Bits and Pieces...

As Val mentioned in her recent "business" blog, we hadn’t written for a while after getting back from the States because we had been rushed off our feet buying a car, getting car insurance (l’assurance auto) and car title (la carte grise), then closing on the apartment, and getting house and contents insurance, electricity, gas, telephone, TV, and internet organized.  

Meanwhile, we had been working hard on designing modifications to the apartment before we moved in. In typical French fashion, even though it is a 3 bed apartment, there is only one, separate, WC (which has no hand basin), and one bathroom (i.e. a bath and washbasin, no toilet).  So we have been brainstorming (une remue-meninges) ways to get a second bathroom with a second WC. Additionally, we want to open up the kitchen where currently there is not much light. This will make it more open plan, add a breakfast bar, and provide easier access to the dining room for carrying dishes back and forth.

Kells Round Tower

We have found a local Irish builder who is doing the basic work for us (cutting through 4 inches of concrete for wastepipes!). Coincidentally, he went to school in Kells, a little market town some way north of Dublin where I worked for a couple of years. The town, also called Ceannanas Mór, is most famous for its Books of Kells, a beautifully illuminated manuscript book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament. It was created by Celtic monks around 800 AD. Kells also has a round tower dating from the 10th century. One story goes that when the Viking raiders arrived the locals would run up a ladder to a high door in the tower and then pull the ladder up behind them. They would have provisions in the tower and simply wait out the rape and pillage going on below! If you want to know more about Kells see this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kells,_County_Meath .

Kitchen walls propped up

Coming back to the work on the apartment (revenons à nos moutons), we intend to completely strip out what remains of the existing kitchen cupboards and fittings, and redo them to our taste (à notre gout).  To plan all this we have been drawing and redrawing possible layouts, then going the rounds of furniture stores such as Conforama and Ikea, and building stores such as Leroy-Merlin and Castorama (similar to Home Depot in the USA or Homebase in the UK), viewing, reviewing and finally selecting what we think will work.

Of course we collide with a lot of specialist vocabulary along the way… most of which I am sure will be transient and be shortly forgotten! Here’s a simple example of wishing to buy a drill. Does monsieur want une perceuse sans fil, un perforateur burineur ou une perceuse à percussion ? Ou peut-être une visseuse à chocs, ou un marteau-piqueur (livré, bien sûr, avec un burin plat) ? And does monsieur want a drill bit with that (un foret and not une forêt, or does monsieur want une mèche) ?

AAGP Play reading group

To complement or counter all this hard work, we continue to enjoy social activities here – helped by weather that continues to be beautiful, with each morning a joy as we open the shutters and see a bright blue sky shining over the tops of adjacent buildings and trees.

Gorges du Caramy

About a dozen of us participate in the AAGP (Anglo-American Group of Provence) monthly English play-reading group, and this time we read Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. It was sublime. Afterwards, we played a portion of the renowned 1960s BBC audio recording of Richard Burton reading it – a humbling experience.

We also enjoyed an AAGP ramble and picnic, with about 20 adults, 5 children and as many dogs. This time it was a walk along the Gorges du Caramy, about 45 minutes’ drive east of Aix en Provence.

© 2012 Trevor and Valerie White

Back to business...

It’s a long time since we wrote a blog and gave you our news. What got in the way was just life: dealing with the realities of buying a car and an apartment in a foreign country (and foreign language), arranging insurance and services, and moving in. If moving house has been shown to be one of the most stressful activities we ever undertake, doing the same under another legal system adds a whole new stress level. Add to that some family issues, and you will see why we haven’t had much time to write recently.

So now it’s time to get back to business, if you’ll pardon the expression. Because the business in question is the loo, the john, the porcelain, the little girls’ room, whatever euphemism you choose, or in other words, the toilet.  The French have a reputation for having some of the worst toilets, or even none at all in public places. Some seasoned travelers may remember those holes in the ground with footrests which used to pass for toilets in cafes, or those mid-height screens on Paris streets which barely shielded the (male only) users of the pissoirs. Thankfully, the latter are a thing of the past, and the former are only occasionally found in highway rest-stops.

Out with the old...

Most cafes nowadays have modern, clean facilities with toilet paper, soap and either paper towels or hand-dryers. One slight difference which may come as a shock to Anglo-Saxons – often these facilities are shared by the two sexes. As you might imagine, we have been spending quite a lot of time in DIY stores recently. And unlike when we lived in France 20 years ago, most of these large stores now have toilets for customers. IKEA, the well-known Swedish furniture company, has clean toilets and baby-changing nurseries on each floor, tastefully decorated in gray and yellow. My big criticism: no hook or shelf to take a bag.  Castorama is another popular DIY store, with a wealth of plumbing and building supplies. They have finally realized that many of their customers are women!

But the king of toilets is a DIY store called Leroy Merlin, quite appropriate when you think that Leroy is a variant of le roi, meaning king. The toilets in our local branch are new, always clean, with liquid soap and high-powered electric hand dryers. Green in color-scheme to promote the company logo, they are also green in other ways, featuring low-use flush toilets, the latest designs, and automatic lighting which goes off if no-one is in the room.

The latest design in toilets is the W.C. suspendu which is attached to the wall and allows for easy cleaning underneath. The tank is also wall-mounted, and hidden behind a false wall. All that shows is a flat panel to control the flush: push the small button for a short flush, the larger one if more water is needed. The Europeans are very environmentally conscious.

How do I know all this? Part of the work we have recently undertaken in the new apartment involved renovating an old bathroom and constructing a new one in a tiny space that used to be a laundry room. So we did a lot of research on toilets. We looked at shapes, sizes, mounting, water use, height …… and finally ordered two W.C. suspendus. And waited ……The builder was getting anxious, having never installed this kind before. He wanted to see them before putting in the plumbing, and the wait was making him nervous! So when our ordered loos did not arrive on time, we went online, found them at another store, and drove to pick them up. The drive home with two toilet kits in the back of our little Renault Clio was quite fun.



And in with the new...

And then the work began in earnest! The walls here are so thick (18 cm or 7 inches) that the builder was able to drill out a space and bury the tank totally in the wall. The floor was dug up and the sewer pipes were laid, with the angle just right to ensure correct drainage. And then for the cuvette or base, the business end of the toilet as it were. What height would Madame like it? Madame was very particular: after all, she is going to spend the rest of her life using this particular device (not continually, you understand, but we’re planning for it to last a long time …)

So we went around measuring toilets. I sat on them in stores, I looked at friends’ toilets, we got out the tape measure and measured the perfect height from the ground. So now I feel like Goldilocks, as my (modern, environmentally friendly, clean-lined, wall-mounted) toilet is not too high, and not too low, but just right. It doesn’t take much really to make a girl happy. Now if you’ll excuse me, nature calls …….

© 2012 Trevor and Valerie White