During my busy week in the UK where the weather was cold, grey and wet, Spring arrived chez nous in France. Whilst I was dodging heavy rain showers to do various errands, Nick was beavering away with the bathroom modifications and taking his breaks outside in 20°C sunshine. Winter just suddenly ended.
Once back in France I was able to enjoy it all myself, eating lunch outdoors and sitting out in the evenings until the bats had come out to play and to hear the owls, foxes and other nightlife.
The bathroom is coming along. Demolition of the previous wall, rebuilding of the new wall and the new floor have been completed. The plumbing was held up by having to do a tour of numerous DIY shops to find the right bits. Only once the old sink and loo were removed was it clear exactly what bits were needed. The old loo had been glued to the floor and not screwed down, an interesting DIY approach but not entirely unexpected in this house! The plumbing part is now done, leaving tiling, woodwork, finishing off and decorating to be done.
One of the challenges of life in rural France is that although there are plenty of DIY shops around, they are all at least a half hour drive away and they close for two hours minimum at lunchtime. Hence timing is everything. The compensation is that it can usually involve lunch somewhere, waiting for the shop to open or on the way home!
It took us a whole day to find the few tiles that we needed for a splash back for the sink. A tour of all the local shops ended in disappointment, as none of them actually had anything we liked in stock. Eventually we went to the posh tile shop in Tours and after a rummage through their "fin de serie carrelage" (discontinued tiles) came away with a box of the perfect tiles at a bargain price.
Since my return I've been on dog walking, cooking and housework duty. The walking has been a joy in the gorgeous spring weather.
In "other news" we were thrilled and relieved to hear from the Préfecture two days ago that our applications to renew our cartes de séjour have been approved. It seems that this year everything has gone through pretty seamlessly and more or less on time. With the email came our "decision favourable", the document we can print off and use for travel until we get the actual cards. (This is the document we used to travel for a whole year in 2024 because we didn’t get the text message summoning us to collect the actual cards.) This year we should have them only a couple of weeks after the current ones expire, which is today!
We expect to get the text in a week or so, to make the trip to the Tours, queue up at the Préfecture, pay our 450€ and then, with the precious cards safely in our wallets, enjoy a celebratory lunch somewhere.
