Monday, December 04, 2006

Un sacré boulot (a heavy job)

As one of the readers stikingly expressed " by the look of the sparse new columns, you must be rather busy", and that it is. Now our Windows Vista book is finished, Ruud and I can work in the house continuously for tweeo weeks. After that the odd jobs will be temporarily postponed because we have to start the next book wich has to be ready in the middle of january. In the meanwhile we will hop over to the Netherlands and the lease of our appartment has been cancelled for the end of january. So yes, we are busy.

Ruud with a drill, glup…

Lets get organised. Because the electronics specialists in this part of France are over-worked (al those christmass lights...), Ruud decided to to the electrics all by himself. I never doubted he can't and i do not understand why he ever decided to bord the job.

Looks nice doesn't it. Ruud did this all alone. But what a weird foto, in reality it looked somewhat different.

Whatever the case may be, he has been at the job and it it works out great: he only electrocuted himself once so far. The sous-sol (basement) is ready and he has ascended tot the living floor. There he is hacking grinding and everything, even the cat is covered with red dust.

Ruud says he must look like a klingon, having bumped his head so often.

Sometimes i feel like dusting her with our new suckitall Thomas ( a professional vacumcleaner wich is an absolute must in this dusty environment) but i am afraid that will be to much for her. It is not easy such an emigration, not even for an alleycat from the slumbs.

You might wonder what our dayly routine is like. Well as you can see in the pictures, its really terrible. I mean, there is no end to it the spring like autumn weather and inbetween the odd jobs we sometimes have to have a coffeebreak with a patte d'ours (bearclaw), a kind of creamsandwich, but then French and realy fresh. No i can't stand it, i think of returning home :-).

And then she on purpose sits with her big head in front of the camera so she'll ruin this beautiful picture of mine.

I have got a thorough dislike for the frose doing odd jobs. It reminds me so much of shakey fences and the DIY shops with wihich our neighbourhood was crammed, or DIY kitchens without a single straight door.

Ruud's mom still full of vigour and courage scratching the paint of the glazing, but after 32 windows one tends to look for other things. Mopping old floors for instance, our cleaning out a gruesome dirty toiletbowl, or scraping miles of wallpaper from the walls. Delicious.

I prefer another word, for instance heave or to work ones end off. I mean it's not a party trying to place dozens of windows and fixing with these horrible little nails, or trying to fix the windows with (cement?) paste, or unscrewing old electricity sockets from the walls or scraping old varnish from the stairs. It's a heavy job, men's work

Nice, removing old wiring and sockets!

But in between the lousy jobs there are things that give you pleasure. I can remember that Jitze experienced an orgasmatic satisfaction from restauring a door. At that time I thought, Jezes, this men realy needs professional help...

But now i have a better understanding for this. I mean in the morning you think... come on lets sand this one little door down, just remove the old paint and hopla! put a new layer on it. But as more wood shows from beneath the old shitcolored paint, one gets a taste for removing the rest too. ANd this goes on til one has a nice and shining and slick door.

Although we could go for each others throat after three weeks, i must say our mutual project (Jitze the doors, and me the rest) has beared fruits.

By now i have muscle ache in my arms from sanding and it progresses. In the meanwhile i know everything of decaption (auch auch), sandingmachines and my favorite of all times: the belt sander. Put on a new not too course belt and the spats of paint from the previous owner disapear like snow under the sun. Now and then i sand a bit of the parquet floor, yeah, according to all DIY knowitall's in the world "DO THE FLOOR AS LAST". But i do it anyway, everytime a little bit untill the suddenly realize: damn, she did the whole flore and by then it's to late.

The lovely shining parquet floor on the bedroom floor.

Well, all though the homesich feeling still doesn't want to leave me, i am glad we chose this house, this location, this land, and heving followed our gutfeeling and not our fears. Especially when i leave the appartment and ride the bike 500 meters onwards. The avenue de st. Côme runs ophill in the direction of st. Côme and somewhere halfway is our house. To the right runs the river Lot whereafter behind the green hills with the duckfarm. To the the left the redrock on which our house is build and inbetween the yellow route nationale where one is alowed to drive 70.

We have a big garden (1200 m2). In the Netherlands one has to be a criminal to own that much land, but here it is for grasps. It is great for having chickens, rabits or even sheep. Pour manger! Naturellement, according to our neighbour.

What manger? I cannot get used to the French habit to see in everything that moves, except lapdogs - something to eat.

But well, the backgarden is the domain of worms, insects and birds. I recently disturbed the ethernal rest and peacy wy wielding dozoens of bramburybushes. In a citygarden, that may look like much, but on a partial terrain of 30x20 meters, there are at least threethouzend brambary bushes left over. At least enough space for all kinds of animals and things to hide.

Brambarybushes, i am growing a thorough dislike for them. My brother already warned me, he has 7000 M2 of these i stick to your pants plants.

When digging out a centimeters high earth wall on the stairs towards the backgarden i found an earthworm that must have been underground for at least a hundred years. He was about a centimeter thick and 20 centimeters long. I gave him some space near the former dogshed, so he can dig on for another 100 years.

The stair to the backgarden.

The earth in our garden is red earth. If you put a seed into it, a week later a plant appears above ground. Ruud's dad started a month and a halve ago in the garden and is dilligently weeding and shoveling. He held mysterious talks with our neighbour both in their native languages?! We stood by and watched, because after years of preparation i still have trouble of speaking more than three continuous lines of French, and these men seme not to be hindered by cultural al linguistic barriers.

The pulsing heart of the house: the kitchen.

After two weaks of sweating, ploughing planting and many alergic reaction induced bumps with an unstoppable itch he decided not to enter that 'damned' garden again. On a morning he made a gigantic fireplace from golf plate in wich he burned all the garden waste.

Bramberry bushes, yes. But also lady's shoes, lace underware, hary rugs, empty beercans, dozens handmade bottles, rests of animal cadavres in plastic bags and all the other stuff that came from the ground.

Enfin, lets first finish this house and then i'll return to the Netherlands, i promise. I hope that by that time they have a place for me in a home for elderly people.

posted by Ruud at 01:25  |  send a comment

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