A Gardener in France

Progress report......

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 13:07:45 GMT

I continue to let my public down, ignoring all requests for weekly progress reports. This will not always be the case, as readers of my other Blog will know. When we are in France we are too busy doing it to write about it and when we have come back I am too busy catching up with work to bother. Only on days like this, when I am at work on my day off and an e-mail has just arrived from another Brit moving in to the area.....

Enough excuses; "what's been happening in sunny Chabris?", I hear you ask.

Chantal spent 6 weeks over there early in the year bullying the local craftsmen we had employed into finishing the 'Gite' part of the house in time for the letting season: we had, you see, already advertised the property with Chez Nous.

Downstairs we ripped out evrything, added a new tile-over-insulated-concrete floor, insulated internal walls and a lower ceiling. It needed new electrics and a water supply, a kitchen and stairs, all new doors and windows, before the decoration could start.

Upstairs it was much the same, with new wood floors and a bathroom. When I flew over at the end of February to bring her back, much of this was done, but with her back in England the work slowed down damatically in spite of angry faxes and telephone calls to anyone who would listen and some who would have prefered not to!

When we returned just after Easter to hang the curtains and buy the furniture we were dismayed to discover there was still plenty to do: words were had with one or two of our builders and the last job or two was finished the day before the first guests arrived: yes, we have guests!

The last thing we wanted to do was to use them as guinea-pigs but in the end that's the way it turned out. A neighbour holds the key for us and cleans up after the guests leave. When we go out again in August we will stay in the Gite ourselves to make sure it is all that we would expect. Someone has complained about a lack of TV (not something we really want to buy) and that there is no lock on the bathroom door (not something that would worry us) but you have to listen to your customers and make your own mind up.

The garden, or rather the lack of one, upsets me. It's hard to influence it from this distance but the plans are all drawn up. I would have liked to give guests a little patio so they can eat outside but time ran out for such nicities. In the end, there will be a swimming pool in the back garden, but not until we move out there.

Before we left at Easter we took a few pictures and I have a few 'before and afters' if you are interested......... . Roll on August.

It's me gain!

Sun, 18 Sep 2005 10:22:48 GMT

Yes I know, I've been a very poor Blogger, but with one thing and another....

Anyway, what's happened in the mean time?

We met lots of tradesmen and asked for quotes when we were last in Chabris. The carpenter came back to us fairly quickly, as did the roofer. Finally the electrician / plumber has sent us a quote but most of the others have not got around to it, or perhaps they think they have faxed us something but did not. Who can tell? We were warned.

We have done the deal with the carpenter and windows, doors and a new staircase should be in well before Christmas: progress at last! We are also proposing to send someone over from the UK to do some work so we are confident things are back on track, for the gite at least.

My son had a go at a web site for the gite and it is more or less done. I have more copy and photographs to add but I can do that now that the site is up and running. We also recieved the proof for our £500 advertisement with Chez Nous and I understand their brochure should be published in November.

Did I mention I bought a canoe? I found it in the UK on EBay and have been practising on the river near St. Neots. Its nearly 30 years since I last had one but it's like falling off a bike, isn't it: only wetter! I am looking forward to getting it on the Cher and the nearby canal but may transport it backwards and forewards so I can also use it here.

We need to get some bikes out there too and as we never use them in England these days may leave two or 3 out there. It's such easy cycling country around Chabris and handy for quick trips to the shops too. Should we allow guests to use them?

The first trip as owners

Thu, 21 Jul 2005 20:09:43 GMT

Traveling was by Eurotunnel....a longer jouney than we might have chosen but it suited the dog well to travel with us rather than be abandoned to her fate in the bowels of a car ferry.

Greenfield to Chabris is 8 hours, door to door, including messing about having the car strip-searched at Dover and a couple of stops at rest areas in France. We drove by motorway almost the whole journey, M1, M25, M20 in the UK, A216, A26, around Paris and then A10, A71 and a little stretch of A85; just short of 500 miles in total.

With air conditioning and cruise control the journey was a breeze and we arrived in time for a meal at the salad bar in Chabris high street.

