What the...?

When the plumber arrived, I felt a frisson of excitement—this was really starting to happen!

The garage, as I showed him, was already full of items awaiting their new homes: a new hot water heater, three sinks and faucets (a real luxury when you consider I’ve been living the past five months with just one viable sink, in the kitchen), a new glass shower and shower pan, a dishwasher, oven, sliding closet doors and rails for my first ever closet in this house, and a slew of cabinets from IKEA in varying stages of assembly, including the vanity and medicine chest for the new bath.

Inching Forward with the Impending Renovation

After much searching, pleading with anyone and everyone I knew, and multiple phone calls, finally I had found my plumber. Not only that, he spoke a very little English (about on par with my French) and he had an electrician he could recommend.

Monsieur, are you thinking of me?

I have been astonished at how time consuming it has proved to not only get names of plumbers and electricians that locals actually feel confident recommending but how difficult it is to actually get quotations. Had I known four months ago that I'd only just be finalizing this now, I think I would have given up.

Wildlife Here in the Brenne, in the Land of the Lakes

I thought I'd take a welcome break from coughing up stone dust (kicked up by these admittedly minor renovations as some of these houses go), and share a few nature photographs taken by Peter Street

And We're Off...

The much anticipated (and arguably equally dreaded) renovation work has begun.

No Water Shortage Here

Going back to when I first returned home from Portugal, it was two days before my birthday.

No sooner than I had gotten in the door and turned the water back on, I discovered that my neighbors hadn't exaggerated when they said we'd had an extraordinary, truly unheard of cold spell during my absence, several straight weeks of temps getting down to -17C/2F.

A Day in the Life of...

Well, it's easily three months since I bid adieu to Portugal (and apparently my good intentions to update this blog weekly.) But it has been a relatively busy three months.

Several people have asked me over the past months (okay, it might be past years) to describe what a typical day is for me here in France. I've hesitate simply because when you work from home like I do, it's not terribly exciting. I mean, the work can be exciting for me but hardly bears up in the telling.

But just before I'd left for Portugal this past January, I'd sent what was intended to be a quick synopsis to a friend here on evening who'd asked how my day had gone:

Adeus a Portugal; Bonjour encore, la France

Our six weeks in the western end of the Algarve in Portugal just flew by, one glorious day after another where I more often than not sat inside working instead of enjoying the sun but was still happy to be there. We did take the occasional walks together on the beach, my friend and I and our brother-and-sister dogs. The promised heated pool never materialized, sadly, as there had been a cold spell when we first arrived and they just couldn’t get it up to temperature fast enough to make it cost-effective—we were only paying to heat it once it got up to the promised temp, which it never did, despite trying for about 10 days. Still, that didn't stop us from sitting around it, soaking up the sun during the warm afternoons.