You show me yours and I will show you mine....

Tuesday 24 March 2015

Cold and raining 8 degrees

I work in 'partenariat' with another local agent so this morning I showed her one of mine and she showed me one of hers.  This involved an early start as she is juggling the demands of a very young child and an artisan husband who expects two cooked meals on the table every day.  Apparently the 21st century hasn't quite arrived in this part of the world.  

I get there at 9 am and she is just upstairs, cleaning her teeth and 'putting on her face'.  I sit myself down in the kitchen and listen to the heavy chunking click of the wall clock and the periodic drip of the tap in the sink.  There are some fabulous oil paintings of cockerels on the back wall and underneath, a large country style dresser piled up with paraphernalia of daily life; books, bills, wax crayon drawings, greetings cards, keys.  P arrives in a rush and we climb into my car and head out into the morning drizzle.

The first house is just 20 minutes away and the owner lets us in.  He is wearing a waist belt and had a trapped nerve in his back.  His face is pale and he has lost a lot of his habitual bonhomie.  The house is 18th century with interior exposed stone walls and high ceilings with beams blackened by age and many fires.  The kitchen is bright and has lovely railway white oblong tiles running over the thick wooden slab worktops.  A fire burns in the hearth and the immense TV is showing news of the Airbus crash over the French Alps.  Everyone lost.  We finish the visit in a mood of shock.

The next house is 44 kms away and we talk about statutes.  This is how the work regime is described over here.  P says that she managed to go onto auto entrepreneur status but it was very complex.  Her accountant ('a real cowboy - I met him in a bar') advised her that she needed to cancel her status as an independent commercial agent, which attracts massive social charges (see yesterday's post) and then she would be able to re register as AE (auto entrepreneur).  This she did but when she went to see the relevant government dept, she was told she couldn't re register for a whole year.  As she was still working for her former agency at the time, she was aghast.  The fonctionnaire (white collar worker) pulled out a piece of paper saying that there were exceptions to the rules and one of these was registering as a 'presenter of services', so that is what she became until setting up her own agency and becoming a limited company.

She also told me about a 'friend' who is a banker and with whom she opened her new business account.  Her website provider is in the UK and has to be paid in pounds sterling. Her banker friend was charging her 54 euros for each monthly transfer from euros into sterling in order to pay these fees.  Her calls and emailed were ignored.  She is still with him.  I would have fired him off in no uncertain terms.

My phone keeps ringing with the would be buyers of the house in my town.  I have stopped answering their calls.  Ask P for her opinion as to their case and she says they are in a very poor position and the other agent is sitting pretty.  Oh dear, that is what the notary also said.

We arrive at the second house and it is a wonderful farmhouse so far from the road that I may never find it, and ideal for my road averse clients.  The owner arrives with her son, who is autistic, and highly up on all the facts, figures and dates relating to the property.  The poor lady has had a life filled with tragedy, her husband being killed in a road accident and her eldest son nearly being killed in the same spot a year later, and still having problems with infections and relapses.  S is petite and immaculately turned out, her pale chestnut hair swept into a smooth chignon and pale skin stretched over a fine bone structure.  We trot around the house and I really need to pee.  I ask permission, test that the water is on, and bliss, am left to relieve myself.  Alas, discover that the flush doesn't work.  Come back downstairs and the autistic son says, very loudly, did I notice that the flush was broken. Feel embarrassed.

Stop off for coffee on way back.  P asks if I miss my children, far away in the UK.  Feel suddenly tearful.  Yes, is the answer, always and forever no matter how old they will be.

Back home for very quick lunch and then south to a walled bastide town hanging onto a hill above a torrential and pounding river.  The GPS takes me around many roads, none of which are right so the owner has to come and find me.  His property is surprisingly large, with room after room after room and I suddenly feel very tired.  We go into an overheated salon and he serves me luke-warm coffee and tells me that he has no life, the business is exhausting and he wants to sell and have children with his wife.  I tell him that children are also very tiring and they are impossible to sell on....  For the price he wants, his property is also impossible to sell on.

Drive to local town in search of cake and obtain a very large pain aux raisins stuffed with massive fruits and pearls of sugar for myself and a lemon tart for OH.  Back home in heavy rain and have to do lots of emails.

