Flower power in the hedgerows

Monday 11 May 2015

Overcast 27 degrees

Usually I love Mondays.   Today I didn't feel quite up to the challenge.  Dragged myself down to the rental unit to try and load some new properties. I have had the paperwork for one of them for over a week now.  Not good.  Delicious smells wafted up from the ground floor restaurant.  The phone rang non stop - dink dop - and cutlery was rattled and glasses clinked.  My mobile rang and it is a complete miracle and the phone and Internet are back on at home!  Collected OH blood test results, spoke to my colleague about various things and went back home and sat and enjoyed cup of tea whilst looking at the green flashing lights on the Livebox.  My current favourite view.

Two hours later we had caught up on all of the backlog, I finished off loading another property and walked the dog.

One benefit of a semi blind and extremely deaf dog is that you are obliged to wander the lanes with them whilst they do their thing(s).  I never realised how beautiful the Spring and early Summer flowers are and just on my doorstep.  Today's delights were deep purple Aquilegia (Granny's Bonnets)

http://newfs.s3.amazonaws.com/taxon-images-1000s1000/Ranunculaceae/aquilegia-vulgaris-fl-ahaines-c.jpg

Also deep burgundy Geranium Phaem 

 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Geranium_phaeum_flowers.jpg

and Solomon's seal which is just starting to die back

 thank you Louis Landry

Didn't have my phone with me so have had to rely on Google images here.  It is still a wonder to me that I find garden plants growing wild in the hedgerows here.  Sometimes, if I am lucky, I come across some orchids

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Dactylorhiza_fuchsii_(flower_spikes).jpg

or some wild purple gladioli, so reminiscent of holidays in Cornwall when the boys were little

http://www.wildflowersofireland.net/image_uploads/flowers/Gladiolus-Eastern-2.jpg

I get an increased offer on the llama farm but it is still woefully below the asking price.  I transmit this to the vendors, who are currently in Spain and trying to prolong the reservation deposit on their Spanish property.  To my utter amazement, they accept, providing I drop fees by 50%.  I go back to the agency and say I might be able to squeeze five grand more out of the buyers but that will probably be it.  I also remind them that there is an introducer who has negotiated a wonderful deal for themselves.  The agency say they will see what they can do.  

The vendors tell me that they had received an email from the Russians, saying that the man has been seriously ill and in hospital.  I know that he has been posting funny things on FB and says that he is going to a flower show on Thursday of this week.  Is this proof that they are bonkers or liars?  I am so depressed.  I found them to be such delightful people.  OH says it was never clear where the money was coming from.  He never takes to people in a big way, as I do.

A day of solid toil

3 May 2015
Overcast and very hot and sticky 26 degrees

Awake and again feel exhausted.  The air in the bedroom is close and I have been battling with the sheets all night.  I throw open the bedroom window and the air is sticky and damp. Few birds are singing.  We drink tea in bed and the phone rings and the neighbour has started strimming his lawn and it is still only 9.15 am.  People ride by on VTTs.  (vélo tout terrain)  Dont these people do grasse matinées? (lie ins).  The phone call is from the owner of the house which has just received the mean offer.  She says she wants 20k more or she is not selling.

OH parks himself in front of the tv to watch recorded football.  I clean up the kitchen, hoover downstairs, clean downstairs bathroom and make beds and sort and put away laundry. Have lunch and close eyes for fifteen minutes.  Then tackle the ironing mountain.  The dog is monumentally bored and doesn't care that Columbo is closing in on the fiendish young lady who 'accidentally' shot her brother and is now taking over the family firm.  OH is still out battling the greenery on his tractor.  Take the dog up the lane.  The Spring flowers are magnificent.  Solomons seal ramps thickly under the trees and deep purple aquilegias glow on the banks.  Tiny blue faced forget me nots shine out of the dark undergrowth.

