4G in the States, 2G Here, can you say WTF?

Yes folks I'm writing and have been writing for OVER TWO YEARS on this miserable slow coonection through a 2G Dongle from SFR/Vodaphone. Oh gee.
Now don't get me wrong, I miss it when it's down (as it is often that way) and the reward of not having to constantly deal with France Telecom/Orange is pleasure enough perhaps BUT I've paid full price for this miserable connection for OVER TWO YEARS without a word of apology from SFR/Vodaphone for the screwing we are getting every download. Yes, I pay the same 34.00E per month as someone within the range of a 3G signal, that's over 47 USD for the previledge of being an SFR dupe. Lovely.

The good news is that my email now works thanks to me openning the windows and pushing open the shutter that the storm closed about 12 days ago now (I liked the shade you know) and l'viola! Outgoing email is alive again. The signal here is THAT weak?! A damned wooden shutter dropped it down so low it couldn't get through? My oh my...moderne technologie! I couldn't believe it but yes, the shutter is enough of an attenuator to keep the basically line of SIGHT signal from rising to my dongles needs, close it...no email, poor inet, open it, email with inet. Huh.

Got a new Logitech C-600 web cam, one of the less than HD but 2 MB sensor jobs. Nice picture, full of crisp detail and the software works pretty well to if a bit of a clunky interface. It doen't know how to send pics and videos to a server via timed FTPs but...it's ok 'cause YAW-CAM does. Now you can see out the window of our home in Lignieres towards the Champ du Foire where the annual Donkey Faire will be in another week...Heee Hawwwww!

Gotta work in the courtyard today amidst the brambles and aoutat biting things that you can't see...the drought has brought them out and oh boy do they like me. Chomp, tasty California Import! Nice. Tried to find some clear nail polish yesterday at one of the many stores we visited but no luck and now...I'm an itchy thing let me tell you, an itchy thing! I hate AOUTAT! Bought 5 Basil plants so we can start having pesto and capressa salads with dinner. They do very well here in the humidity but the sun and dry are killers for sure. Place them in the sun in the morning and the moon...no shade in the afternoon for best results.

Off to get coffee folks, have a wonderful day wherever you are, I'll be here scratching.

The Health Care Debate, A Personal Matter

I watched the Senate debate last night concerning the health care bill now making its slower-than-molasses way thru the US Congress. I'm not going to go into the technicalities or the awful politicizing of each American's health care that BOTH Republicans and Democrats have done since September on this bill. There's no point in that, save to say that I have relatives, a daughter stuck with no health care at all due to her workplace not having any and my beloved wife Kelly who also has none as she is not yet 65 and thus not covered by Medicare. The rest of my immediate family does (I HOPE!) have coverage of one kind or another. My own is thru Medicare Advantage at Kaiser Permanente. My verdict so far is that it works for me and at a fraction of the cost that I had as a teacher to be enrolled at Kaiser, which had grown to over 1100 USD when we pulled the plug on it last year as unaffordable. We went to the Fingers-Crossed coverage plan for Kelly as I was then enrolled in Medicare.

A long time fan of Kaiser, I have had terrific, nay I say, life-saving, treatment by them several times in my recent past ie. two heart attacks among them. I am fortunate enough that I have first hand observation of another country's healthcare system, that of France. I have gotten prescriptions filled there, have gone to the doctor and the dentist there and have observed and spoken with French citizens about the health system's parts I haven't used (yet), such as the emergency room. I have a couple of examples of extraordinary health situations that were resolved on non-member persons (ex-pats) in the French system too. The World Health Organization thinks highly of the French system, rating it as the one of best in the world.
I hope in my heart of hearts that we in the US can have such coverage one day but I have my doubts. Too much money is involved, doctors with their own clinics, predatory insurance companies, astronomical drug costs, poor diets, alcoholism, rampant diabetes et al. It's a sick "system" that definetly needs some fixing, the current bill will help but will still need much further modification before it becomes anything worthy of praise. Still...this bill IS a start, it will be passed this week and passed by the same boring and unimaginative 60 Yeses and 40 Nos that we have come to expect from our so-called representatives in the Senate. How wonderful.

