It was the walking club’s last walk of the year on Sunday and we went out in style, visiting la Ronde des Creches at the other end of the Gers. Several villages all build Christmas cribs which are open to visitors 24 hours a day from mid-December to mid-January. Each year has a different theme, this year’s being the books of Jules Verne, so each village chose a book and decorated their crib accordingly. They must take months to build, mostly made of papier maché, but some with water features and moving parts, they’re really creative. The cribs themselves seemed to be incidental to the whole thing, mostly being stuck in a corner of the creations, though this doesn’t seem to bother the 25000 or so people who come to visit each year. There are stands selling hot drinks, honey and other local produce in most of the villages, giving the event something of a festival atmosphere.

It was barely light and very frosty when we climbed onto the bus for the two hour drive to the canton (a collection of villages) of Miradoux. The scenery en route was  breathtaking , the early morning mist beginning to burn off the fields, the rivers and the forests as the sun rose in a clear blue sky and the temperature started to rise. It’s a lovely area, rolling hills and valleys, with most of the villages being perched on the tops of the hills, a throw back to the wars of religion in the 14th century, when they were all fortified to keep out the enemy. We visited the first creche then did our walk, visiting another two creches in villages en route, followed by lunch, then back onto the bus to visit the rest. The sun was setting by the time we left the last one and headed back to Nogaro, having had a very pleasant day.

The weather’s been so lovely this week, with cold, clear, frosty nights and gloriously warm, sunny days, that it would have been a shame to stay indoors. So Nick and Kieran took themselves off to the wood yard to choose the wood for the balcony; they decided on acacia as it is very hard and doesn’t rot, in fact it’s what they use to make the stakes in vineyards. Three trailer-loads later, we had all we needed.

Just as the living room floor is going to be 3cm higher than originally planned, so the balcony needed raising by the same amount, so they cut strips to go along the beams, then put the floorboards on top of them. It actually looks really good, just as if it was planned from the start. Come the spring I’ll get round to lasuring it, but in the meantime, it’s great to be able to sit out in the December sun, for tea and cakes or a beer!

The heating man came for a couple of days and has put down most of the insulation, but there wasn’t enough for the ground floor, so heaven only knows when he’ll be back…….

It’s Telethon weekend; a bit like Children in Need, there are events all over France, some of which I assume are televised, to raise funds for research into genetic diseases.

We in Nogaro do our bit and yesterday there was a bike ride, a walk, a cake stall, a plant stall, a guess-the-weight-of-the-bread competition and a lunch. It was cold and foggy, so Nick was one of only four cyclists, though they had a good ride. Loads of people did the walk and I baked and helped man the cake stall. By midday we were all frozen, so headed to the gite for lunch; soup, daube de boeuf and apple tart, all washed down with red wine, coffee and the most enormous bottle of armagnac I’ve ever seen, donated by the local cave. There were about 100 people eating, with all the profits going to the Telethon, so we must have made quite a lot of money.

Today dawned very frosty, so while Nick went out cycling, I took the camera out for a walk. It was cold but beautiful, not a cloud in the sky and by this afternoon, it was 26ºC on the terrace!

For anyone who’s been following this, we weren’t surprised when the man installing the heating failed to turn up today. Nor when his wife failed to reply to the message I left on the phone.  Monday? Who knows. C’est comme ça.…. Frustrating, though!

The lads haven’t been wasting their time, though; the upstairs window is in and glazed and looks great. I can’t wait to get started on the stained glass to put in it! But that’s not a priority at the moment. They have also bought the wood for the balcony floor and I think Nick plans to start putting it down soon. From there we’ll be able to see the Pyrenees on a clear day; not as much as from the end of the garden, but it’s still magical to be able to spot them in the distance, over the tops of the trees.

At the risk of being really boring – the shower started leaking AGAIN a while ago, pouring water down the kitchen wall again. So Nick and Kieran removed the entire thing, right down to the tray, we cleaned off all the old sealant and they re-installed it today. Fingers crossed!