Spend evening with OH watching YouTube videos of men with very strange West Country accents, fishing off the rocks of the Bristol Channel and I start loading details of craft group ladies into the Mail Chimp software.   Easter is coming up fast on the rails and I have promised them a newsletter.  Three ladies have come forward with articles, fortunately, so I don't have to write the whole sodding thing myself.

Dog is looking very tired after spending last night in the outhouse.  He can smell a lady dog in the vicinity and spent the whole night barking.  At his age, he really should know better.

What is marriage?

Sunday 22 February 2015

Brilliant blue skies with cloud later
9 degrees

Wake early and write.  There is something blissful about having the whole day ahead of you, with no work obligations, and the freedom to express your thoughts.  Writing is happiness, as is gardening.  No one knows who I am when I write.  No one tells me what to do in my garden.  Leads me to wonder how much of our time do we spend, being who we actually are and doing what our hearts wish.  As a child of the 50's, I was raised to be polite and obedient, not to be pushy or aggressive, not to expect too much, not to talk back, not to be too visible.  I dont remember ever being told what I should be, other than 'good'.  My mother was brought up on a mantra of 'children should be seen and not heard', and to some extent passed that onto her children.  I have not deliberately done this with mine but wonder to what extent, subconsciously or otherwise, I have passed my upbringing onto them?

When I was young and dating, I presented a very acceptable form of me to my dates.  It all fell apart when I started being the real me and not the very compliant me.  I was then crushed.  On reflection, I was being dishonest and this led to problems at work, as the me I was presenting was oceans apart from the real me.  I spent a lot of time smiling and nodding and not 'talking back' whilst under the surface was a frothing rage of emotions and frustration.  Passive aggressive, that was me.

In my experience, men dont fall for this 'being not themselves' thing.  They are what they are and they keep looking for someone who fits with them and when they think they have the right person, then they form a long term relationship.  OH and I have now been together nearly thirty years and got married relatively early in our relationship.  We must have spent a good 18 months knocking the edges of one another until we achieved a compromise which worked for both of us.  

He had the surprise that I was not the always sunny character I promoted during our courtship (especially when it came to the question of having bridesmaids foisted on me by his mother) and I discovered he expected me to replace his mother.  I expected him to do repairs and home decoration.  He expected me to do all the housework, shopping and cooking and why didnt I know how to darn socks or turn a shirt collar (I am not joking here). We had gone into marriage with a lot of expectations which should have been discussed before we got to arguing about them.  I had lived in a neat and clean environment all of my life and like an ordered home.  OH had spent 27 years throwing things about and his mother had picked them up.  The first 18 months of living together were a baptism of fire where we both established limits and who would do what.  My mother in law was very distressed at my lack of cooking skills (at uni I had only been allowed to do the washing up in our communal kitchen) which consisted of lentil lasagna and curry.  I also did not wash windows (along with many other things).  I remember coming home from work and it was raining (in Preston in rains virtually every day of the year) and my mother in law was up a ladder, in an anorak, and cleaning the big plate glass windows.  I invited her in for a cup of tea and heart attack when she saw the state of the place.

After nearly 30 years, OH is a lot tidier because if he doesnt put stuff away, then I do and often dont remember what I have done with it.  He does a lot of the cooking and is much more interested in the activity than I am.  I still do most of the housework.  We have grown together and got around the tough bits.  And that is what marriage is about.

Feel free to comment.  If you are out there.   If you are listening....

Playing on the heartstrings of desperate people

Thursday 12 February 2015

4 degrees rising to 15!

Rose early to listen to the replay of E Herv Eker's 'Masterclass' on MindValley.  If possible, it was even lighter on content than that of Christie Sheldon and lasted two and a half hours. The joy of the replay is being able to bypass the obligatory sob story (76 minutes) and then, what a surprise, he makes a breakthrough by embracing the idea that he can be spiritual and really, really, really (he loves repetition) rich.  He also gives us the nugget that your route to success must match who you are.  Much, much later, he does a visualisation of being at a fork in the road and going in the right hand direction and all is bad etc etc and how does that make you feel and then back to the fork in the road and take the left hand road and all is wonderful.  And to take the right fork, you have to buy his Spiritual Laws of Money products and they are nearly 300 dollars.   Apparently 147 people signed up for this crap on the first day.  Oh, sad and desperate people.   If Eker is indeed a multi, multi (counted to ten on his fingers) millionnaire and desperately wants to help people, why the fuck is he charging them?   The first step to being a millionnaire is to have your scruples cut out and burn them.   Decided to write a help book myself.