For example...my doctor's best friend vactioned in France last September. After hoisting lugage about for a few days he noticed a bump on his abdomen above his belly button. As a few days went by it grew larger and painful as well. He went to a doctor in Paris and was examined. "A rupture" was the diagnosis and he was sent forthwith to a local hospital. Given a name tag, there was no discussion of insurance, he was asked if he had any but that was all. This was before noontime. He was in bed, settled with his wife at his side at 1pm. He was operated on at 3pm and back in his bed at 4pm repaired. He spent the next 5 days healing further before he was released. Upon release he resumed his vacation and returned to San Francisco. A bill arrived from the hospital, the ONLY bill by the way, for $600 Euros (about 900 USD at the time). Try THAT in the US.

Come and Gone and Going

A and J called this afternoon just after I had finished the Great Putting Away of 2009. They were bombing along the A71 in a northerly direction about 30 minutes away from us. They had faithfully taken in most of what I had told them were some of the major sights with varying degrees of success. They did enjoy the Pot Du Gard roman bridge and the Millieu Causeway across the Tarn Gorge. AND...they enjoyed the quality of French Rest Areas...called Aires that have service stations attached to restaurants and shops selling local products. I think they had a great time and did it in an restful and yet very active way. They used the ETAP Hotel chain to save hotel expense and ate in local cafes and bars which always keeps the food expense low as well. I was/am impressed. So they arrived at Maison Blanche about 3pm and charged their batteries for the cell phones and computers, had a beer and laid out the tales of their discoveries. Kelly went to Dave and Sue's place shortly after they arrived and returned about 5 minutes after they had left bound to the ETAP outside of CDG in Paris. Here's our picture together a couple of days ago.


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A Bread Making Disaster of Sorts

You know I like...no...LOVE making bread. I have been at it for a while now...last year actually, and have had many, many successes. I make it so that we have our daily bread everyday as fresh as humanly and machinely possible. I bake every other day on an average and sometimes more often than that. Most of my loaves are hand formed and not confined to a bread pan, just shaped after the kneading and final rise and put in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes. That's it...no proofing of yeast, no exact measuring of flour, salt, oils and butter or water. I use a Bluesky 40 Euro bread machine to do the mixing then I remove the loaf and proceed toi use the folding method for 4 turns of 45 minutes each. l'viola! Bread. Using my current supply of ingredients it has been just about impossible to fail, good loaves with each baking cycle have been the result...until yesterday. What happened yesterday? A giant break with traditional success is what. The bread as made in the usual way...lets do it for you here:
1.25 cups H2O
2 cups Bread Flour
1 cup Semolina flour
2 teaspoons dry yeast
2 Tablespoons sugar or molasses
2 Tablespoons butter or Margarine or Olive Oil
3/4 Tablespoon fine salt
That's it. Nothing more, no seeds, no nuts, no wholewheat...
results...a brick, doorstop or bookend or wallhanging...but nothing to eat and enjoy.
Oh yes I am one to not throw stuff away...so I tried to pretend it was "alright" this morning when Kelly ask me for some to have her smoked salmon with...but the telltale density running throught the loaf told the tale...this is shit!
So today, an hour ago, I proofed the yeast to check if it was still with the living,
weighed the flour and much more carefully assembled the ingredients as I have never done in the last few months. We will see soon what hath my hard work wrought.
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Later...All ok, she is arisen! The proofing at 104 degrees F caused quite a foam after about 10 minutes. I added the other ingredients and turned on the trusty dough cycle of the Bluesky breadmaker. 1hr and 30 minutes later...I have a loaf of quite risen bread! Cool...now I just need to sneak it ever so carefully into the 400 degree F Champion oven (My Baker's Pride-like gem of 200lbs of cast iron and enamel coated with Nansulate) and wait 25 minutes for a result. Careful now...don't drop it! It's jelly like slack condition makes it quite a case for collapse if one isn't careful. A beauty! It's portrait is the image above...so my arrogance had gotten me away from the basics a bit too far, now I know better once again. Patience!
Bye for now!

