Diving Into La Piscine

Hello everyone

I hope you are all well and have had a good week?

Our week has included a delightful rendez-vous with an ex-mayor of our village – wine and cake in the afternoon – my kind of people! We also exchanged homemade preserves – they are trying our Clementine and Pink Grapefruit Marmalade, we are trying their Raspberry Jelly – very tasty. Our favourite boulangerie has re-opened after having a revamp – we treated ourselves to some of their delicious quiche for lunch on Wednesday and on Thursday I had the best news – I finally have an appointment at the préfecture in Albi for my carte de séjour. Max got his email later in the day and our appointments are back-to-back. The whole thing calls for a celebration. We applied on 29^th December so it has been a little while. I imagine each préfecture in France has many people to put through the process, especially since Brexit and the need for UK nationals to apply. Another tick will soon be on the To Do list.

The week also included a stressful moment. Nina, the black and white kitten, has taken her turn in staying out all night. She just would not come in even though she appeared to want to but seemed very nervous. At 1.30am we had to give up and go to bed. The next morning, no sign for a while but eventually I heard a faint meow and a cold and damp little cat returned for a big cuddle and some sleep. I may have to accept this is how it will be. They are like my children (well of course they are not actually like my children – now that would be story!), but I do love each and every one of them, including Raoul the finger biter! Aside from that they are having the time of their lives out and about in the garden and adjoining fields learning how to pounce and this week climb bigger trees, including some plane trees that are taller than the house!

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Talking of Raoul the finger biter, my finger continues to make slow progress and I can do much more now, but it is still much bigger than its left-hand counterpart. I will be so pleased when the course of antibiotics is over – not enjoying that!

This week I thought you might like a little giggle at our expense, so I am going to share the journey of two pool novices over the last 2 years. I am not sure you have had a complete tour of the garden yet, but we were very fortunate that our lovely house came with a rather splendid saltwater pool, measuring 12m by 6m, deep enough to dive into and located up near the copse, with lovely views towards the house, across one of the valleys and with oak tress towering above. Such a luxury, at times I have to pinch myself when I am swimming, well not when I am actually swimming but figuratively speaking. It feels so hotel-like and grand. Also swimming in a salt pool is really great, no after-swim smell of chlorine and not as salty as the sea – perfect. With the luxury, however, comes a lot of responsibility (and cost), as we have found out and continue to learn about at the start of summer number 3 of pool ownership.

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When we came to view the house, the pool was closed but we had seen the photo above so were very excited. When we came to stay the pool liner was being replaced, so no actual sight of the pool before purchase. There is another story there as the apprentice charged with emptying the pool to remove the liner managed to make a slight mistake and flooded part of the house when the water didn’t drain away but flowed down the hill. Needless to say neither Max nor I have been pool owners before. I once house sat for some family friends in the South of France and nearly managed to empty the pool, by mistake of course. I turned something the wrong way – very briefly. Fortunately crisis was averted but scary nonetheless. So we viewed the pool with both excitement and a good deal of trepidation.

When we bought the house the pool was being maintained by a professional pool person, who has helped, taught and rescued us on a few occasions. The first summer we had family and friends to stay, the pool was perfect, the weather great and then overnight the pool turned green! Our learning curve started. Not only did I not know the pool vocabulary in French, I don’t really know it in English either – very much like my building and renovation vocabulary – neither language, so I am learning more than I had anticipated! We had a hysterical conversation with the pool guy about something which to me was unintelligible – until he kindly told me in perfect English and then it all made sense, particularly as it is virtually the same in both languages – oops!

The purchase of a very expensive but fabulous pool robot, duly named Bernardo, added to the fun. He does a great job sweeping up the dust and debris that end up in the pool. At the end of the pool season, much enjoyed, the pool guy came and closed it down for the winter, put the big heavy cover on and voila! It all seemed so easy – little did we know.

Last year the weather was amazing from February – a direct contrast to this year! Pool companies were closed during the ‘confinement’ (lockdown) here in France and you couldn’t buy any pool products as they were not deemed necessary, and of course as novices we had none! Eventually mid-May lockdown ended, we arranged for the pool guy to come and took off the winter cover in advance of his arrival. That in itself is a story. It is very heavy and took three of us to haul it off. Horror of horrors a really murky pool emerged filled with brown water. Ooh la la! A lot of tutting from pool man, obviously we should have taken the cover off, cleaned the leaves off during the winter, etc! (Bear agreed). Obvious when you know, not so when you are pretty clueless about all things pool, other than swimming up and down and lounging occasionally by its side, imagining you are rich and famous (not really but I do have a very glamourous hat for lounging by the pool – very Riviera)! Actually the clueless bit is not entirely true, we did know how to do the pH test for the water in that first year.

