Corrèze in confinement

Just two weeks after writing my last post France went into confinement for the second time, scheduled to last for the month of November. Only essential shops and services were open and once again we were limited to one hour a day exercise and no more than a kilometre from home. It's fair to say we found it harder than the first one. In March there was an optimism, summer round the corner and the fact that many of these types of virus tend to peter out during warm weather. Covid-19 is more tenacious than most and it didn't disappear.

The view from the barn is ever changing

We have been blessed with some beautiful weather though. Crisp days with bountiful sunshine and hardly any rain. We were also allowed to travel in a car together and unlike first time round the DIY shops were deemed as essential so we could get supplies. The focus on the restoration has been on plumbing (Andrew) and window renovation (me). We both despair of the T.V programmes where everything seems to get done in a couple of months, in reality it's not like that. True we don't put in 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week but most days we are doing something renovation related. I think it's just that the scale of this project is really quite large. When we bought the Old Notaires House it was really a first floor 3 bedroom apartment with one bathroom, minuscule kitchen with an entrance hall, summer kitchen (room with carpet up the walls & a sink!) and offices on the ground floor. We've knocked the four offices into two large spaces which will become the kitchen and our suite (a.k.a. the servants quarters), the garage will also house a utility area and loo with the summer kitchen becoming a guest dining room. Upstairs two bedrooms have been combined to make one large bedroom with bathroom and a second bedroom has been fashioned from the old kitchen, a corridor and a loo. The third bedroom has had its entrance changed and the old bathroom (which was bigger than the kitchen) has become two en-suites. And we've managed to squeeze an office in too. So when I say Andrew is re-doing the plumbing it's not a case of simply replacing the pipes and a new shower.

The only loo is rather exposed at the moment

One of the joys of renovating an old house is being able to re-use original items. I'm working in the entrance hall at the moment which is the oldest part of the house, originally two rooms downstairs and we think one upstairs. It has two windows but we think one opening is newer than the other as they both have different fittings. I spent a happy few hours getting the layers of old paint and varnish off, then polishing with my trusty Dremel before a light wax. We really love the slightly industrial feel the polished steel has.

Refurbishing

Once again we explored footpaths around our village to give us more variety of walks but it was a relief when President Macron said that we could exercise for three hours a day and up to 20 kilometres from home. We bundled Mortimer into the car and headed for one of our favourite destinations - Château de Sédières.  It's such a beautiful place to walk and it was a perfect autumn day.

Château de Sédières

We've been taking quite a lot of time with planning too. Although I had done concept boards for the bedrooms, I hadn't for the kitchen neither had I actually selected specific paint colours for rooms. I needed to get this sorted as radiators off walls gives me an ideal opportunity to paint behind them. A lot of negatives things are said about French paint but I do like Leroy Merlin's own brand Luxens and I've also just discovered that Liberon do a wall paint which is very similar to Farrow & Ball. Colours here can be quite, how can I say, primary and I want some subtlety so I ordered a RAL colour swatch so I can get some paint mixed. RAL is a European colour match system and at most paint mixing outlets you can specify one of the unique number and know that the colour is true. This system is so common in France that you will see a lot of pre-mixed paint tins with a RAL number alongside the colour names.

Kitchen concept board

My RAL swatches

Despite social media being full of images of people's Christmas decorations I have resisted being early. I just can't do it in November but will probably be a little earlier than my usual mid-December. I've also had to wait for the non-essential shops to open (particularly Emmaüs) as my Christmas decorations are buried somewhere under packing cases and it's too much effort to hunt them down. Inspired by an on-line video workshop I did on the subject of 'A winter table' I may take the opportunity of going for a more natural look this year. Watch this space!

Christmas is now just three weeks off and we will give ourselves a break from physical work for a week, that's not to say we won't be doing something. I need to re-cap on furniture requirements and we really need to nail the kitchen plans down and maybe even order it. I'm really hoping that we can see friends properly instead of doorstep conversations and chance dog-walking meets, after all we have a very large Christmas cake to share. Oh and I'm doing another online workshop this weekend baking two sorts of Italian biscuits. It's one where we bake as the we go but I'm definitely going to turn the camera off, no-one deserves to see the mess I'll be making!

