There goes another one...

So Christmas is gone, and with it 2013.  Tomorrow will be the end of this particular year, one which has brought some big changes.

In January, we were still in the flat in Porlock, although we had agreed terms on buying the house and were in the process of working out what we needed to do to it.

In February, it was time to put plans into action, to go back to Bordeaux one last time, pack up the house and the furniture, ready for the removal lorry to bring it all to England.  For me that particular episode arrived a week earlier than was planned, after the cellar pump in Bordeaux stopped working and a worried phone call from Corinne told us that there was ten centimetres of water in the cellar.  

Normally, it takes something slightly larger than a piece of gravel 1cm aross to make somebody travel to another country.  However, in this case, that's exactly what the problem was.  I was on a plane the morning after Corinne's telephone call, arrived in Bordeaux, took the pump to pieces and found the offending small stone which had blocked the turbine.

After a weekend spent emptying the cellar of water, and drying out the floor every time a few drops appeared, I was on the plane back to England, only to set out again by car and ferry the next day to travel back to Bordeaux.

Those few days in Bordeaux were stressed and strained, and not helped by our buyer from Brittany, who seemed to want to visit the house every day before the completion date, just to ensure that everything was still in saleable order and almost drove us stark raving mad in the process.


In the end, we emptied the house, drove back up the length of France in a day, overnighted in the most utilitarian hotel I have ever seen (I think it was called Formule 1 and cost somewhere south of 40€) and caught the ferry back from St Malo the next morning.  The following day, our furniture  lorry arrived, to the consternation of the populace of Withycombe, and we were installed in our new home by two of the funniest men I have ever met.


And then we were On Our Own.  And thankfully NOT in Bordeaux on 26 July, when the heavens opened and THIS happened:

The first of us to settle into the Withycombe life was Djé.  Being a sensible cat, he knew the limits of our nerves and stayed within them after being allowed out to explore the garden.  He was soon delighting in things which had eluded him for too long - grass, trees, places to hide... It wasn't long before Pastelle joined him in his explorations and not long after that she caught her first mouse. 

  In fact, the most memorable thing about the cats during that period was the amount of local wildlife that they suddenly decided we had to see, dead or alive.  It was difficult sometimes to get from the kitchen to the garden without stepping in the remains of something or other that had been caught, despatched and then left by one or other of our furry fluffy feline friends.  It was usually possible to tell which of them had made the catch - if it was Djé, then the body was most likely in one piece.  If it was Pastelle, then probably only half (usually the back half) remained.  Sometimes, she brought them into the house to show off.

We decided that the first room we needed to sort was the bathroom.  And we made a plan, back in March, just before Easter, of how it was going to be.  Then we bought all the bits and pieces we needed to do it, and started ripping out the old, seventies, avocado suite.  Around the middle of April, all the bits and pieces started to arrive, and work started on making the plan a reality.  I estimated, with a sweeping, airy gesture, that it would probably take about a month to get finished.

Ha ha ha ha ha, and also, ha.

As things stand here and now, the 30th December, I have finished tiling, but not grouting, the floor.  The bath is installed but has no panel and the waste is not yet connected outside, neither is the bath sealed in with silicone, nor the wall-tiles around it grouted.  There are two wash-basins attached and working, but they both need to be disconected and removed whilst I tile behind them.  All the plumbery for the loo is in place, but the pan itself is still sitting in a corner of the "art and music" room, which has so far featured as a large storage space and sort-of bedroom for when Lucie and Alexandre came to stay back in the autumn.

At the top of the garden, there are about a hundred black sacks less of undergrowth (the men at the recycling centre know me well by now).  There are also four newly-built raised vegetable beds offering about 27 square yards of growing space at a back-preserving 3 feet high, built of breeze blocks and ready to last the next fifty years.

And apart from that, the Grand Achievements of 2013, there have been a few dalliances or diversions:

- during the spring, we discovered that our pond was inhabited by about sixty fish, which would once have been called goldfish, but are now a generation or two on the way to becoming wild carp once again.  They have dark marking along their backs and their golden colour is fading.  There are also, however, two very large goldfish, both of which are most of a foot long, and would appear to have been there a very long time.

- we also discovered Newts.  Known as Tritons in French (I do rather like that), these little amphibious lizards are thriving in our pond.  Having seen the first one in April or thereabouts, I spent many a happy hour just sitting there beside the pond looking out for them as they went about their days' business.

- there was also the Day of the Toads.  We discovered two toads mating in the pond one sunny day in May, and learned from Mr Google that they can mate (or rather the toadian version of mating) for three days without stopping.  They never told you that in the Wind in the Willows... 

- and one, slightly less joyous discovery, for Ticia, was that the garden was slightly inhabited by slow-worms.  Whilst for a Somerset old-timer like me, these things seem perfectly natural - I know they're not snakes after all, and I've seen enough in my lifetime not to be alarmed by them - for Ticia this was a rather more momentous discovery, and led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The majority of the year has been passed with the aid of just one kitchen hotplate.  It's amazing how inventive you can be when you know that you only have one ring to cook on.  The favourite recipes of this year have been a choice of:

- chilli sans carne - veggie chilli, served with rice, fresh guacamole and a "sauce d'enfer"
- lentil curry - with saffron rice.  Seriously stonking, and one tin of lentils and one carton of tomatoes does two days of curry.
- soup, soup and more soup - mostly a mix of potatoes, parsnips, leeks and carrots with a bit of herbs de provence and a smattering of cumin.  Abslutely killer, and one batch can last almost a week!

It has also been the year of two drinks - Drambuie - also known by its French pseudonym of Dramberry - and Thatchers Gold cider.


Somewhere in the middle of all that, I managed to go to London and work four days each week, and Achieve the Expectations of my employer (or so my annual performance review said anyway).  So with all that under our belt, what's going to happen in the new year?

That will have to be the subject of the next episode...


Bring on 2014...