My neighbour drives up on his tractor and says hello.  He also says he may be laid off from his job at the gas factory in August.  He is 60 and unlikely to find other work and has three years to go before retirement.  He has already received an estimate and says it will be 1000 euros a month.  He does not think that this will be enough to live on.  He also says that he has thought of a way to fill in the massive hole on our land, made by an idiot landscaper when we were out working.  We had asked him to fill in and smooth an area behind the barn to make a parking area and asked him to take soil from an area by the trees.  Instead of taking soil from a widespread area, he had dug a large hole.  We have spent years throwing in all manner of things which needed to be disposed of, and it has been more convenient than going to the tip but now it is looking like a tip itself.  

I once accidentally made 'fire in the hole' by setting fire to a little bit of the rubbish in the hole.  The fire and heat was considerable and the flames were a good twenty feet high.  I scared myself to death and spent an hour running back and to from the house with buckets of water. OH came home from fishing and found me black faced and manic.

Our neighbour said that the previous owner of our house had made a 'butte' on the land (I always wondered why there was a strange flattened area) in order to put on pig housing but had never gotten around to it.  He could take soil from that area and fill in the hole. Excellent.  I gave up walking the dog in the direction of the woods; the grass was hip height and the path was deeply rutted and muddy.  Ticks and snakes abound.  Went back up the road and met another neighbour.

This neighbour has escaped the farming life and lives in Cap d'Agde.  He showed me his new quad bike and prune faced wife.  She obviously has never experienced the farming life and doesn't like the look of it.  He is strimming the grass around his fathers former house and says he is back to plant maize for the last time as he will be selling up everything.  I remind him that I am an estate agent and we swap details.  He says he wants to sell the little ruined house just up the lane.  All of his properties in the area could be described as ruins as the rooves are all caving in.  The little ruin, in addition to no roof, also has no windows or doors.  I suppose if the price is low enough....

Back home and make roast dinner and weed for two hours.  Fall asleep twice on the sofa before OH insists I go to bed.  Preston North End manage to make a very hard job of beating lowly Colchester and lose 1-0.  In the play offs AGAIN.  They have lost the last nine playoffs.  Not a good prognosis.

Internet off again.  I am never going to get the group newsletter done.

To sell or not to sell? That is the question (amongst others)

Sunday 12 April 2015

Cloud cover with sunny spells
21 degrees

Read Frederick Forsyth's 'The Afghan' in bed with many cups of tea.  Gripping story and also helps to understand some of the nightmare that is Islamic extremism.  The extremists latest atrocities extend to cultural cleansing and they have just destroyed the ancient city of Nimrud

 A sculpture of a guardian figure in Nimrud. Photograph: Nik Wheeler/Corbis

 Detail of an Assyrian relief from Nimrud showing horses and horsemen of the royal chariot, 725BC. Photograph: Steven Vidler/Eurasia Press/Corbis

Most of the site's relics are safely stored in museums around the world but many of the winged guardian figures had been left in place.  These people are not extremists or fundamentalists.  No religion advocates destruction.  Young girls as running away from the UK to be brides of Islam.  I wonder in what dreadful situations they find themselves.  What torture for their parents.

We take the dog to the river, which is slow flowing and deep agate in colour.  The sky is a deep azure blue and we see salmon and trout idly treading water and then back home and I need another siesta.

I catch up with the NZ ladies finally at the end of the afternoon and tell them the good news about the Villa.  They are cautiously excited and say they are severely jetlagged and we will talk at 1 pm my time tomorrow.  I am concerned that they will not offer enough. Watch Location, Location, Location and pick up a useful phrase used by Phil which will help me to present any offer coming from the ladies, to the owner of the Villa.

