Wednesday 17th May 2006

Normally, dear reader, you would have to wait until the end of the month for the next installment of the Blom diaries, but this has been a special day and deserves a web log just for itself. Don’t fret, there will be another one later with tales of our holiday in Tenerife et al.

Anyway, let me tell you about today because it has been a very BAD DAY.

People who know me know that, in general, I am a lucky person. I have good friends, life long friends, I am healthy, I am proud of my children and my grandchildren are a constant joy. I have a beautiful and loving wife and long ago realized that I have a guardian angel looking out for me. Not today. Let me tell you about my day………

1. The bath leaks. Not here, but back at the Hop Poles, our house back in England. Cousin Mike went to have a look and said that the bath has a hairline crack and needs replacing. Only trouble with that is the airing cupboard was built around the bath and would need to be dismantled. Luckily (sic) we have 24x7 plumbing insurance so I sent them round to see what was what. The plumber (another Terry) said that the bath was OK and that one of the two leaks was from the taps. He could not get to the underside of the taps due to the bath being part of the airing cupboard. There was another small puddle, but no reason could be seen for it. He said that it was a duff installation (or words to that effect and it would not be covered by insurance – oh joy. Arranged with Tessa for her daughter to take a bath tonight (with the bath panel off) to make certain that the bath leaks or not. If it leaks we will get a new one fitted (can you imagine the logistical nightmare of finding a plumber and getting a new bath fitted from over here in France!). If the bath is not cracked then I need a plumber brave enough to find the underside of the taps!

2. The lawn mower won’t fire. It works on full choke but not otherwise. I took it to bits, cleaned the carburetor, blew back the petrol feed (this made me feel sick) – still won’t work. Blocked jet perhaps? Who knows. I feel like taking it to the tip and buying a new one. Perhaps tomorrow I will fell better.

3. The shed delivery has been postponed. We have to have the new garden shed delivered and erected so that I can empty the barn ready for the builder to start on June 5th. Delay is not an option! Try telling that to the French. Have they never seen Apollo 13! Oh joy.

4. Strimmer. I lent my garden strimmer to a neighbour, John who runs the local kennels. He returned it today (along with my laser level and wheelbarrow). Unfortunately, the automatic string loading mechanism failed long ago and you need to intervene to change the string. Not possible any more as it has fused solid. We tried to get the thing apart using a vice and plumbing levers, but to no avail. Awaiting inspiration or I will have to take drastic action of the impact variety.

5. Spent an arm and a leg on special damp proofing paint for the shed base ( I forgot to put any water proof in the concrete mix). Spent this afternoon putting the said damp proof paint on the base (weather forecast said it would be a fine evening) .Five litres was just the right amount – maybe the bad day has ended. Just then I saw a thunder storm to the south (it was sunny where we were, more proof that the bad day had ended? Then the wind changed and the storm turned towards us. Hailstones the size of golf balls rained down on my newly painted shed base.

The gods are really picking on me today. I can’t even have a good drink and go to bed early as I have to speak to Mike and Tessa this evening about the leaky bath…Sorry to go on about it but !!!!!!!…..I will let you know what happened in the next thrilling installment of the Blom diaries……xxx

April 2006

Garden

The garden is looking, even if I say so myself, very nice indeed. The combination of sun and rain is making the grass grow at a rate of knots and it needs mowing more than once a week. However, as I am boss here, it only gets mowed on Fridays.


Shed base

Major building work of the month was completing the base for the new abris de jardin (garden shed to those non French speakers out there). Sharon and I worked very hard and it looks great. Need something to seal the concrete before the shed arrives. Any advice in this regard would be greatly appreciated. It looks likely that we will use bitumen.



Renovation of The Barn

Went to see a conservatory built by Andrew the conservatory man. Just the job – exactly what we were looking for. We had to ask for a revised devis (estimate) as the architect plans are ambiguous (regular readers will not be surprised by this) and after careful measuring, it needs to be 5.5 metres long not 6.3 metres.

Agreed a start date with the builder – June 5th. Lets hope the Bank stumps up the money in time.

Proof, if proof were needed, That VaF is back to being a building site.

New friends / Golf partners

We have recently made some new friends here in France. They are Martin & Helen from Montpinchon and David & Sandra from St Denis le Vetu. Nice people and they play golf! We have had two round so far, one at Brehal and on at Periers. Played crap at first but my swing is slowly coming back to normal. There are not many practice facilities here so I have ordered a “David Letterman Swing Setter” from Ebay. The swing setter is a type of club with balls spaced out on the shaft. If you swing correctly the balls click together, good swing-click click, bad swing - no click. I will let you know how I get on.


Top field / horse

Unlikely as it seems I have just had a bit of good luck. I have started cutting the top field with the ultimate aim of having it as part of the garden. Martin (mentioned previously) kindly lent me his bush-cutter as my strimmer is a bit under powered for the job and would have taken me a month of Fridays to finish the job. If you thought that the simile should be ‘month of Sunday’s you would be correct, only there is an unwritten law here that you don’t use noisy machinery on a Sunday, so I mow on Fridays.
Anyway, Sunday afternoon we had a visit from a local farmer who asked if he could graze his horse on the field. What a turn up. I don’t have to cut the grass as the horse will eat it all and Sharon gets a new pet to play with.

Holiday / cup final / Sharon’s birthday/ Mick Laws

Off to Tenerife with Marg & Brian on Thursday. Looking forward to relaxing for a week in the sun. After the holiday we will be staying a couple of days in England to see the family (not). West Ham are in the cup final in Cardiff – guess where all my lot are? Yep, Cardiff. I will especially miss seeing young Jake. We will also miss his 2nd birthday party (bouncy castle) as we will be in Tenerife. Oh well.
Mike Laws even phoned from Australia to see if I had any tickets – he was quite prepared to fly over for the cup final. Tickets are scarce, but more importantly, it’s Sharon’s 50th birthday on May 13th (cup final day) . She doesn’t want a party of fuss made so we are going for a meal in a restaurant just outside Cambridge with Marg & Brian, Pete & Sue Bradley (now home from Florida) and Mick & Carol. Looking forward to it.


xxx