Dropped off utility vehicle for MOT then back home to drop off OH and go to meet today's clients.

Hung around in a car park, waiting for the clients, and they were waiting in a different car park.  Finally met up and took them to the house and they were impressed by the interior, which is indeed lovely.  They were not so keen by the barricades erected by the frankly strange neighbour and also there were quite a few trees.  They are selling because there are a lot of trees and the guy is fed up of picking up the leaves.  We are there for well over an hour.  They are going to draw up a list of favourite properties to revisit next week and will then make a decision.  I suggest two other properties and send them the details.

Back home and find OH just about to take the dog out and did I want to trail around in the mud with him.  No I didnt.  Not pleased to find that, yet again, no dishes washed and crap all over the floor.  Cleaned up, in bad mood.  Filed papers that were trailing around everywhere.  Looking at my meter readings for the rental units, I really hope I have read them incorrectly because the difference between last years consumption and this one is absolutely vast and over 1000 euros.

Made chili and did the VAT return online after having turned out all my bags and pockets to find the maximum of chargeable receipts.

Down at the gym, my subscription card had disappeared and no one was available to help so I took the card of a person with a similar sounding name and dived into the blissfully warm and frothing waters.  The lifeguard did notice and I said it was a mistake and he said OK and went back to throwing the bikes in the small pool for the aquabike session.  They landed with some force and large waves splashed over the people who were still doing lengths.  Sod health and safety.  You have just got to love it.

Did 30 lengths and the sun shone on the water and steam rose off the wavelets.  Heaven. Watched GBSB.  Very difficult waistcoat as first task then some brilliant relooking projects and then a 3d construction exercise.  Puffing, pouting black haired lady bunged off.  Men are very strong contenders this year.

Supermarket sweep and airhead alert

Monday 19 January 2015

Nippy and wet


Down the rental unit to do final clean before guests arrive.  Substantial amounts of dust everywhere and two brand new shelves.  Discover one of the window blinds is off its runners and a small window won't shut.  Icy wind rattles through.  We restrain it with some wire and pull down the blind to hide it.   I didn't imagine coming out here would involve so much cleaning.  In the UK it wasn't OH who had a secret woman - it was me and she was my cleaner.  The joy of going into a pristine room that I havent had to do myself is something well worth paying for.

Back home and wrestle with paperwork and phone calls.  Busy for January!  Back down town again to meet the guests.  Five o'clock.  Five thirty.  They ring our home and say they have just arrived at the supermarket at the other end of town and are just doing a little shopping.

I get to the supermarket and do a quick sweep to see if I can spot them.  They are in matching Bargain Hunt red parkas and are dithering over which water to buy.  The man keeps on putting large sizes of things into the basket and the woman keeps taking them out. Every time I get them to the check out, they remember something else.  An hour goes by. I finally get them through the door, down to the rental unit and up the stairs.  They coo in a very Welsh way when they see the flat and I give them quick instruction on how to use the hot plate and put down the fold out bed.  The woman looks confused - is this the only toilet?The flat is 26m2 and has separate kitchen, living room, bedroom, shower room and loo. Resist urge to reply I have hidden extra toilet behind the door.

OH rings me at 7.30 to find out if I am still alive.   I inform him that I have aged more than the passage of two and a half hours and that I will need wine at the ready when I arrive back home.

Watch Notorious.  Glorious costumes.  Cary Grant is as wooden as ever.  Ingrid Bergman so classy.

Lazy Sunday and le désordre anglais

Sunday 18 January 2015

Frosty with sun later

Had a lovely long lazy morning lying in bed and writing.  Frost shining on the cars but my bed is warm and cosy with a big fluffy duvet and snuggly green and white chenille throw. Drink tea and edit for spelling and typing errors.  Am amazed to find I have written over 20000 words since the start of the Leaving Normal project.  I have always wanted to write a book and now I am doing it, one day at a time, at an average of 645 words a day.