I tackle the immense ironing mountain.  The phone rings and it is the Brits who OH told to sod off so I dont answer it.  We have a chat.  Do we really want to sell our house now?  Do we want to sell at all?  I point out that if we were to improve the house - put in central heating and do the bathroom - would we need to move?  There is a fundamental gap of about 200 miles between where I want to live in the UK and where OH wants to live.  He is not yet aware that I have no intention of living anywhere other than the South coast.  What is the point of going back to the UK and being so far from the boys that we never see them?  I also want to live on the coast. He is thinking Lake District or Trough of Bowland or Yorkshire.  OH says our house is a lot of work and he is sick of the rental units.  We decide to withdraw the house from the market and if someone with a lot of money comes along, then we will sell.  He is keen on spending a lot of time in Spain.  I cant say that I am.  Yet another country where he wont be able to get along with the language and it will all be left down to me.

Feel stressed about various sales.  OH makes strange meal of duck breast, cauliflower, roast parsnips and charred onions. To be fair, that was all that was in the fridge.  

Infamy, infamy! And we are running out of wood.

31 March 2015

Periods of heavy drizzle
13 degrees

We are nearly out of wood and the holidays are two weeks away.  The idea was that we would get back from holiday and not need any more wood because it will be May, and in the way of May, would be lovely and warm.  OH has taken to looking at the old beams in the barn and we may have a reprise of Angela's Ashes over the next few days.  Wet weather continues.  Last May was cold and wet.  The weather has definitely gone downhill over the 11 years we have been out in Europe but has still a way to go to be as bad as it was where we lived in the UK.

I go and see the doctor and show him my itchy elbow and neck and alas, he says it is psoriasis and is often caused by stress.  I have been stressed by sitting in his waiting room for over an hour whilst the previous patient waffled on about nothing in particular and left, looking in the best of health.  He suggests I take up a calming activity such as yoga or meditation.  I say I don't feel that stressed and he says my body is feeling it and showing it. I also show him the strange mole type thing on my chest and he says I will have to go and see a dermatologist and, no, he doesn't think it is a skin cancer.  My mammogram form arrives in the post.  Infamy, infamy; they've all got it in for me....  I google psoriasis and there are some truly revolting pictures.

On the work front, I go back and take on market the beautiful domaine and holiday home property south towards the mountains.  A return of investment of 10% is possible but the buyer will need to have deep pockets to purchase it.  I take the dog with me and we have a stagger around a muddy field.  The options for running off are limited because there is a whopping, pounding river at the end of the field, and barbed wire all around.  Alas, the coffee shop in the next village is closed so I go back home, have quick lunch and then down to the rental units with OH.

OH has been working in the rental unit now since the beginning of the year and it is still a long way from being finished.  I arrive and do some cleaning and then look at what is meant to be going where in the kitchen area.  Basically, there is not enough room to fit in a washing machine and it is going to have to go in the newly created cupboard (now complete with new, narrow door).  We do some measuring and the only other alternative is to move the sink, which is currently fixed to the wall, and with huge holes in the back where OH has made access to the pipes for the washing machine.  I ask why the washing machine pipes are behind the sink and am told I know nothing, and I have never plumbed in a washing machine.  I should have kept a closer eye on this project.  It will never be finished before we go away.  I wanted to put it on market for Easter.  When, and if, we go back to the UK, I am paying registered artisans to do the work in the house, even if I have to work full time to fund it.

The seller of the town house which is the subject of much wrangling by the two buyers rings me with some news.   Her advocate says she must sign with the other agency or she will be in trouble.  My would be buyers send me a letter they have received from their advocate, saying because my buyers are cash and the other ones aren't, then the sellers have a legitimate reason to withdraw from their engagement with the other buyers. Her advocate has asked to see the copy of the reservation contract signed by the other buyers, with the other agency.

A sale that is still lingering from last year has suddenly acquired some life.  The new owner has applied for change of use and the notice has to be posted in the window of the house for 2 months, during which time the Mayor or a bailiff must pass and see that it is correctly posted and then locals have the right to object.  A problem is that the owner's father, who is an alcoholic and either in the bars or asleep, is alone at the house and I cannot rely on him to put up the notice.  The owner's mother is with her adult children in Oz and the owner lives in China.  Great.  I will have to enlist the aide of a local lady who is friends with the family.