It’s now six months since the photovoltaique panels were fitted, and we’re STILL not hooked up to the grid! The last time Nick asked the company, they were waiting for something from ERDF, so I decided to take things into my own hands yesterday and phoned ERDF, who claimed to be waiting for payment and paperwork from the company. Phoned the company; they’d speak to ERDF again and let us know the outcome when the boss came to see us last night. He claims they sent payment and the forms, but they received something from ERDF in a non-PDF format, which they couldn’t open….. so what did they do?? NOTHING!!!!! Incredible, isn’t it? So I think we persuaded him to contact ERDF and ask for the forms in PDF; he said he’d let us know what’s going on, but I’ll believe it when I see it!

In the meantime, the same company started work on the heating last week, but only for a couple of hours. Nick spoke to the boss, who, Nick thought, said he’d call in last Friday to tell us how much to lift the doors by. No surprise, then, when he didn’t turn up. So I asked his wife yesterday; they’d restart work when the doors were lifted and the walls were in place. WHAT!!?? Obviously a major breakdown in communication between him and Nick, in addition to which, the workman who came last week told him there were no internal walls in place. Well that’s because we aren’t having internal walls upstairs, surely obvious when the walls we do have are all plasterboarded!

So, the boss came round last night to have a look at the doors; we need to raise them 3cm, which is what we thought. He also looked at the floor; lots of sucking of teeth; the parts of it that were underneath the big beams that held the roof up when the floor was poured were pretty uneven – too uneven to put the insulation onto. So today the lads have made up and laid a cement chape over the bad one-third of the floor. Fortunately, it’s been a lovely day, warm enough to work with the doors open, which should help it dry out.

The current plan is to start work on the heating on Friday – I’m not holding my breath.

The guttering man gave us an estimate for extruded aluminium guttering; it was quite expensive, so we priced up plastic guttering. Not only was it more than half the price of the aluminium stuff, but one shop only did the regular size (too small for our roof) and the shop that sells the bigger size doesn’t do the downpipes to match. We shouldn’t really have been surprised; that’s the way things work around here.

The aluminium looked much more appealing now as it will last far longer and the price included fitting, so he came back to measure up a few weeks ago, quoting us 5-6 weeks to delivery. I can’t describe our amazement when they turned up at 8 o’clock this morning, extruded the required lengths of guttering, fitted it to front and back of house and were finished by 10.30! If only everything worked liked that! The added bonus is that it looks good too, blending in with the roof tiles so that you hardly notice it.

We’d booked the heating people for the beginning of November, but as is the way around here, after several phone calls, they finally turned up today. At least the chape has had plenty of time to dry thoroughly. I hope they come back tomorrow to continue the work.

In the meantime, we’d ordered the kitchen for mid-November, foolishly thinking the heating would have been done by then. We’ve bought the kitchen from an English neighbor who’s had a kitchen business here for some years, he had full of closeupcheck equipment that we really wanted and is now moving back to the UK, so we need to take delivery as soon as possible. But where to store it? We still have loads of stuff boxed up from the move, so we’ve shuffled boxes around in the storage space behind the house and managed to make space; there are kitchen units and appliances all over the place now and I think the work surfaces and other long stuff will have to go in the arrière cuisine.

Nick’s built the window to go in the front wall and is ready to fit it, but it needed varnishing first; so he put it on trestles in the arrière cuisine, I varnished it and we waited for it to dry. 36 hours passed, but it’s so cold out there that it was still tacky, so it’s now sitting in state in the sitting room, with a fire gently burning to keep the chill off, and hopefully allowing it to dry!

It’s been a busy weekend. It started on Thursday , setting up the patchwork exhibition; I was the only person tall enough to reach the hooks near the ceiling, to hang the quilts from, so spent most of the afternoon standing on tiptoes on tables. There were dozens of quilts to hang, but it looked good by the time we finished. Then a quick bite to eat and off to Qi gong, then band practice.

Friday was a shopping trip to Auch; new fridge ordered, walking boots bought and Kieran’s and my official paperwork taken in to the appropriate offices, amongst other things.

