Thursday 2 July 2015

This was my kitchen

This was my kitchen......a good quality kitchen for its day, installed in 1985.  I inherited it five years ago. These photos were taken on the morning of gutting out.  I have enjoyed cooking in my lifetime and this room is the last to be renovated. It has scared me! A door on every wall plus a window to the outside world!
Casements worn around the edges, wall tile grout crumbling, worktop tile grout falling out, ceiling with torchis needing attention, beams shiny brown, oppressive to me, copper hood with not connected evacuation unit discharging into the grenier space above can be recycled,  oven works but I have no idea what temperature it bakes at!  The dishwasher looked as if it was new but quickly broke four to five years ago and was recently disposed of. The built in fridge froze foods every four weeks or so when I had to defrost the tiny freezer cabinet with water water everywhere.  Ten years ago and more I used to have a fridge that cleaned itself. What a joyous invention that was!  Last year I inherited the joint freezer and our joint Bosch larder fridge from my former partner who gave all the joint owned possessions to me when he sold his house to go travelling. 
Currently, existing kitchen furniture is being recycled, repainted for the laundry room which sits behind this kitchen.  La Buanderie,  as it is called in France, is in the part of my property that is on the Napoleonic cadastral plan.
I like my Ikea trolley but it did not normally live here!

Oh my.. I have detested that hanging lampshade!!!! It is I believ number two and saved from a house I once part-owned forty years ago.
and then we started to pull the oven from its housing and the wall...
like a Victorian camera...
and lo, behind the cabinets is a vestige of wallpaper, circa French 1985  (vraiment akin to English 1965!!!)  which I thought I had eradicated 5 years ago!!!  It really is an art form of its time.  One can see the colour scheme in harmony with the retro floor tiles!!!!!!! Then, this kitchen was amazingly modern in this French village. Then this kitchen was very very expensive!
I wonder what the flowers are....
VOILA... all to be renewed for someone in the next 30 years or less to say "Quel horreur!"

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Oh Gosh July

No time for The Mad Hatter.  No time. No time. I dally and am late on many things. Time slips by for that is what Time does. Time doesn't wait for Man or Woman.  Time flies so fast one is not aware, even when living in the moment, or forgetting or remembering the future and the past.   It whizzes faster than Light or Sound.  Now past the middle of the year are we, and in a canicule, a heatwave, which I just love at 35C in the shade at 4pm or so, if only I could be by water. But water is a precious commodity and today it has been reinstated without leaks but still there is more plumbing to do before the washing machine can be used.

Now almost midnight, before the passing of the day and night of the first of July it is 25C in my courtyard and indoors here by this hot machine, 28C.  Every now and then I walk in the full moon moonlight in my spacious garden where sweetpeas, roses and lavender bloom in the darkness, where if I was brave I would sleep in the hammock at night!

I am indeed grateful for water, space, air to breathe, gardens, my house, land and village AND THIS MY FRIEND who is helping 'my house' for reasons he has explained!  Why he should return to this sometimes difficult and unreasonable person is a mystery when I have made so many mistakes in life and have been so wretchedly unkind to some people.  Perhaps it shows me faith in humanity.   I have accepted his return despite the fact that he too made mistakes of a volatile nature; been my enemy as well as a friend.  In a way it shows me that perhaps there is forgiveness on each side.  Even so, I have been on guard and am learning not to let that, which is fear, affect me.  Fear must be cast aside. Maybe I have been wrong about many things for which I am sorry! Often I have been right and not praised myself enough.

Fortunately we have been able to turn on the water for showers and baths and have been able to wash up dishes with cold or warm water as one wishes out in the outhouse 

Who would wish to be a plumber with different copper pipes and fittings or different systems? In and out water! Awkward spaces. Soldering and parts that do not work! A lorry load of bits for every eventuality.

Patience is what I keep.   I watch and heed that Time is slipping by, but know I am not in control and do not care.   Summer slips by.  I do what I can. What would REALITY do?  This is THAT!  This is Now and I wait for Future when I can make decisions and choices.  I already know that my home is my chateau and like he says I am the Queen of my Maison and not just the Client!
I if i could Master Time I would be a rich woman!
I am going to take my time to plan this kitchen... behind me and ahead of me is Phase One and Two.
I have not much time for much else. This is my work! 


Tuesday 30 June 2015

Kitchen and laundry room emptied into Le Grand Salon


All the food, wine, kitchen paraphernalia is stacked in the BIG Room.... oh my , I don't fancy moving ever again. The oven has been removed from its housing and reconnected.  Now I wonder what is next because things are not going according to a pre-conceived plan... that is Life... It is not the bowl of cherries that my former partner once told me in a chosen birthday card which he then sent with His Love!  But isn't it sweet that he has returned to help me with this major project? Love must exist in some form even if he is working in exchange for shelter, accommodation, food and company as well as a safe place for him to be whilst he works out what is next in his own Life. Fortunately, my ground floor L shaped house has the two wings and a degree of privacy.

Sunday 28 June 2015

Looking at Ageing Wood Patterns

I am enamoured with the ambiance of this street in all weathers... the acoustics can be quite remarkable as also is the way the street absorbs and holds an aroma of flowers from time to time. But look down at the base of doors and one finds beauty in the old and not in need of restoration!
Oh ...someone decided to paint a door white, hence modern starkness contrasts with neglect.
Repairs create neatness
A concrete wood pattern is strange...

