Blog posts

Hints of times gone by

Hello everyone

I have just realised that this is my 20th post (along with 13 recipe posts and 2 places to visit) – I am feeling a little proud to have been doing this for 4 months already. I would love to hear what you think, if you are enjoying it?

This week I am having a look at hidden signs of the house’s history but before that another moment of celebration: We are completely in the French health system now – hooray! I have a social security number, a social security online account (compte ameli) and my top up health insurance (mutuelle). I am just so French (almost)! It took a while but we got there in the end. We are just waiting for the all-important cartes vitales (the photo id to prove this).

Another week of beautiful dawn skies:

In other news – we tackled a huge old climbing rose, which was overtaking the well. It can’t have been pruned in years. A drastic hair cut later…we now have a new flowerbed and have discovered the one rose is actually 3!

I have also been digging over the potager, some beds are still very waterlogged, but a few of them are good to go. I bought some spinach plants from one of my favourite farm stalls at the market last week to get ahead a little – the farm is organic and they grow everything outside without any nasty additives.

I was thrilled to see my first snowdrop appear in the garden. I planted quite a few and am very excited that they are beginning to show their faces.

The daffodils I put in a year or so ago are on their way and the hyacinths we inherited have multiplied. There are now lots of hellebores – so beautiful and also lots of primulas – so pretty. The fruit trees are beginning to blossom – the garden is waking up. I think that this is my favourite time of the year. Maybe this is because I was born in the Spring, maybe not, but I love seeing the trees burst back into life after all the cold and rain. Nature is actually completely amazing!

On the subject of nature, we have been treated to a very handsome fox in the field in front of the terrace, plus 5 beautiful deer, but not on the same day. On Monday I also saw a barn owl perched up on a ledge by the pigeonnier. It must be nesting time. It would be great to get a webcam in there some day to watch the goings on.

But back to the topic of the day – hidden hints of the history of the house. We clambered through our copse the other day. Part of it looks like a bulldozer has driven through, which isn’t that far from the truth as a neighbour took his tractor through to help clear it, the rest is very overgrown. There are signs in the copse of a more formal garden or walk but it hasn’t been touched in at least 100 years. We are going to create a walk through the copse, following the old lines and plant snowdrops, wild garlic and other plants to create interest. At the very end there is part of a curved wall and piles of stones where I imagine it used to continue. I wonder why that was there. Was it an area to sit? Did it form part of a more ornate garden, part of a boundary wall? Who knows?

We have lots of tidying and clearing to do in the copse which will take years I fear. Meanwhile we have found lots of self-planted Viburnum (a lovely shrub with pinky white flowers now and berries in the winter) and plan to replant them along our boundary with the shared part of our drive. One of our neighbours has also offered us various self-planted shrubs in her garden which is fantastic. We will be able to create quite a hedge without the cost involved. Eventually we will fence the copse, but have yet to decide on what type of fencing. If money was no object a wrought iron fence to match the gates on the terrace and by the courtyard would be perfect, however in the real world it will have to be something slightly less costly.

The entrance to our drive is also quite dilapidated but it may once have been much grander. Was there ever a gate I wonder? There are remnants of entrance pillars and a wall, both need rebuilding.  Aside from the stones nearby which formed part of the entrance, we have plenty of additional stone from a pile we found. We assume they are from the old back kitchen that the previous owner knocked down to create the covered terrace where the table tennis table is.

So many plans and not enough hours in the day to do them, nor currently money in the bank to pay for them! We have to be ever resourceful to find ways to achieve some of these things, as is always the case when renovating on a budget.

Whilst cleaning out one of the few cupboards in the house, we found remnants of wallpaper on the wall at the back. This wallpaper may well have decorated the North landing at some point. Behind the huge mirror in the salon there are also signs of old wallpapers. It is fascinating to see how the place was decorated once upon a time. The previous owner stripped off all the old layers of wallpaper and with it most of these clues to the history of the house and the taste of past inhabitants. He does have photos which he plans to send us, which will be really interesting to see.

I am still digging around in the history, when I have time. We are hoping to meet with someone in the village whose family has lived there for a long time. He is an incredible source of local knowledge so we are quite excited about that, as there are still a few gaps. I will let you know what we find out.

A lovely sunny, warm day was slightly marred by the car breaking down. We were just off to Albi to visit Leroy Merlin (A DIY place) as we need a replacement hook for one of the large shutters in the tower and to squeeze in a visit to a brocante, when the car messaged us to say it was too hot and could we slow down! We did. We stopped and restarted. The same again. Something was seriously wrong. So we turned around abandoning ideas of drifting around a brocante and headed back to our garage in Cordes. The very helpful owner had a good look, refilled the coolant which then proceeded to drain out all over the road. After some head shaking he pronounced that it looked like the water pump had gone. He, however, could not fix it until mid-March.

So we had to get the breakdown people out who eventually, after a few calls, took it off to another garage and with another call to the ‘Assistance’ a taxi was booked to take us home. We had to wait for an hour for the taxi to arrive, a little longer than promised. Luckily it was a gorgeous sunny afternoon so roadside loitering wasn’t too bad, especially when Max returned from the boulangerie with some delicious madeleines.  Once home, a further call to the Assistance (as everything has to be done one step at a time) and we managed to organise a replacement car for the next day and a taxi to take us to the car hire place in Albi. The upside to all the phone calls is that the breakdown attendance, taxis and hire car are all covered by our French car insurance.

8am on Thursday morning off we went with a very friendly taxi driver, who told me my accent in French was charming (?). Not sure I agree but it was good to chat in French. The hire car place was fine, although on sight of Max, who is 6’3”, they changed the car from a Fiat 500 to a Renault Clio! We got back home just in time to round up the female kittens and take them to the vet to have their stitches removed. This marks the end of being woken up each night to the rasping licking sound of our sumo wrestler girls (see last week’s post Projects Galore) trying to get their bandages off. At last we might get some undisturbed sleep! As you can see from the photo they can’t wait to get outside to explore the garden.

News from the garage was not so good but could have been worse. The car will hopefully be fixed by Tuesday and we will be much poorer. C’est la vie. Another renovation project on hold for now. Still we have plenty to do as ever.

I will leave you with a few more Spring flowers and look forward to seeing you next week – in March.

Have a great week.

A bientôt

Ali xx

2 Comments

  • Susi

    The spring flowers are beautiful Alison and I absolutely love that wallpaper, I hope you get those photos

    • Ali

      The wallpaper is really beautiful. I also hope we get those photos as it would be so interesting to see more of what the house looked like. I will keep you posted. x

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