Tractors with Trials & Tribulations of an en-suite bathroom!

I have wanted to sit down and write a blog from the Spring but have had little bit of "writers block" I also wonder just how many people are actually interested in me wittering on about our French adventure after nearly 4 years has it become a little boring?

sitting here on a damp windy day in Scotland however it is nice to reflect back on what I perceive to be big achievements along the way.

April  was an exciting trip with the arrival of the tractor now affectionately named "Hermione"( I think Rosemary came up with the name)  Phil & Peter did a great job collecting her from Welshpool with only a couple of via's and one flat tyre! I am sure they got some strange looks along the motorways and a few fist shakes at crawling along at 40mph I half expected to hear about traffic delays on the motorways or to see them escorted in by a police car or gendarmerie!  Hermione has become a little star in her own right at the B&B and it never ceases to amaze me the "Boys n Toys" syndrome that seems to affect even the most discerning of gentlemen. I know I haven't given this section as much attention as it deserves but hopefully the face book posts along the way showed how it was all progressing!  www.facebook.com/leseauxdelapetitefontaine

April saw the installation of yet another en-suite but  gosh that was hard work!  I can just hear Phil in my ear saying I don't know the half of it!  Once again assisted by his partner in Crime Peter the pair of them set to ripping apart "Willow" pulling down plaster board, lifting floorboards for pipes and drilling holes through very thick walls.  Slowly over the first week it began to all take shape!

Meanwhile out in the garden Chris Godson, Fosse Septique man and saviour of many a problem at Les Eaux, was setting too fixing the leak in the pipe to the fountain.  It had not been quite right over the past months not having the familiar trickle of water pouring through the fountain.  Chris did a great job and it was a lovely moment when the water finally sprang forth into the fountain.  You could hear the gurgle and splutter along the pipes before a gush of thick brown gunge spat into the fountain.

There were a few trips to the DIY store but better organised than the first bathroom installation where they seemed to be lost for days at a time around yet another DIY store.  Peter being the project manager seemed to have it all under control.

The second week the Beechgrove parents arrived so the garden had a good make over they always do a fantastic job and its great to get the summer season started with a tidy garden and at least this year I was going to be around to keep on top of it!

We were  then flat out and on a tight timescale to get "Willow" completed and it became a burden, exhausting, frustrating and many a mutter of "Never putting another bathroom in" mostly from me!  On the night before we were due to fly home there was still so much to do and by 6pm I was in floods of tears.  Phil had begun to make silly little mistakes and short cuts and being the perfectionist that he is I knew he would look back on it and regret it.  We took some time out, sitting in the garden, and discussed it all sensibly.  Deciding that we would need to come back we continued on as far as we could and finally just before midnight the walls were painted and the carpet down in the bedroom but no shower or toilet installed.

With hindsight now we definitely take on too much in too little time!  Although there is still one more bathroom to do it has been agreed this will wait until end of 2015 when we hopefully will both be there full time and can take our time to complete it.  Better make sure we can get Peter booked for a winter installation!

We returned to the UK, delayed for 5 hours at Southampton, but finally in the door at 8pm at night with both of us back to work the next morning.

2 weeks later we returned to Boussseresse, and I am delighted to say work continued at a much better pace and all the little jobs were completed.  I now had another beautiful bedroom and gorgeous en-suite shower room.  The boys did good, what a team! Oh yes and the painting looked good too ( by ME!)

Jean Marks I hope these pictures show up for you!

At last "Les Eaux De La Petite Fontaine" was ready to open its doors!

Out with the Old and in with the New.....

So.... another year comes to a close and an exciting New Year dawns.  Reading back over this blog I realise how far we have actually come in what will be 3 years in April.  This has been a long time dream of both of ours and one we have talked about every since we first got engaged in France in 1990.

  Here are some before and after shots.... to show the progress of this first Phase that is now nearing completion.

 House 2011

House 2013

 Landing 2011 and below Landing 2013

 Above Blue Bedroom 2011... below Blue Bedroom 2013

(Still new carpet to be laid in this room.)

 Master Bedroom 2011... below Master Bedroom 2013

 Green Room 2011... below Green Room 2012

(This room being done this Easter with an en-suite and new carpet & soft furnishings)

Hallway before and After

 Stairs in 2011

Stairs now

Downstairs shower room 2011 & below Downstairs shower room 2013

 Lounge before and after

 The best makeover of the whole house a poxy cupboard space transformed into

a beautiful bathroom!

 The back garden when the septic tank went in and the back garden now!

 The "waste corner" transformed into a lovely seating area!

Whew exhausting going through them all with so much acheived in just under 3 years!

Thank you to everyone that has pitched in to help us we really couldn't of done it without you all ...