I write between 8 and 9 am in the mornings, before OH is awake, and when the time is quiet and the brain is free of chatter.  A good time and conducive to thoughts about all sorts of things.

There is a visit on our house at the end of the week and the main courtyard is looking sad, full of dead plants.  We head to the one nursery which opens its doors on a Sunday.  There are a number of young families in there, enjoying the warmth and the opportunity to run around the aisles.  30% off polar bears, an offer I find very tempting, but OH says we are to keep focused.  Alas, no coffee shop.  OH stands in the middle of the house plant section and is horrified by the prices.  I take him by the elbow and steer him towards the bedding plant section.  I want to get something tasteful - some cyclamen and heather and ivy.  OH is more price driven and we end up getting a dozen garish plants which claim to be of the primrose family.  They are the plant versions of Jordan.  Oh look! I exclaim to OH, they have aquarium fish!   OH reminds me that we have bought two lots of goldfish from here.  Oh dear.  Must be the lack of coffee.  Must start taking ginkgo again.

We have a goldfish pond in the garden.  It measures about 3m2 and is the depth of half way up my thighs.  (more oh dear, I have just had to look up the word for upper half of legs - I blame learning so much French so quickly).  We put in 11 goldfish (the French version of a baker's dozen) and they bred with insane rapidity.  Before the arrival of the heron, they were very tame and would respond to our fingers, waving in the water.  Now they are fewer and very nervous.  Even so, there are well over 100 in there, varying from tiny brown slivers to fat, deep orange submarine original fish.  Over to Google Answers

Goldfish will grow faster if they are fed a higher protein food, or are fed more often, and, given an adequate food supply, they will grow faster the warmer the water temperature. In ponds, goldfish usually grow quite slowly, as their growth rate is minimal over winter. 
They may grow to around 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) but possibly more. If kept indoors in large, or heated, aquaria they will reach this size sooner and potentially grow even larger. Straight-tailed varieties will attain a greater length than twin-tailed types, but since twin-tails are fatter, their actual mass may be even more. 
Like the maximum size, the lifespan of goldfish is also variable. The record is 43 years, but it is uncommon for goldfish to live this long. Goldfish usually live quite long when kept in large aquaria or outdoor ponds, up to 15 to 20 years is not unheard of. In smaller or heated aquaria, a lifespan of five to ten years is quite achievable. 

Ours eat pond flakes but we don't tend to feed in the winter and the fish stay out of sight. We also have a wildlife pond which has returning generations of frogs and salamanders. OH has ongoing war against pond beetles which are bad for some reason or other and I can't be bothered looking up.



The ponds attract the velvet winged damsel flies with their shockingly iridescent bodies and massive eyes.  The wings are so dark purple as to appear almost black, until revealed by an angle of the light.



We also have many dragon flies.  There are some wonderful pictures of these complex and savage insects and if you want to find out more about their habits and talents, go here

http://listverse.com/2013/04/18/10-surprisingly-brutal-facts-about-dragonflies/

Take the dog around the lake.  All of the joggers are older than us and some go around the lake three times for our one.  I am never convinced all that running is good for you.  Must rejoin the swimming club.

Back home and rip out all the dead stuff and plant the little Jordans.  It is an improvement. Am suitably motivated to start cutting back the shorter long border.  I have not been in here since early Summer and it is a morass of old plant growth and weeds.  Gingerly hack at the immense brambles latticing their way over, under and through the mess.  You will get an idea of the chaos when I tell you that I came across a 6' tree sapling.  The Michaelmas daisy stalks were brittle enough to snap off but I had to get up close and personal with the Gaura Lindheimerai, a plant for which I had longed when in chillier climes, not knowing what a complete thug it is

Image Crocus.com

It ramps over the front of the borders and flowers for months, so I do appreciate it, but it does tend to throttle slower growing plants.  The Gaura battles it out with a variety of Evening Primrose, given to me by a passionate plant person, which has beautiful apricot buds before opening into the classic silky yellow flowers with their spicy evening perfume. The Evening Primrose is easily 6 feet tall and is a biennial which I leave to self seed.

Image Uniprot.com

I was also pleased to see many seedlings of Acanthus Mollis, a great structural plant and one which gives year round interest.  I let them seed and then move them in the Spring before they get time to put down their roots properly.

