingers of the other, then changing hands once the computer realised I had touched the screen and presented another screen to be touched.

Dunno what that looked like from behind!

Anyhow: normally you touch to say you're collecting tickets and that you want them printed immediately, then you put your credit card into the machine, enter your PIN and voila - the tickets are printed.

Once you print the tickets, and just before you board the train, you have to stick them in the composter. Not what you think, this machine stamps the date, time and station name on the ticket.

A composting machine

I am not sure why, but it is an offence to not compost your tickets before you board. I assume this is a hangover from services which aren't all booked places, but you still have to do it, even on the TGV.

We enjoy travelling by train - even with the ultra slow bus service and a 50 minute wait in Tours, it is faster catching the bus/TGV combo from Preuilly to Paris than driving it. When you get Prems, it isn't any more expensive for the two of us either: €17 per person each way.

Simon

Moles - les Taupes

When we flew back from Australia on Air France / Air Korea codeshare in December I took the opportunity to watch a charming documentary in French about moles. The next morning I made notes to ensure I remembered all the fascinating information in the documentary.

Me writing notes on moles in a Paris café

We get moles in Preuilly, but I have never seen a live wild mole, only a dead one that had been killed by a fox. But evidence of moles is easy to spot and all around. Moles make molehills – mounds of freshly excavated dirt in groups and rows, telling you that the mole was active just there last night.

Molehills photographed yesterday at our orchard neighbour's

Mole in French is taupe (pronounced 'tohp') and their scientific name is Talpa europaea. A molehill in French is a taupinière. Moles are about 10-15cm long and weigh about 100g. They have cylindrical bodies and a lovely black pelt; eyes and ears are miniscule, but the feet have been transformed into shovels! Surprisingly, they can swim quite well, although the large front paws do seem to go round like out of control paddles on a waterwheel. Gardeners find them quite frustrating as they mess up lawns and undermine plants. If you can live with this though they do more good than harm in the garden, aerating the soil and eating the larvae of insect pests. They are notoriously difficult to discourage from the garden or to kill. If gas is pumped down a molehill the mole simply turns away from the gas and blocks the tunnel with its fat little rump.

Moles are common almost everywhere in France, but they are seldom seen because they spend almost their entire lives in their underground gallery system of tunnels, hunting worms and grubs. They are adapted to the low oxygen in the tunnels in a similar way to high altitude animals like llamas. Even so, the air circulation in the tunnel systems is measurable and is considered remarkable by the researchers who undertook the study.

Moles come to the surface to collect leaves and grass to line their nests, and are very vulnerable when they do so, mainly from foxes and cats. In dry summers their main prey, earthworms, go dormant (a condition known as estivation - the summer equivalent of hibernation). The moles are then obliged to surface and chase insects. These outings are exclusively nocturnal, but if you are in the right place at the right time, with a torch, you might just see a live mole bustling across your lawn.

Susan

Retromobile 2

One of the smaller, less glamorous vehicles we saw at Retromobile was a Peugeot "Triporteur".

Our jardin/potager is about 600 metres away from the house, just a far enough distance that if we have to take any larger tools with us we have to take the car. What we really need is one of these:

There were two triporteur at the show: this
one was maybe more "authentic"

I say we, of course what I mean is that Susan needs one. I would buy it for her as a present. Any suggestion it would be a bloke style present will be strenuously denied.

Simon

The Garage Wall

I wrote about Alex demolishing and rebuilding a block side wall of the garage that was in immediate danger of collapsing (which it proceeded to do while he was demolishing something else). What I didn't mention was the front brick wall of the garage, and there is a good reason for that: we didn't know there was anything wrong with it.

Last year I wrote about our quest for an extendable clothesline of the sort you buy in Australia. When we were in Australia last year I managed to buy one that fitted into my suitcase (more by luck than management) and we brought it home. When we were deciding on where to place the line (we had two options) I made a startling discovery.

The front wall of our garage is brick. Our preferred option for mounting the clothesline is to bolt it to the brickwork above the old laundry tub, and to have the line extend east-west across the garden. When testing the brick I pushed against it - and it moved!

The bricks are just an infill curtain wall, not tied into the frame of the garage: literally, they are just a single thickness of bricks stacked up on top of each other with a small amount of mortar holding them together. This is a worry, because not only would the wall be unsuitable for mounting an extending line on, but the bricks looked like they could collapse, bringing down the sliding garage door and endangering Célestine in the process.

We could have taken down the bricks and rebuilt the wall properly with parpaing, tying the new blockwork into the wooden frame, but this would have meant having to deal with the garage door and its mounting, which could have been quite tricky as the garage door weighs an awful lot.

Instead, we had Alex build a wooden frame, to which we will tie the brickwork. The frame is in place, and my next task is to find some metal ties we can push through the mortar joints in the brickwork and screw into place.

At the moment I am having trouble finding the metal tie strips. We can buy some which are too short to push through the wall and screw to the frame, which is my preferred option. I am sure I have seen something like a perforated metal strip that comes in a big roll and you cut to length, but I have no idea of the English term for it - and even less of the French!!


Next week I will venture to some of the larger Brico stores and have a rummage: I also need to buy a steel post for mounting the other end of the line onto.

Simon

Events in and around Preuilly for February 2010

Foire au Safran: Preuilly's saffron fair is the third Saturday of February, which this year is the 20th. We have been the last three years and reported on it here and here. One of the highlights is the special dinner put on by the Hotel l'Image. My post about the saffron harvest is here.

Snowdrops are one of the early flowers to look
forward to in February.

Concert Musique: Pianists Akiko Ebi and Jay Gottlieb will be performing at the Nouveau Theâtre de Châtellerault on Monday 22 February. The concert has been organised by Laurie Clement and starts at 20:30. Tickets are €18 and available from the Office de Tourisme Châtellerault.

February days can be cold, damp and misty as this one was...

Crane Migration: The big wildlife event for February is the return of the Common Cranes Grus grus (la grue cendrée in French) from their warm southern wintering grounds in Spain, Portugal and south-western France. They fly up through France to lakes on the French-German border, then on to Scandinavia and the Baltic, snaking through the sky in great V-formations, sometimes just half a dozen of them, sometimes thousands at a time. Sometimes they fly at night, or so high you can't see them with the naked eye, but while they fly they vocalise with harsh cawing sounds to keep in touch with one another. It's this sound that many people in France look forward to every year as a true harbinger of spring coming. Sadly, not many cranes to fly directly over Preuilly, but you don't have to travel very far to have a chance of witnessing the spectacle. The cranes can be tracked on the Ligue pour le Protection des Oiseaux site, as they receive dozens of reports throughout the migration from professional and amateur crane spotters stationed at strategic locations.

...or brilliantly sunny.

And for a reminder of what we were doing last February, you can read the story of Simon rebuilding the bathroom floor and Pascal repairing our burst water pipes.

Susan