Its a well known fact that like everything else, ALL properties need some form of maintenance. Whether it’s decorating , plumbing , a leaky roof they all need something from time to time.
So last year I decided to out to our house in France for a week , on my own and do some house jobs which included sorting out the garden, painting the outside window frames, and generally dusting off the cobwebs and spiders. Rather than go in the car though I decided to fly from Manchester to Nantes where I would hire a car and then drive to Rohan.
The Journey
Well the flight was great and I then hired a French car which was great apart from the fact that everything was on the wrong hand but after a while you kind of get used to that. Driving on the wrong side of the road was fine, I don’t know you know normally when I get to France in my car a switch just trips in my head and suddenly I drive like a native ( just not that close though ). I hate it when some French or German guy sits on your bumper, especially when you are already above the speed limit and you are bombing down one of their super smooth dual carriageways BUT you have just got to take a deep breath, make them wait and be patient and in time you just pull over and let them pass.
Cleaning up the garden before/after
The Drive
Anyway I drove for about 2 hours or 140km from Nantes back to the house and opened the house up, brought all of my gear in form the car and then I started to perform our startup procedure for the house. I opened all of the windows and doors, made a cup of tea, put out some garden furniture in the rear and just chilled for a while.
The Shopping
Even though the house is in a rural area we still have shops. Ok, you have to travel a little. On this trip I found out that there is a Lidl in Pontivy and I also found a great way of getting there from M Leclercs which is also in Pontivy. So Pontivy is 10Km form the house and its along one very straight road. At the end of the road is M. LeClerks which is a massive supermarket. You can get almost everything from LeClercs, all your staples like milk,bread,water,wine,beer,meat,fish etc.\\\\nI do like shopping at Lidl here in the UK so finding a Lidl in Pontivy is also great and there is even a MacDonalds Now I mention MacDonalds because there is Wifi and its really good to just go and get a coffee and then sit there downloading emails and catching up with the rest of the world if and when you dont have internet access ( our house does not currently have wifi – its not the end of the world I promise ).
New Bolt for the Back Door
The back door lock has never been great and so on this visit I decided that I would go nout shopping and I would try to find a bolt or two. There is a Point Vert shop quite close at Brehan and I decided to go and take a look there. To my surprise they did sell bolts so I bought 2 for about 12 euros. One of the bolts I screwed very securely with 6 large screws to the top section of the back door ( see image below) we just need to ensure that when we leave and lock up that both the door lock and the bolt are secured. I was also in the market for a sythe and I was agauin surprised by the number and types of sythes that they had in the Point Vert shop.
Cleaned and tidied the down stairs area
When I arrived there were the usual spiders webs, spiders and a series of dead flies and these all had to be cleared. The house is in the country and that normally means that there are the odd dead insect, spider and mice to contend with but normally this is not a big deal and within a short time the down stairs living area was gleaming like a pin.
Back to the Beach ( La Plage - Mendu )
We always like a trip to the beach or two. On this trip I went to both Mendu and Berger where I had a great ( but short ) walk.Â
Abrief trip to the market at Josselyn
Josselyn market is held every Saturday morning, Its a great place for both locals and ex pats. On this occasion the weather was really warm so I decided to go and get myself a galette and coffee and I spent a while just viewing the products that were on sale and I think I may have bought some bread and vegetables.