Peter Robertson for his Plumbing, Gardening and Project Management

 

Rosemary Robertson for all her gardening advice, manual labour and more importantly all the beautiful soft furnishings in the bedrooms and around the house!

Andrew & Julie Duggett

Gardening, Boiler Replacement, Cleaning and General Maintenance!

Wilson and Jan for their wonderful efforts on clearing up the garden on their first, but hopefully no their last visit.

Alastair & Kirsteen Davies
Alastair sadly passed away in February 2013 after a short illness he will never be forgotten for the work he did at Les Eaux & for naming the house! I am looking forward to seeing the Daffs, planted in his memory, come into bloom this spring.

Phil and I are eternally grateful to you all for your friendship, advice and for politely  listening to us rattle on about the plans for Les Eaux De La Petite Fontaine. For sharing our dream and most importantly for being our friends.  As I have said many times Thank you dosn't seem enough but we truly are.

So 2014 blows in....

This year is very exciting as on 1st of June I will open the doors of B&B Les Eaux De La Petite Fontaine something we have been working towards for 3 years.  At the end of March the tractor is due to be transported across to France on the trailer with the good ole' Disco pulling it I know this something Phil & Peter are really looking forward to doing!  More to come on this once it has taken place.

The en-suite will then be fitted in the first 2 weeks of April, door locked fitted to the bedroom doors and all the finishing touches put to the two main letting rooms.  I leave on May 30th to set up ready for 1st of June and as Phil is tied up with Thirlestane Car Show I am delighted that Rosie is coming back out with me for a few days to celebrate the opening. I only had to mention the words "Bottle of Fizz" and she was booked!!

It's then time to take a step back and see where we are, see how well the set up copes with being a B&B and to spend some time working in the garden and getting the barn doors straight oh and of course for Phil, playing with his tractor!  Phase 2 is our next plan but not until Autumn of 2015 at the earliest when we would like to start converting the attached barn downstairs into a large farmhouse kitchen and snug area but we will see how the next 2 summers go first.

Jack leaves school this summer which is a big life event and Harriet goes into her last year of Uni  ... sigh of relief but a little sadness that they are now both grown up and making their own way in the world.  BUT... on the bright side, this does give me the opportunity of taking 4 months off this summer to spend time running the B&B and hopefully a month or so that Phil can join me out there.  I am sure there will be lots of tales to come to continue this blog and also the write up on Le Tractor's Grand Voyage.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL.

I hope 2014 will be a happy & healthy one for you all and that you all get a chance to follow your dreams!

Happy Christmas!

Wow, where did that year go to?  The last 12 months have flown by and so much has happened but here we are boarding the plane in Edinburgh to fly to Paris and this time it is all four of us!  Can't tell you how much it means to me to be going away and having our first Christmas in Bousseresse and having the first trip of all four of us being in the house together for the first time!

As you will know from past blogs Phil gets very twitchy going through customs he can't stand the palaver of  removing belts and boots!  Jack beeped and had to be searched as did Harriet amazingly this time I sailed through.  It was at about this point that Phil realises that he has left his mobile phone at home so it wasn't just the twitches for security he was twitching at not being physically attached to his phone especially as there was a front loader for the tractor that he wanted to bid on!

The next hour in the departure lounge was spent in weather spoons, I enjoyed my lunch whilst Phil tried desperately  to get his email on to my phone which didn't want to play.  So there he is on Harriet's phone to the provider and on my phone trying to sync it to his emails and he has Harriet on her MacBook trying to find the Beef Wellington recipe that he hasn't bought with him for Christmas Dinner!!  What did we do before technology!!!!!

It was sleeting heavy and very windy as we left Edinburgh, the flight before ours to Bristol was cancelled as was one due to go south after us but we were safely taxing down the runaway and nothing was going to get in our way!

With a good strong wind behind us we arrived in Paris ahead of time and made our way into the city centre.  We had hoped to stop off at Notre Dame to see the lights but time and the hassle it would involve with our tickets prevented us so we just went straight to Austerlitz and really didn't have that long to wait before we could board the train.

That morning the cat had been deposited off to the Cattery which I hate doing, so had got Phil and Harriet to do it.  I was determined not to spend all the holiday fretting about her, she was warm, safe and being fed what more could a cat want!  This was all going very well until we boarded the train at Austerlitz and a couple got on our carriage carrying a cat basket, the cat then preceded to miaow pathetically ALL the way to the stop before ours with me imagining Ginny pining in the Cattery :-(

All of this was soon forgotten as the train pulled into La Souterraine and our lovely neighbour Claude was waiting with his car to pick us up. Only problem 4 large adults, 2 big suitcases and 4 cabin bags just wouldn't fit in a Peugot 206.  I squashed Jack on the back seat with a suitcase, me in the front and the rest of the bags in the boot and Harriet and Phil decided they would walk up to the house.  It really isn't that far and although nippy not too cold just very very dark!