New Guests, New Challenges...Nothing New

One day off from our last visitors whom we know well and love equally so with only one stranger, a boyfriend in the midst of the rest. Now we have a known somewhat and an unknown and us...and we are running out of time and the patience it takes to be decent hosts to decent guests. So much to do in this our last week in France until when? I dunno this time as we have decided to "go for it", rent the Swamphouse after all and try for a long term visa so we can stay a full year, or two or ??? Three. The little house had to be cleared of all remaining "stuff", a couple of beds, matresses, a pot hanging rack firmly afixed to a wall, a coat rack similarly adjoined and a few more odds and ends. It's all out now thanks to our new young muscle-bound male guests and D and S who lent us the trailer with their car attached with them inside to do the final clearing of Dix. Out, across town then into the rear of 35 and emptying took but a few minutes with all working to get it down. Up and down the two flights of stairs we went carrying all manner of stuff to place it in the appropriate spots in the attic under the roof which we will (hopefully) get repaired this winter. That has to be arranged this week too.
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All of the above with Furry's rabies shot and inspection by her Vet in preparation for the trip to California once again. She's so good with the vet as he is with her. She, at first, is very resistant to coming out of her carrier...as she is in being put INTO it...but once coaxed out by hand and elbow grease she is calm and cool and very, very collected. We aren't but she is. He feels for problems, cysts, tumors, lumps and bumps, reads her ID chip and checks her eyes and ears as well...all the while she sits and ignores each insult. Very queen-like. Then she got a brand new shiny Pet Passport...a blue document that looks just like a passport from the EU but meant for Kats and dogs and other pets and thier vets. Cool as can be I think.

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The Guests went off with S of S&D fame this morning to Bourges for a tour of the Geant supermarket, Leroy Merlin and downtown ancient Bourges. I joked with them that she had to be back home by MIDNIGHT! I asked Kelly if S was going to wear high-heels for the occassion! LOL! (She's about 55 and The Guys, each ver handsome are in thier early 30's! Ooo La La!)

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Tonight a classic Lute dish...Spaghetti and Meatballs w/Puttanesca (Whore) Sauce. Sugo alla Puttanesca. The meatballs are Lamb and Veal ground coarsely with anise, bread crumbs and red pepper in my own version of this classy Sicilian meal. Look it up online and give it a try! I suggest you use Bucatini as the spaghetti if you can get it or some other larger noodle, even a fetucinni or rigatoni would be good.

Between Guests and The Fog...

Yes, today was the first fog that we have seen since spring. Thick enough to slow the little traffic of Lignieres around our corner and make for a spooky and ethereal backdrop to our medieval village. We were up early as Aud was on her way to Paris and her flight home. We packed her up and left Maison Blanche at 9:20am for the 10 minute jaunt to the RR station at Chateauneuf Sur Cher. Aud was scheduled this morning on the 9:53 to Paris...oops...Bourges, a stop and change of trains for who knows why. We missed her immediately, coming home we were both silent in contemplation of new challenges upcoming...soon...like tomorrow when my student from my Hogan High teaching days, Andy and his friend Mr. X make thier appearance at the Maison Blanch. New people, new conversations, new subjects. We are already tired and one day is probably not enough time to recharge our batteries for them, at least...not very much. Being young men and adventuresome I think they will put up with us only a little while before wanting to wander off to new sights and places. I know they wanted to go to Marseilles or Nice so I have dreamed up a sightseeing route to the south that will give them much to contemplate about this most amazing country. I plan on printing a sheet with some instructions and a list of our favorite places to tour in France. Here's the list...