After dinner we took a walk with the dog over the River Cher to the canal, checking out the river-side beach and the woods on the hill nearby. The photo shows the holy well and vineyard behind.

Time for bed after a hard day, ignoring the ants on the wall in the lounge for the time being.

Hit and run

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:18:43 GMT

We were only in Chabris for a day or so before we had to shoot off down to Bordeaux to move my mother-in-law from the city to her place near the coast. A 10-hour round trip, but she was grateful for the assistance. On Monday 4th July we had a 9:30 meeting with an electrician, did some tidying and set off to explore the village a little.

The Moulin - the water mill by the river - has been partly restored and is used for community activities including, I gather, a gardening club: something for me to get involved in later. Its a great fishing spot and is close to one of the deeper parts of the river here-abouts. There is a little garden and a nature reserve and when we dropped by there was a painting lesson in progress.

Back home, I surveyed the garden so that I could consider a design when I return to the UK. I also changed the plugs on a number of pieces of kitchen equipment we had brought from England so that we could eat, drink and be merrier than we had expected.

On the Tuesday we set off for Bordeaux. There is an embassy opposite the house so parking was a nightmare but we eventually settled in and took Pixie for a walk in the park around the corner. The following morning we drove to St. Sornin, a sleepy farming village near the coast where the family have their old property. We have great affection for the place but did not stay: we were back to Chabris via the Carrefour hypermarket in Tours, by late afternoon.

Chaumont Garden Festival

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:33:33 GMT

Just so you know, I am writing this after the event, not having had access to the internet while we were in France. The village does have broadband so that will be a must once we are a little more established. For the time being we make do with mobile phones.

On Sunday 10th July we had a day off and drove up to Chaumont-sur-Loire, around half an hour north. In the grounds of the chateaux and college of landscaping a festival of gardening is firmly established as an annual "must see" for those interested in cutting-edge garden design.

Now in its 14th year, themes tend to be on the weird side: in 2003 it was "Weeds", in 2004 "Long live Chaos!" and this year the designers had to apply themselves to the theme: "Gardens have Memories". Photos above will give you a flavour of how they got on: some interesting, some curious, some bizarre and one or two very succesful. As usual it was thought-provoking and provided further inspiration for my own work. If you take just one idea from a visit like this, it is worthwhile, and Chaumont never fails to confront traditional ideas about what constitutes a garden.

Pixie the Poodle got a little hot at times but fortunately several gardens featured water in various forms. In the end, she, Chantal and my parents began to get hot and bothered and after fantastic ice creams all round we returned to Chabris.

Further information on Chaumont and the festival at: www.chaumont-jardin.com

Pre-visit thoughts.

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 13:07:53 GMT

We are getting very excited as our first visit "home" to Chabris approaches. We have bought a few kitchen things so we can prepare basic meals while we are there: yes, I know we will have to change all the plugs but I insist on my coffee on the first morning.

We have bought a cheap multi-pack containing a kettle, toaster, cooffee maker and, of all things, a juicer. A microwave/ oven that we had earlier donated to work is now in the back of the car and we hope the electrician is going to provide us with a fridge.

We are finding that there are few tradesmen locally with faxes, let alone email facilities. We are not interested in dealing with them if we cannot easily communicate: this is a major project and communications are important. We have fax at home and at work but often when we try to send a letter the machine at the other end is switched off. This is frustrating our attempts to get things moving before we go over so that we do not spend the whole of the time hunting for plumbers.

While we would prefer to trade with local suppliers, we are every day finding French internet sites offering electrical goods and more. One or two are very good indeed, while others are still over-excited by the whistles and bells available to modern internet designers. For us this is an easy option, although arranging deliveries could be tricky. We may need to talk to the neighbours and do a few deals. I gather there is an English couple nearby who offer a key-holding service but we will chat to the folks next door first. Which reminds me: I must dig out a few pots of home-made jam as pressies - there will be no room in the car for our usual gifts of plants.

Pixie the Poodle is very excited about the trip and has been practicing her accent. There's a Poodle Parlor in the village so it looks like her social life is sorted. If she needs us just tell her we'll be picnicing down by the river.