Sunday 21 June 2015

Midsummer and oh how time flies

I have various photos from the last few weeks that I would like to post in my blogger diary format.
It will all have to wait for TIME.
Currently, it is about eleven p.m.
I can't believe that the year has reached midsummer, with birthday imminent, with weather as superb an ideal as I would wish, except too humid at ten this evening.  PLUS today has been a Sunday, a Patrimoine de Pays et Moulins weekend and also Journee de Musique day / weekend when amateur musicians can play anywhere and not be made to move on or be quiet.  Mostly, it is organised music for the general public. Last night I did go out to listen to Bal Musette but with no one to dance with I reluctantly left a style of music I enjoy.
I am glad we went out at about 7 in the evening.  After he had said I looked as if I was going out,  which at the time was not true, I answered, "Nope, I was just getting dressed for the evening in general as I was tired of work clothes" .... But after that statement, I thought "sod it", (please excuse me getting grounded!) and offered to take HIM out for a treat, get a change of view, whilst making myself a G'nT.... and so, it was so ...... that we went to the English tea shop and caught the end of a three hour session of solo sax jazz......which only a few minutes before did I consult the oracle of all global and public knowledge (providing that someone has posted).
Nice it was to feel the cool lanes between old stones, feel the river breeze and special ions, see what has changed since I wandered that way about a week ago. Every time I stand on the bridge I tell myself that I must come more frequently!

He AND I worked since about 8h30 a.m. ...( me without breakfast!!!), until about 4pm when he stopped.  I carried on to get those tiles off the plasterboard. Sheer Pleasure!
Pending an arrival of an electrician (..... I feel that suitable heraldic music should be played if ever he does arrive!..... )  my friend said we should completely evacuate the kitchen ... today it was deconstructed MORE, but still there exists the sink, the fridge, the freezer and oven which could all be sent elsewhere if only there was space! Must use more energies tomorrow to do so!
I don't think the electrician WILL arrive,  but at least we are prepped and ready (sort of ... with this linear arrangement of kitchen  I cannot quite cope with the idea that the sink is against a wall with my back to a window, I always feel uncomfortable.  Even though HE is attempting to persuade me that a mirror on that wall would enable me to watch the garden and those who are seated, I still feel summat is wrong with the difficult to do other with'' plan.  
I am trying to think laterally, but the space of 3.6m long and 1.20 max is tricky to include jutting out u shape bits or a small work island. There are four doors and a window!!!!!!! I am tempted to out the kitchen upstairs in the newly roofed grenier at this stage but the next part of the renovation story is that I am concerned about the floor in the grenier affecting the ceiling of the kitchen and the other two rooms.  I thought the distance was greater than what it is!
More later!
I have often detested my kitchen space... and now it is not a kitchen and the feelings of being overwhelmed and indecisive continue. Taking the guts out of the kitchen has though convinced me to cover the retro orange rectangulay floor tiles positioned in 1985.

Tuesday 16 June 2015

Chateau de Touffeau

On the Sunday of the Open Gardens Weekend we drove to Chateau de Touffeau, at Bonnes, a 12th century castle converted to a nobleman's mansion, owned by a relative of Chateau de la Brosse, where we paid entry for the chateau but the gardens were free.
We didn't realise it was a guided tour of the house. Yes, we followed the Madame but we thought the group was a private one. So we'd missed the beginning because we had wandered into the garden.  Trying to locate the group I opened an exterior door, which was clearly to private residency, and quickly closed it when a fierce daschund barked at the closing door!  Woops! Later, we asked for a refund as we could not locate the group.   I hope to go back a different day!
Another reason we did not join the group was because we were startled when purchasing tickets. The woman was aggressively formidable,  telling us in imperfect English that commerce had to be conducted only in French, not in English.  I didn't understand that she was talking about the guided tour! I thought she was telling us to speak French which we did, when we bought our ticket after they had started to speak to us in English!  All very confusing!  Later still, I realised the female cashier was in a hurry and LATE for starting the guided tour.  We'd coincided with her handing over the reins  to a chap and she seemed stressed telling him what to record in a book when he sold each ticket.  Lots of columns to tick!!!
For the uninitiated, the guided visit starts one hour after opening time in the morning and the same in the afternoon.  I guess the guided visit is 60 minutes at least. It would be helpful if it declared this on the literature! So many people had been waiting a long time!
The gardens were interesting and once much larger than they are now.  It must cost a fortune to maintain but some were inaccessible.  The chateau is or has been used for wedding or conferencing venues, hence the pool in the garden and inaccessible stable buildings.
ALSO in that region are some Limousin beef farms selling meat so I must investigate with someone else in order to do a shared purchase. 
Here is Sunday lunch, then the chateau pics:

Roast Goat ribs, veggie rice, roasted red peppers in scorching garden heat...
 with le son de vignoble glasses filled with Chardonnay...
Is the entrance Italianate?  The side gates seem akin to Renaissance Romeo and Juliet!
The plan...
A tower...
The Gardens...
I want one like these!
Magnolia trees by the pool...
Old and newer chimney pots
Two lions stand guard
Thank you for the visit!