Argenton-sur-Creuse, http://www.ot-argenton-sur-creuse.fr/index2.php

Lascaux, http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/

Sarlat, http://www.sarlat.com/eindex.html

Pont Du Gard, http://www.pontdugard.fr/index.php?langue=GB

Tarn Gorge and Bridge, http://www.ot-gorgesdutarn.com/index-gb.html

Carcassonne. http://www.carcassonne.org/

Orange, http://www.horizon-provence.com/orange-provence/orange-roman-city.htm

This is far from a comprehensive list but it's all good and food for the intellect.
All are grist for the camera eye that's for sure and each due it's own good time and a sit to contemplate. I will print out the list and discuss each one with our new guests and see what interest there might be in such a discovery tour.

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We spent the day cooking tomorrows dinner, a Mexican one with a complex recipe for Chicken Mole, Black Beans and Rice. It took us hours to create and I think it'll be worth the effort. Here's the lin to the recipe we used:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/06/FD1S19F7J1.DTL&type=food

Howard and Kelly Lute
He: Good Cook, Bad Mechanic, Terrible Plumber She: Patient
Orange Cell in France: (from USA) 011 33 64 359 9713 IN France? 064 359 9713
Blog: http://lignieres.blogspot.com
WebCam: http://www.sonic.net/~kell12/webcam.jpg
Photos: http://www.shutterpoint.com/Photos-BrowseUser.cfm?user_id=HNLUTE
More Photos at FLICKR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hnlute/
Photos for Sale: http://unephono.etsy.com

My Leading Ladies

Oh, I slipped! Damn...I hit the L instead of the R! Oh well...you get the picture, they are all readers and they are incessantly reading...only Furry and I are left to contemplate our navels. They read all day and into the night taking little time out for smoking (Aud), going potty, and eating. Mostly...they sit or lay about reading. A life of pure leisure. I'm NOT complaining! Far from it! I get left to my own devices largely, don't even have to drive the car some days as Kelly has bravely taken on that chore to guide our guests about the countryside. Leaves me time to cook, read cookbooks, fiddle around on the computer and fight with Furry.
Not bad. The most "time off" I've had in a while.

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Andy, my ex-student from Hogan oh so long ago...mid 90's has just landed at CDG and is enroute to the hotel with his friend. They are near Port Orleans but are traveloling to London tomorrow via the chunnel, stay a couple of days then back to Paris til the end of the week, then they are coming here to join us for a few days before venturing south. I have some places I think they'd like to observe in person. The Pont Du Gard, Lascoux, The Tarn Gorge and the Bridge over it, there's so much to see and appreciate it's a challenge to do a proper job of being tour director really...all this on the way to Marsaille and Nice which they want to visit.

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Tonight we are having S and D over to meet Katie and have a go at more experimental (not quite) food. I've made Canneloni and Eggplant Parmigiana as the entrees, Kelly has made her beet and blue cheese salad with nut oil and vinegar dressing (delicious!), I also made French Vanilla ice cream from the ancient recipe that everyone seems to like. It should be a pretty filling meal and a lot of fun.
Katie's daughter G is coming via velo from Belin with her boyfriend N and may be calling us any minute now to give us a possible arrival date and time. Biking fron Berlin across both Germany and France! Amazing! It's quite a feat that's for sure!
She's the one going to Circus school too, so she's very athletic to say the least!