Jack and I arrived and took the bags in and unpacked and I got the hot water bottles out ready whilst we were waiting for Phil and Harriet.  No lighting of the fire tonight as it was nearly11 pm and had been a long day so bed called.  The house had had the heaters on for over 24 hours which took the chill off anyway.

It was so  nice waking up on Christmas Eve in my new bedroom, it still smells of new carpet and newly decorated!  The rain was coming down heavy outside but I felt warm and cosy and excited about our first Christmas out here.

Supermarket was our first stop, there was a few basic provisions in the house that Heather had bought in for me but we needed food for Christmas Day and the rest of the week.  We all got stuck in around the supermarket filling the basket with goodies and Phil chose a nice peice of steak for the Beef Wellington.  After the food shop we headed to Cafe Chaud for Coffee for Phil and I and Chocolate Chaud for the kids this made it feel even more christmassey.

The rest of the afternoon the rain poured down so we just lit the fire and settled ourselves in front of the TV to watch some films eat nibbles and have a drink.  I put up the Christmas tree that Heather had kindly collected for me and enjoyed decorating it.

The kids and Phil couldn't believe that I had actually bought some of the Christmas cards from home with me to put on the mantelpiece!!  Only the close family ones but as far as I was concerned it all added to the Christmas ambience and made it feel like home.  Hanging the stockings on the fireplace was the last thing then off to bed.

We all slept a bit longer on Christmas morning Phil and I got up and dressed and got the fire lit long gone are the days of the kids waking us up to get up to open the presents.  Once Harriet was up I decided to get my own back on Jack and went running into his room jumped on his bed and shook him saying "Can we open our presents now".. one not impressed son!

We had crepes for breakfast and I made a cafe latte for me and we sat by the fire and then opened our presents it was a lovely family moment and a lovely memory to treasure, it's times like this that you realise how lucky you are, you may not have everything in life you would like to buy but money can't buy a moment like this!

Amazingly Phil has done some Christmas shopping this year, I was very impressed all beautifully wrapped even if they didn't have tags on them and he had to try and remember who's was who!  He had even bought the kids something each which I think must be the first I have ever known him do!! It's usually just me that buys the presents so it was a very touching moment!

Phil was head chef today and set too preparing our Christmas lunch once it was all prepared we decided we would take a walk up to the lake as the sun was shining.  We all wrapped up in coats and scarves, Harriet and I wearing our beautiful Alpaca scarves that Phil had bought for us and we set off up the lane.  We only got up to where the hill reaches it's peak and the rain came on you could see bright blue sky in one direction and nothing but dark clouds the way we were going so it was a sharp harp back home!

Rest of the day was spent eating and drinking and throwing another log on the fire - perfect!  And the Beef Wellington was just perfect!

Nice rump Phil - Looks like you have been on the cooking sherry though!

Boxing day we invited Marie, Shaun and family over for nibbles and a drink.  Marie and Shaun had been the first people to ever book with us and had stayed at the gite 3 times but have now bought their own place half an hour away so it was lovely to finally meet up with them all.

That evening we then headed into Limoges for a walk around and to see the lights, it was good to get out and stretch the legs and get some air even if it was nippy.  The lights were lovely and once we got back home Phil made a lovely plate of bubble and squeak from Christmas Day left overs.. Yum!

These are just a selection of photos taken by Jack when we were walking around Limoges, it was very pretty and very festive especially in the Historic Butchers Quarter where all the timber framed houses are.

Friday we did a bit of Shopping in La Souterraine and went hunting out Gin Fizz for our friend Kirsteen who wanted 10 bottles, we cleared out the only place in town of their last 4 bottles and would have to look in another supermarket on the route home.

Friday evening we were invited to Heather and Steve's house which is about 20 minutes away.  What a beautiful barn conversion they have done and it was roastie toastie inside.  We enjoyed a lovely evening and met their friends Barry and Rebeka, Barry was from London and Rebeka from Germany.  Phil and Barry had quite a lot in common and it all made for a great evening.

Sadly all too soon it was Saturday, Phil deposited Harriet at the station as she was heading up to Paris to meet us with 7 of her friends.  They were having 2 nights in Paris then heading back down to La Souterraine to see in the new year at the house.  

We set off at lunchtime and had a really good drive up to Caen stopping off at lunch time in Loches.  This is a place we have passed a couple of times and never stopped off at so we took this opportunity to stretch our legs around the old town which was beautiful.

11:00pm we set sail for Portsmouth a bit of a roller coaster ride on some of the waves which didn't seem to bother Snorer and Sniffer who were sharing the cabin with me... think they would make good reindeer's for Father Christmas next year!

Have to say what a lovely christmas!!