Future Proofing

Another week goes by without much progress. No change there, I hear you say, but we did have a friend Anna come to stay for a few days, and so we tried to keep her entertained. We went walking most days she was here, and one went to Mont Dore for lunch one day, after we saw that they had some snow there. Mont Dore is about 2 and a half hours away, and is the highest peak in the Massif Centrale. The snow has been poor this year, like most of Europe, but is is still nice to visit.

Henry, our kitten disgraced himself when Anna was here. One evening, we could hear a lot of banging coming from Anna's room, and I said, joking, "If you go up there and find your underwear all over the room, it's not me, it's the cat".

Ten minutes later, Anna went upstairs and found one of her bra's on the landing, and with a trail of underwear across the bedroom. We now have a panty raider in the house!

On the house front I have run the TV cables through to the new living room, which is where the idea of future proofing comes in. One TV cable just doesn't do it these days.

I have put in two cables for satellite, in case we ever get a system like SkyPlus, with another co-axial cable for ordinary French TV. French TV is going digital in the next few years, and there are a lot of companies offering TV via your telephone, so I also put in an extra telephone cable as well. I think we will also need a distribution box in the loft to network all of this together. I have seen a few Grand Designs where the houses have more cables than the IT department at the Banque de Cheval Noir where I used to work, but we're not going that mad. It will just be good to have the house wired up so that we can have music piped through the house, or so that I can drive Tina mad by watching Match of the Day in bed on a Sunday morning.

Back to repointing this morning, and I have knackered my shoulder digging out some concrete with my SDS drill, while Tina is now fearlessly going up and down the scaffold, finishing off the rest of the wall.

A bientot

More Stuff About Moles !

When 'Diggers' failed to produce the goods in our battle against the short sighted beasties, we took the matter into our own hands.

We tried setting the traps at various points of the garden, but to no avail. On our next visit, we tried a new strategy of deterrent, and bought an ultra-high frequency spike, which was supposed to blast them out with white noise. However, when we returned one month later it was worse than ever.

I had a chat with our neighbour Thiery, a sheep farmer who knows all. When I showed him the spike he said ' Pour le taupe, c'est comme le musique' ( it's like music to the moles) and he then proceeded to disco dance in our garden, by way of a demonstration. He then explained how moles are normally active between 7 and 8 am, noon till one and 5 till 6 at night ( although I'm not sure what they do when the clocks go back) .

When we returned a few months later in the new year, the moles had mysteriously gone. We thought perhaps they were hibernating, or gone on holiday, but either way, they were gone!
The next day, the mystery was solved. Thiery popped over and told us what had actually happened. When he had a bit of time on his hands, when his sheep were penned up for the winter, he had sat in our garden with his shotgun, waited for a molehill to start, and then blasted it!

If in doubt, Nuke 'em!

This kept them under control for a while, but this year they have returned "DIG HARD WITH A VENGANCE"!

I have seen the future - Dry Lining

We have made better progress this week, and I have reached the length of the room with the new, dry lined ceiling.

Although the roof has been insulated already, with a multi layered foil, we decided that you can never have enough insulation ( saving the planet) so we have opted for insulated plasterboard for the ceiling. This is formed of a slightly thinner plasterboard sheet ( 10mm) with a slab of polystyrene( 40mm ) on the back. It is no heavier than ordinary plasterboard, and is easier to work with as the insulation gives it more strength. It even bounces if you drop it off the top of a ladder !

It takes a while to fit , as none of the joists are straight, so you have to take a lot of measurements, and then take it up the ladder to try and squeeze it in. Typically I've had to do this five our six times for each sheet. Some of the older joists are round, so you have to try to remember to measure the gap 50 mm out, where the surface of the plasterboard will be rather than measuring the roof slats.

Another complication, is that you can only get 70mm screws, which are hard to screw into the roof slats, so you have to screw a few in to hold the sheet, then take them all out one by one, drill a guide hole and screw them back again.

The shorter sheets in the back of this photo are the result of a top tip from my friendly builder Mr H, who always fits the sheets a width at a time, rather than trying to go from perlin to perlin like I was doing. This method ensures that you have a bevelled edge on each side of a joint which should, in theory, give you a smoother, and invisible joint. We will see!

A Bit of a Mistake

Since we got Fabrice, we have both been under the weather, very stressed out and ill. Tina hasn't had a good nights kip in a week, worrying about the dog.

We have tried, but it really does seem that we are not dog people after all. Tina is better than I am, I get nervous when he gets nibbely, but we just can't relax with him around. People say that a young dog is like looking after a child, and you all know what we think about kids!

The sad thing is that Fabrice is a very good natured dog. He gets a bit excited some times, and jumps up at you and can nip, but I'm sure that you could quickly train him out of that. Other than that, he has his bed under the table on the patio, and sleeps there quite happily through the night. That's why we're sure that it's not him, it's us (me in particular).

Luckily for us, some new friends lost one of their dogs to cancer last year, and after a lot of thought, have decided to take on Fabrice as company for Hatti, their Labrador bitch.

I know it must seem like a bit of a cop out, but we think he will be much better off, as they have had dogs for years, and will be able to train him properly, and he will have Hatti to play with.

Fabrice will be moving on on Wednesday, but he will only be a few miles away, so we can see how he is getting on.

UPDATE !

We took Fabrice of to his new home on Wednesday, and he settled in straight away. He was soon playing with Hatti, running off into the garden with either end of a plastic bag in their mouths, like Lady and the Tramp but with rubbish!

He settled in well, and that night he slept on his blanket in Andrew and Suzie's bedroom. Much nicer than under our table, but hard on Andrew and Suzie, 'cause he snores!

PS He is not called Fabrice anymore, as Andrew prefers the name Boogey, although I think they should call him Eric, as he is sharing a house with Hatti. Also , if they got another dog, they could call it PC Corkey! Younger readers check out the link below.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/s/sykes_7776125.shtml

Planning Permission for a Dog!

We went to the Marie's (Mayor) office last week to ask about the paperwork to get planning permission for a swimming pool in the garden. Fairly straightforward you might think, but not so.

The last time we had been into see the Marie, we were trying to trace the owner of a stray dog that we had managed to get hold of. He was a hunting dog and looked as if he had been lost for a few weeks. He was very thin and mangy but he was good tempered, probably just because we were feeding him. The mayor took him away, and tried ringing round the local hunts, but had no luck, and the dog was sent to the local refuge. We uhmed and ahhed about whether or not to keep him, but decided in the end that his was a bit to old for us.







(Stray dog number one)

So this time, no sooner had we been given the planning form when the Marie asked if we still wanted a dog, as he had another lost dog for us to look at. We went to see him that afternoon and he was a bit of a cutey, and had Tina won over straight away, so said we would wait for a few days, in case someone claimed him. Before you get the wrong idea about the French, I checked with the Marie, and it's not normal for him to find abandoned dogs, let alone two in a month!

(Stray dog number two)

We picked him up yesterday.


His name is Fabrice, and the Marie's daughter thinks he might be a 'Chien Allemande' cross (German Pincer) . We think he is about six months old, but we are taking him to the vets today to see what they think, and to hand over another large cheque!

Update

He was very well behaved in the vets, until they called us into the surgery room, when he wouldn't move and had to be dragged in. Once inside he was fine.

He didn't have a chip, so we he is now ours! He has been chipped, and started his jabs with no complaints, although we did fear that he had had a dump in the boot on the way home. Luckily it was jus our first 'in car dog fart'.