On The Road In Burgundy

Burgundy, the famous wine region is but an hour north of us close to the Loire where it bends south to it's origin. A 2.5 hr journey was planned to take us to the medieval hill town of Vezelay, the home of a highly carved and ancient church. Audrey is a church nut, loves to photograph them and study and examine their "bones" as she calls them. I like them too, they are endlessly different and interesting in all the decoration, stained glass and uni9que features such as the fingers hands and other PARTS of long gone saints. This one held the finger (a finger) of Mary Magdalene, the only female disciple of Jesus. Sure you say...but hey! Whose to argue with Pope Innocent II who pronounced them actual and true. Oh take it on Faith as the religion demands of you anyway and yes deep down in the crypt below the alter is a golden box with glass sides and indeed...there's a finger there within in remarkable shape. Cool! Nice subject for a few pics, beats the splinters of the "True Cross" that seem to be everywhere here. This though her entire body...intact...is found somewhere in Provence. Oh well...Faith...remember?
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The 2.5 hr trip was made somewhat longer...4 hrs actually as the existing GPS map of the region present in our Tom-Tom had was rendered obsolete by a new freeway and seemingly endless detours. Jane, our trusty Tom-Tom's voice was totally confused by our route and thus took us in a large circle adding 1.5hrs driving time through the beautiful Burgandian countryside.
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Reaching Vezelay we parked at the bottom of the hill below the main street leading up to the steps of the church. There is better parking on up the hill nearer the church, it's all Pay-And_Display anyway as it is throughout France so bring some Euro coins with you to plug in the meter, put the ticket on the dash and walk on up.
The church is at the end of a long approach past numerous shops (all closed for lunch) and restaurants. We had brought a pique-nique with us and soft drinks just in case our planned lunch stop somehow didn't work out. The church was huge and one covered with carved capitols amid rows of two-toned wall and column construction. Very striking and very beautiful with the light pouring in from the high windows above the nave. Spectacular! Down we went into the crypt to see The Finger, then observing the pilgrims praying we left them as silently as we could.
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Out into the sunshine again we concluded our Vezelay visit with a return thru the gauntlet of shops still not open (lunch, remember) to our trusty Toyota and away across the countryside towards the distant stacks of a nuclear power station along the Loire near our Pizza place in Beaulieu-sur-Loire. Alas it was after 3pm, the restaurant was closed! Ohhhhh...off to eat our picnic somewhere soon. Driving back towards Bourge we stopped to gawk at the vineyards from the stunning view from the streets leading out of Sancere. We took up places on a park bench set opposite the landscape below us and ate our ham sandwiches and my potato salad and swilled down a large bottle of 7-Up shared between us. Then back in the car with Kelly at the wheel, I had timed out and was too drowsy to drive any longer. Thru Bourges and home at 5:30. What a fine day trip thru the vineyards of Burgundy we had. Lunched so late that dinner was unnecessary. Off to bed at 9 we were, 3 very tired and happy ducks.
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"Wearing The Inside Out" Pink Floyd

From morning to night I stayed out of sight
Didn't recognize I'd become
No more than alive I'd barely survive
In a word...overrun

Won't hear a sound
From my mouth
I've spent too long
On the inside out
My skin is cold
To the human touch
This bleeding heart's
Not beating much

I murmured a vow of silence and now
I don't even hear when I think aloud
Extinguished by light I turn on the night
Wear its darkness with an empty smile

I'm creeping back to life
My nervous system all awry
I'm wearing the inside out

Look at him now
He's paler somehow
But he's coming round
He's starting to choke
It's been so long since he spoke
Well he can have the words right from my mouth

And with these words I can see
Clear through the clouds that covered me
Just give it time then speak my name
Now we can hear ourselves again

I'm holding out
For the day
When all the clouds
Have blown away
I'm with you now
Can speak your name
Now we can hear
Ourselves again

The Voice Cometh

As I said before my dearest, no, OUR dearest Audrey "The Voice" is coming to a bedroom down the hall in The Maison Blanche. I followed her progress across the skies of the United Sates and the Atlantic Ocean until the site could no longer post the airplane's position south of Greenland on a map. It gave instead the GPS Coordinates in real time which was helpful when used with Google Earth. A good site it was as much detail was provided, landing times, takeoff schedules etc. Easy to use too.
Here's the link: http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightTracker/flightTracker.do
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Besides that she was able when on the ground in Atlanta and again in Pittsburgh to email me using her new iPod Touch. Cool as heck! I've never coveted such a piece of technology though I like my little Shuttle iPod a great deal, mostly because it holds enough for me to listen to and the battery life is excellent. Apple did a good thing when they made it.
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We depart for Bourges shortly to pick up The Voice and bring her to the Maison Blanche where she will undoubtedly coo at the decor that has been created in the 2 years since she has been here and tehn take a shower and go to sleep as soon as she can. She has been on the path here since yesterday morning CA time at 3:00am, so well over 24 hours by the time she gets here. 2 stops on Delta plus crossing the pond. Gads.

Canicule...It's @#$#@#! HOT!