I keep calling Chabris a village. It had 2,656 inhabitants in 1999....is that a village or a small town, I wonder? Our village in the UK (Greenfield, Flitton and Pulloxhill) has 2,062 but has only one shop and a couple of pubs for whole whole, rather spread out community. Compare that to Chabris, which has a dozen or more, a hotel, several bars, a bank and a trading estate on the outskirts with a decent supermarket! Then there's the swimming pool, the tourist information office, the vibrant Saturday market......you get the point!

Slow progress

Thu, 23 Jun 2005 13:28:56 GMT

Things are fianlly on the move: the previous owners informed us there was no mains gas in the village, which was why they had just invested in a new oil boiler. A quick search on the web gave us a link to the gas people over there. They confirm that not only is it in the village, it passes down our street. We have asked them to connect us. I wonder if the boiler can be converted? One more thing to check.

An electrician is sorting the power as we speak. No replies from the carpenter faxed a while back, or the pool people. Perhaps there will be messages when we arrive.

More importantly, I rang a restaurant to arrange a wedding aniversery meal when we are over: L'Aubergeade in Diou. A fine place in the middle of nowhere with food of the highest quality and a wine list to match. Looking forward to that one!

The house is full of furniture, some of it not to our taste, bought by the previous owner from the original ones (if you follow me), so some of it has been there for many years. I gather deals are about to be done, with some of it leaving for the US / UK and us perhaps buying other pieces. I feel it would be nice to keep original items in the house and we will need furnature, but it remains to be seen if we can agree appropriate prices.

Our son is working on a web site for the gite we haven't completed yet: www.chabrisloirevalley.com... I think: watch this space. Adverts have to be placed with Chez Nous soon as well, if we are to let it next season. I guess we had better get it done then, but no pool this year, I'm afraid.

Money

Sun, 12 Jun 2005 13:44:29 GMT

I would never have thought that it would be such a time-consuming business to get money out to France so that we can start paying bills.

It has taken ages to get bank accounts sorted out but that has finally been achieved. We then transfered a small amount of cash to the cheque account - we've been trying to pay our insurance bill for months now - and the bank held it up at their head office until we could tell them why we were doing it. "Er, we need to pay bills". I wouldn't mind if we were drug dealers or something!

The electricity people are great. They wrote us a letter in English welcoming us as customers. Could you imagine a UK company doing that for the French? I asked the old owner to get the power on for when we go over and the message came back that it is so dangerous they would prefer not to. Funny how we've only just come to hear that! We have an electrician going in to check it over and report back. We dont fancy a week cooking over Camping Gas with candles lighting the way.

We found the French version of Yellow Pages on the internet: great site and again, in English if you want. Used it to find a vet for the dog, tradesmen to help with the house and much more.

We've arranged accommodation for my parents for July in a B&B a few miles away, so that they can also see the place when we go over. We have stayed in the hotel in Chabris and while the people are pleasant and the food fine, I can't see my Mother there somehow. The B&B is in a little Chateaux overlooking the River Cher: now that she will enjoy!

The garden has turned into a jungle, I'm told, so we have a reliable lad going in to mow it back under control again. I am looking forward to planning the garden but the area is not large. By the time a pool has gone in I'm not sure what will be left. A truely huge Redwood dominates the back and I thought we could surround it with a deck and built-in benches like the one at work. My thinking has not got much further because of concerns for the house and the work needed inside.

In the beginning

Wed, 01 Jun 2005 15:56:13 GMT

We first spotted the property in the Wine Magazine, of all places, in September 2004 and realised its potential.

Chantal and I visited Chabris, a small town on the banks of the river Cher in early December in appalling cold and foggy weather. We toured the area, which we already knew reasonably well from summer trips and made our plans for a branch of the Design and Landscape Centre in France.

Negotiations to buy the house started immediately and it became ours on 14th March 2005. We have booked a return visit in July to look at the renovation and refurbishment requirements: it may look nice from the photographs but there is much to do and with limited finances it may be a long project.