Sometimes life gets in the way, sometimes family, work, animals makes the things you want to do most difficult, but as long as we hold onto those dreams and we dont give up, we will get there in the end.
Some of you may already know that we own a house in France, we signed for it the day before my birthday in 2007, the first couple of years we got out there 3 or 4 times a year and we made a good start on doing the place up. However those "things"got in the way for a while and we didn't get to go out to the house for the next 3 and a half years, it therefore was left empty, shuttered up and alone for all that time.
This year we were determined not to leave it any longer and by hook or by crook we were going out, so I didn't schedule any events and Mark booked the time off. We were very apprehensive about our return and what we would find, there are some major jobs like the roof that need work and with the weather we have had we didn't know what we would find.
So on the Friday 30th May we travelled to France on an overnight ferry, a very pleasant smooth trip - always a vantage as I get terrible sea sick ness and we have travelled over in all sorts of extremes in the past!
After a 2 hour drive we arrived at the house, and was pleasantly surprised!
Our neighbour had very kindly run his lawn mower over the grass, so we could see straight away it was just surface overgrowth, the "patio" (which is actually just tarmac - horrid it will go eventually) was covered in about 3" of moss and weeds, the hedge had grown a couple of meters wider and some of it was getting into the porch, the vegetable patch and the kitchen garden were overgrown with 3 years of willow re-generation and we had 6 apple trees that had sustained some damage, but as they were cider apples we weren't going to be keeping them anyway so weren't too upset.
Inside was not as bad either, the kitchen was a bit mouldeir than before (to be honest because we hated the glossy paintwork and intended to strip it off I hadn't cleaned it to an inch of its life before anyway), the lounge looked no different, but the bedrooms and the bathroom and toilet, especially the larger bedroom are mouldy and unfortunatley because we used a plaster called crepie and emulsion paint it was not as easy to wipe off as it was on the glossy paint in the kitchen, so we have learnt a lesson there, the paint in the kitchen is not so horrid and is what the whole house needs to be painted in! The large bedroom also has some cracks that have re-opened after we filled them so there is obviously an underlying problem there, but it is only on the inside wall not the outside.
So after the initial shock and relief, it was a case of "right, where shall we start?" so I rolled up my sleeves and put on a pair of rubber gloves and Mark got his loppers out, by Sunday afternoon, I had cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom, ceilings, walls, cupboards and everything inside the cupboards, the bathrooms and lounge were cleaned and Mark had cleared the kitchen garden and made good progress on the vegetable patch.
We then took it a little easier for the rest of the week, working our way around. I cleaned the laundry room, which had had a cheeky mouse in it, I think it must of got in an exposed plug socket, munched its way thru my supply of green manure seeds and then died in the corner as there was an undistinguishable wet patch in the corner! I then worked in the middle bedroom, this one only has a bit of mould on the ceiling, so isn't so bad, so once that was cleaned, I cleaned all the furniture from the big bedroom and put it in, so that the larger problem bedroom was empty. In this room I just cleaned all the painted woodwork and gave the floor a clean, but I couldn't do much with the ceiling and walls in the time I had, so we have left the shutters open to see if the sun can dry some of it out.
As the neighbouring farmer grazes the field for us, we didn't need to worry about the grass in there and they were making good use of the source. The orchard is a big mat of years of grass growth, but that will be nothing that a group of piglets cant sort out when the time comes.
In the meantime, Mark had been strimming and spraying the drive, cutting down the apple trees and clearing the vegetable patch. We had a wet day on Wednesday so Mark painted the front door, while I experimented with the glycerine paint we would be now using, on one of the kitchen walls, it was very weird painting gloss on the walls! We have done it in an off white which is so much better than the nictotine yellow it is now.
I also scraped off all the moss and weeds from the driveway and I painted the bathroom, toilet and lounge windows. We needed somewhere to put all the moss, weeds and scaped off grass cuttings, so Mark made a willow compost basket, which I dutifully filled. And we stacked all the logs from the apple trees in one of the sheds.
All in all it was a full on exhausting week, but now you wouldn't know it had been empty for so long as it looks like it did when we left. We wont leave it that long again!
We had a very enjoyable evening at our neighbours, who welcomed us back with open arms and were so glad we hadn't decided to sell and give up, so are we! Some things are worth hanging on to.
We were sad as always to have to lock up again at the end of the week, but we are already planning our return in August and have a list of things we want to achieve and then again in October. Next year the roof will be done.
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