Year 2 of pool ownership and we learnt a lot. It took 2 weeks to coax the pool from brown water to a beautiful blue, involving a lot of testing and taking water samples to the pool shop. All the while we were looking longingly at the pool – well not longingly at the state of the water, but longing for a swim! Little by little the lovely Stéphane (our pool expert) imparted his knowledge and we researched what to do. We also learned more about the products to keep it clean and sparkling and a lovely colour, as the pool’s electrolyser broke so we had to manually maintain it. Actually not a bad thing to happen, apart from the cost, and as it turns out the time – it took a year to get it back! In a world full of problems, dealing with the vagaries of pool ownership is not one of them. It does provide endless entertainment, testing the water, fishing out lizards from time to time and endlessly scooping out leaves as the pool is built near some magnificent oak trees, lovely for shade, a nightmare for pool maintenance and that is before the acorns start falling!

Winter closure brought more fun. No sign of Mr Pool Man or the electrolyser. Eventually we went to see him, were instructed to buy some flotteurs (black plastic floats attached in a long line) to stop the pool from freezing as cold temperatures were predicted and he would visit to close things down properly. We spent a thoroughly ‘fun’ afternoon in the freezing cold putting these across the pool and then trying to get the cover on across worn out straps – note for 2021 buy new straps and ratchet things. Divorce for the newly-weds was close as, of course, it went wrong and started taking on water, and we had to redo it. No light undertaking with puddles of pool water to drain off as well. Huge relief and celebration, not to mention apologies for bad tempers, once the job was done! Just in time as it turns out as there was a big freeze the next day.

Now we are at summer number 3. On Wednesday the pool van pulled up unannounced, the electrolyser was reinstated, the hefty cover removed by them and joy of joys the pool looked better than when we put it to bed. One positive from a cold winter. Max spent a fair bit of time putting the flotteurs away, now we just have the cover to clean and fold for next winter. We have been instructed to take a water sample to the shop on Saturday and then administer whatever needs to go in. We also have to buy some special pool liner feet for the pool ladder to prevent damage to the liner – who knew? The ones currently on the ladder were greeted with a very firm Non! All good – when the weather improves it will be back to swimming (and leaf scooping). Once again further nuggets of highly important information were imparted by Stéphane, all delivered with the incredulous expression of ‘you should know this’ all over his face! Maybe he is right, maybe we should. Each time we meet some further vital detail is revealed.

After Max had fished out various dead things that has slipped in under the cover (twigs, lizards, spiders and a couple of tiny snakes), Bernardo was brought out of hibernation and set off to do his bit for the pool, but disaster struck. Bernardo started to malfunction and was endlessly turning in small circles. Max set up an emergency pool robot clinic and located the problem, one of the rubber caterpillar tracks had come loose. Operation successfully completed, Bernardo hit the water again and off he went, this time in straight lines! I am sure this year we will learn even more and one day will be almost expert in all things pool.

No chance of swimming at the moment unless 15°C water appeals. I tried it last year and it is cold! Today we have rain (the gardens need it and the farmers are very pleased), and although we are promised 28°C on Saturday, by Tuesday it is forecast to fall to 13°C. I am back in winter clothes as the house is cold again, but at least I don’t have to water anything. It’s the little things!

Last week I promised an announcement. I am a bit behind in reorganising the blog site following the finger incident. During May look out for a revamped blog site, with sections for each of the different subjects I have been talking about – renovating, decorating and styling rooms, the garden and potager,  cooking with seasonal produce, places to visit, brocante finds and upcycling/renovating them, and more. From June I will be introducing more seasonal recipes with a focus on what is at the market or in the potager – on the first Monday of each month – starting on 7^th June.

I had better stop now and get on with this. Enjoy the week ahead. I would love it if you could let me know if there are things you would really like to hear about. I am trying to give you a flavour of the many layers of living in France while renovating an old ‘petit chateau’ on an increasingly challenging budget, with 5 rescue animals (nearly 8 today as a dog and her 2 puppies looked like they might adopt us) and in a pandemic! We are ‘living our dream’ but with a few nightmares thrown in to keep us on our toes. Life is never boring, that is for sure and there is always too much to do, but we love it here and continue on our quest to restore this lovely old house and open it as a chambres d’hotes next year.

A bientôt

Ali xx