 Image +Robinsyard.blogspot.fr

My style is what the French call 'le désordre anglais'

OH came out and said he was turning off the electric in the house.  A lot of clanging and swearing ensued from my bedroom.  He emerged, flushed with success, an hour later and announced, with biblical overtones, that now I had light.  I used to have a lovely mini chandelier in my bedroom, with many sparkling little crystals.  RJ had hung it and had not attached it to the beams properly, with the result that the wiring always showed and it used to descend slowly over a period of weeks before I shoved it back into the ceiling.  Too heavy alas.  OH decided it looked bad for house visitors, and had just cut off the wire, meaning I had no main lighting for about six months.  I now had light and revelled in the luxury of it. The upstairs light circuits have decided to work again which is just as well, as the electrician says he is ill and can't come.  The thing with OH is not to nag, and to invite people to come and see the house.  

When the boys were small, and a visit from MIL was in the offing, we would make a big effort.  I used to say 'don't tell her we have spent a week, cleaning the mess'.  MIL would duly arrive and say to the boys 'well, what have you been up?' and the little rats used to exclaim 'we have been cleaning ALL week!'  I didn't think I did much cleaning, until I started writing this blog.  This is how I feel about cleaning

I do love watching Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners.  Must sign off, I seem to have done something to the text editor which means it is centring all text.

Somewhat shaken with good news later

Friday 16 January 2015

Misty 4 degrees cold and rain later

Took the dog out early to clear my head.  Really stuffed up and had slept very badly. Glorious morning with tiny wreaths of cloud wrapped around the highest tree branches.  Dog delighted to be out early and ran around happily.  We descended the hill from our house and suddenly, across a large field, two dogs appeared and streaked towards us with alarming speed.  The larger one resembled a Doberman and the slightly smaller one, a mongrel. They halted at the stream, fortunately full from the recent rainfall, and barked aggressively. They have started doing this recently but we ignore them and they stay on their side of the stream. 

I walked the dog on, quickly, but they followed us the length of the stream and their barking became louder and louder.  To my horror, they then crossed the stream and ran across the maize stalks and onto the road.  The dog was pleased and wagged his tail.  He is a moron of some order.  The dogs surrounded him and growled.  The dog smiled and started sniffing their bottoms.  I got to a safe distance and bellowed for the dog to join me and eventually he did, with the other dogs growling and following him.  They must have followed us for a good 200 metres so I arrived home in quite a shaken state.  Would they have been so interested if I had been on my own?  I rang the local police and reported the incident and they promised to go around and see the owner.

Two hours later the phone rang and it was the policeman who was at the owners house.  He passed the phone to me - no client confidentiality here obviously - and the owner told me that her dogs were adorable and not bad at all and I must have made a mistake.  I told her that the dogs were not at all adorable, no I didn't want to come to her house to see how adorable they were, and that I would report her if they did it again.

OH went to local city to obtain building materials and I had peaceful day putting on new properties.  Peace somewhat disturbed when I get an email from the agency saying do I know anything about the collapsed wall.   I ring the notary who updates me to the effect that the buyer has refused to pull out and is insisting that the seller puts the property back into the condition as seen on the last visit.   Later on in the day, I am sent photos.  It is a retaining wall down in the garden - fortunately not part of the house as we would then have had issues with the surveyor as well.  I ring the owner and tell him he needs to get a quote.  He of course doesn't want to get a quote as this amount will then be retained by the notary against the works.  I ring the notary back and ask him to write in no uncertain terms to the seller and tell him what he must do.  Notary confirms that the seller cant back out without having to pay indemnities which are considerably in excess of the value of the wall repairs.

Have cup of tea in garden and smile and say HA!!!  Thank fate for having my back.

Make fire and OH arrives back at the end of five hours shopping and driving.  Update him and then appraise him of my insight, obtained whilst weeding the other day.  When I think of making a sale, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach - a 'here we go again' feeling. Subconsciously I may be blocking making sales because they are so much stress and worry.  OH regards me over the top of his tea cup and says I had better stop it, we need the money.   I give myself permission to make trouble free sales and have help from all quarters from loving people.

Go to bed early and spend night waking up with bone dry mouth.  Don't feel as ill as I used to do when I attraped a non UK cold.  French and Spanish colds used to knock me for six for at least a week.