I'm really hoping to show you some lovely progress shots soon but meanwhile if you would like to see what life in France is really like then feel free to follow/friend us here on FaceBook or on Instagram

Slow living in France

I'm often asked why did we chose to live in France? The answer is not simple, so many reasons really. For inveterate house restorers like us France gives the opportunity to buy beautiful buildings in stunning locations. The food was a major draw - who can resist a French market? The people are delightful and have taught us so much, but above all it was the opportunity to try and live more slowly that made us want to move here.

Regular readers will know that I've touched on slow living before. It started in Italy during the 1980's as the Slow food movement, promoting an alternative to fast food with the emphasis on preserving traditional and regional cuisine. Since then it's developed to embrace a slower way of living but that doesn’t mean doing everything at a snail's pace but rather defining what is important to you, concentrating on that. It's doing things at the right speed, treading gently instead of charging about. It's not an easy thing to achieve, habits formed from decades of living a hurried life are hard to lose. So how are we trying to make it work for us?

Andrew and I like to do things together, it's just how we are, and sometimes that means getting up just a little bit earlier to achieve this. We still set a working week so Monday to Friday I'm usually up at 6 ish so we can breakfast and walk Mortimer together. Sitting at a table for meals, all meals, is really important to us, as is setting it properly. Friends know I have a bit of a table linen obsession so even weekday breakfasts involve a laid table with the requisite napkins.

Set for breakfast

Our renovation project is big, and we really want to be open for business next year. We would achieve more if one of us leapt straight into action while the other walked Mortimer but we rarely do. For us, the morning dog walk is important, we get a chance to breathe before the day really starts and we get time to observe our surroundings. The Santiago de Compostela route goes through Corrèze and most days we walk some of it, reflecting on the centuries of pilgrims who have trod these paths.

Santiago de Compostela route

Hydrangeas in the village

The village is full of hydrangeas, I hadn’t realised quite how varied in colour they were all before and capturing the different varieties has become a morning challenge. It’s this awareness of where we are that makes us really appreciate the life we have here.

Once we’re back home we sit and have a coffee before work, no rushing to start. We always break for lunch and it's usually for an hour. Our finish time will vary depending on the tasks we've been doing, if one of us wants to get something completed then occasionally it's a solo dog walk but that's not often. The evening walk is a good time to reflect on what we've achieved and our plans for the following day. If we stop and have a chat with friends, or share a bottle of wine with them well, does it really matter that much if supper is delayed by 20 minutes?

Talking of supper it’s quite often a joint effort. I defy anyone not to be inspired by French food shopping. We both find cooking relaxing and like to try out new recipes. These are usually not overly complicated, spending hours in the kitchen type of dishes, but trying out a different way of cooking with familiar ingredients. We're now coming into peak soft fruit season so I've started jam making again. Our local shop had 5 kilos of apricots for 8 euros last week - that was a lot of jam! It's certainly something that can't be rushed.

Moving to France and the changes we have made meant we could lose a car, we only need one now and if I'm honest we can go a week without using it (longer if I didn't insist on Emmaüs runs!) We chose to live in a village with shops and amenities that we can walk to, it certainly made life under lockdown easier. Our supermarket shop is fortnightly and we buy fresh food locally. We try to be more organised so that when we do go out in the car we do several things in a journey rather than a lot of mini-trips. I feel quite guilty when I remember how in the U.K. I used to get the car out just to buy a couple of rolls for lunch.

We're not perfect at this, we still get stressed when we try and pack too much in a day but we're learning to relax more. We still have goals to achieve, we still have to work hard but sitting down  enjoying a cup of coffee together isn't really going to make much difference to the schedule but it certainly makes a difference to our wellbeing.

If you would like to enjoy snippets of our slow life in Corrèze then feel free to follow/friend us here on Facebook or on Instagram

A special spot on the Corrèze

So what happened to May?

For the life of me I can't understand where May went! I know, I know, I'm getting older and so the years seem to shrink but it's getting a tad ridiculous. Last time I posted it was the 3rd of the month and tomorrow it's June. It's not as though we've been gadding about. French lockdown restrictions have been eased, and will do a little more from Tuesday but even so. I've had to have a look at my photographs to see what we've done this month. So here we have a pictorial record of May 2020 at The Old Notaires House.

It was the month that I noticed the bearded iris around the village. I had never really spotted them before, maybe it's been a particularly good year but some of them have been stunning.