This morning feels like last night at 9pm when it was still 90 degrees with humidity to match, a three shower day with the last one being a cold one. Not nice. It bhasn't rained in 11 days...pretty unusual here in the summer when the cululous clouds build to thunderheads in the warm afternoons and it pours like the tropics for a couple of hours tehn subsides to more sunshine the next day and a repeat of the cycle. Not now...it's been like this since August 9th. Yesterday my weather station reported at 2pm 106 degrees and at 5 it was 108! Two different thermometers in two SHADY locations outside and aways from the house. Damn. Devil has opened the gates I guess.

So our anxious-as-hell buyer came to our door on Monday at 6pm all in a French tizzie that she had gotten the estimate back from Olivier for the installation of the electrical in the attic of Dix and it was TRES CHER! No money figure mentioned but expensive in her mind whatever it was. No shit...expensive as hell, nothing odd about THAT. You bet, builders here pay a ton of taxes and medical expenses drive the costs up, up, up...just like everywhere else in the world these days. He of course is a ROOFER...so he would have to sub-contract to a certified Electrical contractor, proper permits etc. It's the shits for anyone that's a builder to have a small job like that and so maybe he doesn't even want to do the damned work, there are much bigger fish to fry, even in tiny Lignieres. Did she get a competitive bid from someone else? Nooooo...so what?...why is that of my concern anyway when we GAVE up 4000 bux off the @!#$@##! price in the first place JUST FOR HER! Go to hell I think. Then she is gone and Kelly and I console each other for a bit and finally decide if that's what she wants to do...f___ her we will go to the Notaire tomorrow with the news and see what he says. Tomorrow comes...that's Tuesday morning...we tell him of the Frenglish conversation we had with Madam Buyer and that NO...WE won't lower the price AGAIN...and NO more concessions are coming her way on the sale of Dix to her, end of story. So he says he will email us when he gets to chat with her. AND...get this...she had 7 days after receipt of a certified letter from him that commited her to the sale to refuse...we did not even know that bit of the sales story existed...new law he says...shit! When is the time up then...tomorrow at midnight. Good. We leave to sweat, watch the clock and be miserable together. At least my Dix blog is still intact and we have the sign and the price at 59,000. So Wednesday came, we left to do a bit of grocery shopping and l'Viola! The Notaire fellow is walking out the door of his office, I ask Kelly to roll down the window as we creep by him cars backing up behind us, he leans in and says...it's ok, she wants the house...Merci! we say and off to the grocery store we go before anyone honks. Such is a house sale in Lignieres...now when do we see actual $$$? October 15th. About 2 months from now. Our half to be deposited in our French account here...and Ted's half to go to buying Jaguar transmissions and shipping them to the US for his @!#$#@#! car. We have FUN in France.
Have you read Furry's blog yet? She asked nicely and I set her up a page nextdoor to mine. Here's the link, (She's a smart kat you know...)
http://thefurkat.blogspot.com/

S&D are Baaaack!

Cool...folks to chat with again! Watering their garden was interesting, fun and rewarding vegetable wise...lots of lettuce, tomatoes, beets (oh the beets!). We had a good time with it as our own is a mess and all because we have spent all this trip in the house "doing things". I used to tend the garden at Dix and loved doing it, once in and growing it was not hard to maintain at all. Now though...the courtyard here is just overgrown with weeds and unpicked flowers and has a generally sad look about it though there ARE flowers amidst the gloom and the herbs are fine as they are. The weeds? Roundup anyone?
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We are redoing the infamous Blue Room...the WC with the motto "It's Not A Turkish Toilet!". Not that I have anything much negative to say about any "facilities" when you really need them but a hole in the floor is just a bit much. At least we had a fine white ceramic toilet to use. First the ceiling, white to reflect the little light that enters naturally. Then a little bureau that will be the stand upon which the new sink will reside. A new faucet is ready to be installed...at $7.90 Euros it was the cheapest one there and it looks fine, nice crome, the valve is all bronze and while there is no fine ceramic seals...it will do. Kelly picked out a wild green, fushia (purple) and cream white wallpaper and bought a color matching fushia for the lower wainscotting area. No more Blue Room indeed! It will be just this side of shocking!

