'Til The Cows Come Home.....

We have seen some funny sights while we have been here - one of the funniest though, was when Craig got up quite early one morning, and sat having a cup of coffee looking out of the kitchen window. He saw some cows walking past the house ! Not TOO strange you may say, as we live in the country, and the farmers do move the cows from field to field on a regular basis - BUT at 6.30 in the morning, ten cows with nobody around ?? Apparently, the cows had escaped, and been wandering about all night - a neighbour had seen them through her window, and thought she was dreaming. Another neighbour had all his vegetables trampled and eaten. Luckily, we suffered no damage on this occasion, but it is still a talking point, two years later !

After over a year here, with the London Olympics just around the corner, Craig promised that we would have a television set up ready to watch them. We had managed up until this point with just DVD's, and watching the odd programme on IPlayer, with the radio via the Internet, but the day the satellite dish was connected, was MOMENTOUS ! It took some getting used to, but to see the English news etc, and of course to watch the historic Olympic Games - as promised - was great. We rely very much on the English TV as a way to relax at the end of the day. I know that we should watch the French TV programmes to consolidate the language skills, but as a form of relaxation, no. It makes us feel more in touch with home and family too, in a strange way.

In order to create a new ceiling for our bedroom upstairs, and a new floor for the top floor, we needed to remove the rotten joists - a huge, dirty, time consuming job ! As we were living here, we had to make sure that we cleaned up as we went along too, and to keep safe, Craig wanted to remove a couple at a time, and replace with new ones as we went along. The house wouldn't have stayed stable if we had removed all of them in one go. We assumed that if we cut one in the middle, or into three pieces, we could pull it out of the wall easier, but it turned out that there was a ring beam, and each cross beam was jointed into the ring. Eventually Craig had to cut each one in three as planned, and then cut away at the wall too. They were incredibly heavy, and to be balanced up a ladder taking the weight, of even a third of a beam was no picnic, I can tell you !

Once down, each one had to be taken downstairs and burnt, and we did have a friend who used some for their heating ! Then, of course, we had to get the new joists, in one piece back up, through the window, and then up onto the joist hangers.

What an achievement ! What bruises I had too - I bruise quite easily, and I had bruises on my upper arms where I had the beams balanced on them - they were quite impressive, and didn't hurt as much as they looked as though they should ! The house was starting to take shape - next step, plaster boarding the ceiling...

and then studding, pulling the electric cables and plaster boarding the walls ....

We were under a little pressure at this point, and we had three visitors due so needed to have extra sleeping space available for our guests.

We're a two staircase family - well for a day anyway !

The next main job for us now, was to be the installation of a new staircase, and of course the subsequent removal of the old one.

Our original plan was to keep the old staircase, and renovate/restore it, but sadly it was beyond help. It was a shame as the workmanship involved in its structure was superb, but the neglect it had suffered over the years had contributed to its downfall.

We  asked for a quotation from a company to replace 'like for like', but sadly this cost came in out of our reach, so we sat and thought about the changes for a while before deciding to move the position of the stairs completely, and redesign the layout of the two rooms involved.

Once a decision was made, we shopped around, and bought a new straight staircase with a small turn at the bottom. Craig had to install extra supports and joists to strengthen the existing walls, and of course, the new one had to be fitted before the old one came out, otherwise we would have been climbing a ladder to go to the loo ! It wasn't an easy job - it was very heavy and very awkward....but we did it !

Arthur was very unsure about it. He'd got used to running up and down the old set with no problems, so we blocked off the old set, and carried him upstairs. Then put him down, and came down the stairs. He spent a few minutes running around the edge, crying, before realizing that he could come down as well, and now he runs up and down with no problems.

Next...the old staircase had to come out. We had help from some friends, and in fact it took longer to clear the mess up afterwards, than it did to remove it. The dust was awful - years of rot, mud, dust, cobwebs etc - you can imagine. BUT it was done ! The space looked weird, and the wall looked horrible, but we could see through that, and imagine what a great space for a study/office this would eventually be.

One day, I spotted an advert for staff needed at a local restaurant, and decided with trepidation to apply for a position. It was run by a lovely English couple who have since become good friends, and although very small, served customers of varying nationalities, lunchtimes and evenings. I was lucky enough to get a job there, and it gave me the opportunity to practise my new language skills. I had never really done this sort of work before, but it was good for me and my confidence. The disappointing side to it, was that I was only needed 'as and when' - if they were very busy, or if one of the owners was away, so it wasn't as regular as I would have liked - or as regular as they would have liked as well !!

All this work continued, and at the same time, we extended our animal stock. We bought two Gloucester Old Spot female piglets (not to be named ), and a dozen day old chicks (to be brought on, fattened and....). 

We buy the chicks locally, and what amazes us, is that you can ask for all the same sex - in our case, we ask for males, as they grow bigger. How on earth can anyone sex a day old chick ??? They are so cute at this age. We keep them in an enclosed pen that Craig has made, with a heat lamp to keep them warm. After a couple of weeks, we start to wean them off the lamp, and eventually we move them outside, but more of that another time. Arthur loves to watch them at this stage - we obviously never let him be with them alone, and its the same with the rabbits and other birds, but we could leave him secured all day with them just to sit and watch - we don't, of course, but always laugh that he'd be more than happy !

Wow - Electric Lights....

When I travel back to the UK, as I have on a few occasions on my own, I think it accentuates the fact that we are relatively isolated here. The house is on a road, we have a couple of neighbours, and the odd car and several tractors passing each day - but, it can be lonely too. The positive side of that is, when I am away, Craig is very proactive, so that the time passes quicker. I come back and find all sorts of things have been started and/or completed, and its exciting to guess what is going to have changed !

Craig managed to get electricity into the sheds opposite one time while I was away - well nearly, as I had to help with the last push. There was a water pipe going under the road from an outside tap, so he isolated that, and pushed the cable through the old pipe - it worked ! This means that now, we can use electricity for tools, and for security reasons too. That was a surprise when I came back from a trip away - and a bonus, as at one point we thought we'd either have no electric there, or have to pay to have it connected.

While we were working on the electricity, we decided to fit the lights for the kitchen. Like every job here, it takes longer to prepare and clean up than to do the actual job. This was no exception, as we needed to work from the upstairs floor....

...and as you can see, it is not easy to store 'stuff' and move everything around to work. Arthur likes to 'help' if he can.......

While we were working like this, we decided to knock the 'wall' down upstairs - what a mess. Everything had to be burnt, as it was so rotten - sadly nothing could be reused or recycled.

One day, after a trip to the Builders Merchants, we had a visit from our neighbour to say that they had seen a fox take one of our chickens....we were devasted, and spent a good while searching the area for any evidence. Several hours later, Craig went to put the animals away, and the chicken was sitting by gate trying to get in. She was bedraggled, bloodied and had a few feathers missing - but she was there. She'd escaped from the fox, and found her way home - what luck - she was to be called Lucky from then on....she even laid an egg the next day ! We had several days keeping a look out for the crafty fox, and actually spotting it a couple of times too, eventually catching it, to keep our little chickens safe.

We started to have a few problems with the sheep - the 'orphan' lamb would run to us when we went to feed her, and decided to jump the fence to find us on occasions. Once she did this, of course, the other sheep would follow her, and this caused us a lot of problems - we were nervous about leaving them, and had to sort the fencing out so that they couldn't get out - it felt quite a responsibility. 'Lara' became a right pain to be fair, and we now knew why people laughed when we proudly told them that we were bottle feeding a lamb. I now know that I wouldn't take on an orphan like that again  - however cute they are !!!