On Saturday the local wine cave and armagnac distillery had its annual open day, so we went along; this year is their 50th anniversary and they’re making a special “Nogaro” wine. There were three different wines to taste and to vote for a favourite, and two different labels to vote on. Everyone who voted will receive a bottle of the chosen wine next year, as a thank you. Nick stayed for the lunch with a fellow cyclist we met there, while I spent the afternoon helping man a stall at the patchwork expo.

Today was the cycle club AGM, an event only made bearable by the lunch afterwards. I will never understand why they have to read out how many riders there were on every ride of the year, as well as who they were! The treasurer also reads out the entire financial report, down to how much is spent on beer for the after-the-Sunday-ride-aperos! After that and various other reports, by the safety representative, the president and a few others, the maire of Nogaro has his turn. Extremely tedious! But the lunch, heavily subsidised by the club. makes it worth while!

The meal didn’t finish till 5pm, just giving us time to get home and feed the cat, before heading back into Nogaro to attend a theatrical evening at the cinema. It was a sort of live biopic of Yves Montand, a French singer and actor who lived from 1921 to 1991. The singer, and main man, told the story of Montand’s life, interspersed with many of his best known songs, accompanied by three very talented musicians; we didn’t recognise many of the songs and struggled to understand much of the dialogue, but it was an enjoyable evening nevertheless. There were only about 50 people in the audience; the cinema is very poorly attended, so we go as often as we can, to support it. I was shocked to learn recently that the average attendance is only 34 people per film; they get new films, sometimes show them in 3-D and the seating is SO comfortable, with acres of leg room. In addition to that, it only costs €5.90, or €2.50 if you have a pizza at the Progres bar beforehand! We went to our first entirely French film last week; there were seven in the audience; we didn’t understand all of it, but enough to enjoy it, and it’s all good practice!

Tomorrow I’ll be helping to dismantle the quilt show, then it’s back to work as normal; it will be good to have a rest!

When it was announced at the last cycle club dinner that not even one member of the club had signed up to do the Nogaro 6 heures, a 6 hour cycle race to be held yesterday on the Nogaro motor race circuit, and that they were looking for volunteers, there was an awful lot of navel-gazing went on. After all, we’re a cycle-touring club; those who want to race go elsewhere. But as the event was being held here, we had to show willing; so volunteers were volunteered,  Nick amongst them.

In total, three teams of three were press-ganged; it was to be a sort of relay, with each team member nominally doing two one hour shifts, starting at 4pm and going on well into the dark.

The weather was horrible all day, it was cold and never really even got light, but at least it was dry; until half an hour before the race started, that is. Nick headed off to the circuit laden with fresh changes of clothing, waterproofs, lights, a box of flapjack and some pasta left over from lunch. He was in the first group to go off; after what he took to be an hour, he was replaced by a team mate, and then discovered that Bernard and J-B, the others in his team, thought it would be a better idea if they only did three quarters of an hour each, meaning that Nick, by far the strongest of the three, had to go out a third time towards the end of the evening.

I went down for the start; there were some really serious looking cyclists there, warming up on rollers in the garages (at least they could warm up in the dry). It was then I learned of the calibre of some of the riders; not just keen amateurs from all over France, but even some professionals! No wonder Nick soon slipped off the back of the peloton, the pace was really punishing!

By the time he got home at midnight, he looked exhausted, but had enjoyed the experience, and had done far and away the best of any member of the Nogaro club.

Chapeau, Nick!

Nick and Kieran spent today digging a long trench across the front garden to put the water pipe into for the new house. Not a very exciting job, and not even an obvious one as they had to fill it in again straight after, but definitely progress.

The kitchen may not be completely finished yet, but we moved back in today, filling cupboards and drawers, moving the fridge back and putting away the heaps of tools that have accumulated over the last few weeks. It’s great to have the cooker and sink in the same room again, but best of all is that there’s a fire in the kitchen, whereas the arrière cuisine is unheated; not great, given that it’s been quite cool over the last few days.