After the rain

This has to be my favourite, such beautiful faded colours

Before we were allowed to stray more than a kilometre from home we were still exploring new paths around the village and we forged a new route. At one junction was this seemingly ancient stone cross marking the Saint Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage route. I know I've mentioned before that the Rocamadour path goes through our village and there are several examples of the cockle shell on ancient buildings.

Cross of St Jacques de Compostelloe

We also found this old wood shed. I can't resist an old building -  barns, sheds, old doors are a magnet to me. In a roundabout way this led me to artist Sharon McDonagh who paints on the subject of decay and also 'urbex'. Urbex stands for Urban Explorers, people who go out in their urban environments photographing old and abandoned buildings. If you have Instagram do a search for Urbex, there are some amazing photographs.

Old shed

Making the most of our new freedoms we went dog walking a couple of times at Château Sédières, a favourite of both us and Mortimer. We need to go back soon as the water lilies are just about to flower.

Never one to miss an opportunity to paddle

Château Sédières

Work on the house has been going well. Andrew is ploughing on with the new electrics. Nothing had really changed since electricity came to the house in 1959 but because we are redefining spaces it needs a complete re-design of the system. It also means 101 decisions and I need to be confident that the furniture will remain where I've designed it, sockets stay in place and the lighting works. With metre thick granite walls it's not an easy task to add a power socket. I've been continuing the window restorations and will be doing so for quite a while as there are still eleven to go.

One of many that need refurbishment

Poor Andrew spends a lot of time chiselling out the old granite walls for cables. It's tough work.

We have been having some fun too. The brocantes are slowly starting to open and we've purchased some vintage lighting and some art. The weather has been beautiful, really quite warm for May with several days at 30 degrees. This is the first year of the barn terrace so I was able to get out the table we found at the end of last year and we added a large sunshade. It's now a rather pleasant spot to enjoy a coffee or evening apéros while we watch village life.

This one is for the garden guest suite

We needed to try this one out for size and fortunately it's perfect for the new dining room

And of course we've both had haircuts which was such a relief, if not a slightly bizarre experience.

Haircut in a bin bag and a mask

Slowly the village is coming into summer mode, fishing is now allowed and this is a favourite spot just by the chapel.

Fishing in the River Corrèze

And of course the markets are back and we are enjoying the most wonderful vegetables.

Woodland asparagus

So that was May. I will try really hard to not leave it quite so long until the next blog post. If you want to know what's happening on a slightly more regular basis then we'd be delighted to see you here on Facebook or have a look at our Instagram squares

Living the dream?

Living the dream. It's not a phrase I particularly like although it's been said to us regularly, especially in the early months of our life in France. Yes, I had been plotting and planning a move to France for quite a few years but my dream of French life was far from reality! My 'idyllic French life' was a strategy I developed to help me fall asleep when the demons arrived in the night and kept me awake. My perfect French house had a courtyard out front with a leafy tree providing shelter over a rustic table, the site of long lunches. Originally this tree was a fig but, even in the middle of the night, I realised that wasps feasting on squashed fruit was not conducive to a relaxed meal so I swapped it in for a walnut. The house itself was double fronted with a beautiful door. The hall had terracotta tiles, on the left was a country kitchen and to the right a comfortable sitting room with soft, squidgy sofas. It was all planned.

Maybe one day...

I didn't stop with the house. Oh no! In my French dream I wore silk and linen in the summer, cashmere and velvet in the winter. We ran a small, stylish and highly successful bed and breakfast where we were complimented on our hospitality.

Beginning to see where I'm going with this? Regular readers of our blog may have an inkling that 'living the dream' isn't quite like this, maybe you would like to share a week of it with me?

The week kicked off last Sunday with a fairly late breakfast (it's the one day we don't have an early start). The downside is I get a little twitchy as to what may be left at the boulangerie if I don't get there before 8.30 a.m. Sunday is also the day we take Mortimer on a long walk but it was chucking it down with rain so this idea was swiftly quashed. Andrew sat at his desk planning the electrical runs for the house restoration and after I had finished the ironing I got the household and restoration accounts up to date.