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We (I) have used up the last dregs of Nansulate on the front walls of the parlor. 5 gallons are on the house's outside walls (mostly) and we will be ordering more sometime in the winter so we can have some handy after the new roof is installed.
How much? The roof is huge...another 5 gallons might be enough...maybe. The most interesting experimental use of Nansulate for me has been on my little gas oven. I've coated the sides of the thing with 3 coats as Industrial Nanotech has instructed and wow...what a difference in performance after about 3 weeks of curing.
I can get temperatures above 650 degrees...the limit of my temp measuring equipment was 650F so if it was higher I'll not know...yet! But the upside is that the leakage from the sides has been cut dramatically...enough that it reaches 450 degrees in 20 minutes where it used to take 50! The sides aren't cool..but they won't burn you either...which is another dramatic improvement. The refrigerators are equally happy about having their outsides coated in Nansumate Home Coat...they now are turned to their lowest setting and still are very, very cold inside, below 40 degrees...and the freezer is now at -45 degrees F! it was -25. All in all things have changed for nthe better, howmuch money it will wind up saving us is hard to say now as billing for electricity is a not so often occurance. I'll report though when I get some numbers.
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Take care everybody!
Good health to you and yours!

Water Wars!

The bill that came today from the Marie of Lignieres was for 423.57 Euros for H2O for Dix (10) Rt. St Amand Montrond aka The Little House (In deference to this house Maison Blanche which is across town from Dix) period. Here, in Lignieres, in Cher, maybe in all of France that is one hell of a water bill...especially since no body has lived in the house from September of 2006 to date. We moved into Maison Blanche then. Further the water has been MISSING the entire time...that's right, there is no water coming into any pipe within the confines of 10 Rt. Saint Amand. So what can we do? What have we done? Well poopsie that is The Story.
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The Story

Background:
Chapter 1: There was a huge project in Lignieres during 2006 - 2007 in which new connections for many city operated or administered services were installed. Water, Electricity, Sewer etc.

Chapter 2: Sometime in the recent past, perhaps 2 years ago, the Veolia company took over the water distribution for Lignieres.

Chapter 3: We had normal water delivery during any period of time that we were living at Dix. prior to the Fall of 2006.

Chapter 4: Ted, a half-owner of Dix, came in the Spring of 2007 with his mate Diane, to stay at Dix for a few days. He had no water at that time at the house. Ted complained about the lack of water to the Maire but he left shortly thereafter.

Chapter 5: The water company Veolia was instructed to mail the water bill for Dix to our California address so that we could remit payment in a timely manner.

Chapter 6: The bills we received were never successfully paid due to us either missing the bill as were were here when it was sent or Veolia would not accept a copied version of the bill when it was paid by return mail from France.

Chapter 7: Upon our stay in Ligniere in the summer of 2008 there still was no water at Dix.

Chapter 8: We still had no water at Dix Rt. de St. Amand. when we returned to Lignieres in late March of this year (2009).

Chapter 9: We went to the Maire once again to explain that we had no water at Dix, they promised that a person would come and look at the problem. A fine gentleman showed up and made a date with us to see about the situation at the Dix house. We met him the next day and he looked at the meter, turned the valve and nothing! No Eau Pas! No water! With this we thought, now we get some action. He left, we left.

Chapter 10: As we were getting Dix ready to sell the water issue was becoming a real problem, cleaning the house and watering the garden could not be done in any reasonable way. All during the next few weeks as we cleaned out the furniture and goo-gaws from the interior of the Dix house we still had no water. We returned to the Maire to complain and was told that we would have to contact Veolia.

Chapter 11: We continued to unload stuff from Dix and after a week or so returned once again to the Maire to find out how we could contact Veolia when the nearest office was many miles away and whom should we talk to? The kindly person at the front office called Veolia for us and thus was scheduled a visit yesterday for them to come to check out the lack of water at Dix.