Monday we arrived back home after the morning dog walk to find our roofer in the drive, an unexpected sight. Our roof is beautiful but with old slates and zinc flashings. It's fine as long as we keep it maintained, which we do, and our next bout of work was to replace the flashings and ridge (it's one of the few jobs Andrew won't do and I really don't blame him). This curtailed Andrew's plan of starting on the new steps leading up to the kitchen, which have to be done before the new doors are installed.

Starting the steps

My role for the week was to start chipping out the old mortar in the hall and dining room. When we bought The Old Notaire's House both these rooms were plastered but had damp problems which the previous owners 'fixes' had not solved. In the dining room (which was the old summer kitchen) cement had been put a metre or so up the wall and then this was covered with carpet. The hall had a metal backed paper put to the same height and then wallpapered over. Both 'solutions' merely caused the water to be pushed further up the walls.

Chiselling out the old mortar

The damp has/is caused by soil being piled too high against the outside walls plus drainpipes that don't discharge away from the house. These two issues are fairly easy to resolve and we've also decided that if we take the walls back to the granite stones and repoint, they will have chance to breathe as well. Needless to say this very dirty job does not involve cashmere and velvet!

One of the causes of our damp

I have had an able bodied assistant for a couple of days who has also been involved in some roof work as well. It was decided that we needed to replace the existing satellite dish and T.V. aerial. If I'm honest this has all passed me by, we haven't owned a television since 1991 but it is felt (by some) to be a necessity for guests. I did take some photographs of the installation and even doing that made me feel queasy.

Wednesday was more of the same except for some light relief in the afternoon. We had inherited with the house the two safes that the notaires had used. We decided to keep one and the other I had put up for free on Facebook and it was being collected today as it had to be moved before the steps were built, we didn't want then chipped. The safe is very, very heavy but fortunately the operation went smoothly. The happy couple gifted me with two bottles of sparkling wine which was unexpected but charming of them.

Details from the old safe

Thursday morning could have been a little midweek treat. Andrew's barber is in Beaulieu sur Dordogne, a delightful small town about 45 minutes from us. I know, it's quite far to go for a hair cut but Girogio is excellent, and fascinating to watch. After the appointment we are in the habit of buying an almond croissant from the rather excellent boulangerie and sitting for 15 minutes with a coffee, watching the world go by. Sadly today we had to dash home as our roofer was still at work.

Giorgio in action

Friday was a mixed day for me, originally a sort of day off. I had a hairdresser appointment in the morning, which if you live in France you know can be quite a traumatic experience. The first hairdresser I went to after relocating had been recommended. I took in a photograph so she could see what I wanted (it wasn't complicated - I always have a bob-type style) and I was very insistent the minimum length I would accept. Smiles and nods followed, as did 10 centimetres of my hair. I came out and cried, yet being English I had still left a tip! Fortunately the hairdresser in our village is much better and never cuts more off than I want but I do miss the cups of coffee and hand massages I used to get at Top to Toe.

An early lunch so I could get to Emmaüs close to opening time. There was nothing in the furniture warehouse I wanted but I had more success in the china shop. My final call was to see my friend in the haberdashery section. Larissa knows my taste well and had saved me an adorable 1950's sewing box. I also found a vintage cushion and throw, perfect for the barn. When she saw it in my basket she said "I knew it" she couldn't save those as well but hoped they would still be available when I came in. There is a brocante nearby which I hadn't been in for a while, nothing of great interest although I did find a Le Creuset frying pan for a euro. It would have been a nice day if I hadn't received a telephone call from my mother in England saying there was "nothing to worry about" but she had slipped over on the ice and broken her wrist. Needless to say the next 36 hours were fraught with phone calls and planning for a possible trip back to the U.K. This still may happen but for the moment I can stay put.

Some of my purchases

Finally the weekend (Saturday was only yesterday but I'm struggling a little to remember). Oh yes, a trip to Gedimat to get more ballast, cement and other items needed for the new steps. Emergency washing and ironing in case I needed to return to England and several telephone calls to my mother. In the afternoon a friend came over with his new dog, a delightful five year old collie, so we gave up all pretence of trying to work and took both dogs on a walk. At this point Mortimer developed a limp which we think may be a recurrence of a shoulder injury he had last year.

So 'living the dream'? Despite the wardrobe aspirations not being quite there (although I live in hope) yes I am and wouldn't change my life in France for the world.

If you would like to read more about our life in Corrèze then feel free to follow/friend us here on Facebook