Chapter 12: At about 11:15 in the morning a tall young woman in a Veolia costume appeared at our door at 35 Rue MJ. Through her speedy French I understood she wondered if she could visit Dix earlier than the originally schedule 14:30 hr previously agreed to.
I said my default phrase when confronted by a French person speaking French at the speed of sound "Oui, oui"! So soon we found ourselves in the car and racing through town to get to Dix for the Veolia inspection of the "No eau pas" (no low pah) problem so familiar to all involved. She looked at the meter, turned the valve both directions, tested the toilet fluching (nope!) and tried the sink faucet (dry as a bone). Then in French even more rapid that back at 35 she aimed us at the Maire once more to do what, I didn't have the slightest idea either then or now nearly 24 hours later. She said goodbye, we said goodbye, she hoped in her little Veolia van-car and we did likewise in the Toyota and that was the setup to the next chapter.
Chapter 13: Arriving at the Maire the lovely person at the desk rapidly explained what Veolia had found and said (according to Kelly) that WE need to get a plumbier to fix the problem. We?! The problem is NOT in the house...it's on their turf outside the house where the water IS...at their valve...why is that OUR problem to solve? Are we to watch as the plumber digs up the street with a backhoe holding up traffic with a series of flagmen or women and electric lights front and back? Oh my...water wars indeed!

Chapter 14: Then The Bill arrived today from the Maire...ohhhhh

Peace

Our friends from North Carolina left this morning bound for Paris and the ETAP we stayed in about a week ago. I abandoned all my plans for kitchen cleanup and fell fast asleep a few minutes after saying goodbye. Having guests is heady business,
we had plans, they had plans but we were put in charge from the get go so Get Go we did. They inspected Dix, the house we have for sale ( http://hnlute.blogspot.com ) and loved it. We went to the local horse races and numerous brocantes including the giant one right in our front yard in the Champ du Foire. They bought out half of France having fallen in love with the place. The car was a beast to pack even as well organized as it was. So much wine, food, cheeses, pictures and the spacious Saab was chock full to the very brim.
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We visited Ainay-le-Vieil ( http://chateau.ainaylevieil.free.fr/ ) yesterday and went on the tour of this little gem of the Loire Valley. It always gets high marks from us as it is really a family home and quite intimate. I always feel priveleged to be allowed to see the beautiful interior rooms and especially the chapel with the endearing frescoes. It is a place not to miss in the Loire.

Another Sunday

We have established some sort of routine for Sundays...up at a reasonable hour...7 - 8, then breakfast minimalist with toast and butter or Kelly has toast and salmon with her cheese spread she has made. Then double up with our friends D and S and brocante (the verb). Off to the small and large villages of the Loire Valley in search of who knows what. My interest has waned in recent months, I don't want more stuff, just replacements that are "better" or very, very little in addition. I cook and so am always interested in apparatus, things that are sharp and pots and pans of copper and otherwise. Since my enthusiasm is low I buy little most of the time. Kelly is on the hunt for cloth, old cloth in good condition, sheets, yardage, linens of all kinds but she is very descerning so not much is purchased by her either. It HAS to be GOOD whatever it is. Nonetheless it is great fun and a good walk and we have taken to having picnics in mid brocantes and I love doing that part and I hope it pays D&S back for their fuel outlay every Sunday while hauling us to and from. We should kick in some sheckles too I think so will approach that with them soon.
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Tomorrow we are off to Paris's north eastern sector...the 18th I think to load up two red arm chairs to replace those in the parlor. It's a trip and we have divided it into 2 parts, here to Fountainbleau then on to the city and the village that contains our goodies. Bought, of course, thru eBay for a song. By the time you pay for gas andluches, musee visits etc they aren't QUITE the bargain they were but heym we have two new chairs (to us) and finish the house a bit more. It's a good deal.
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The Nansulate paint company has NOT notified us of anything by email or otherwise.
All silence from Florida where the company headquarters is. They had promised to email us this last week with the shipping info, alas...nothing of the sort happened.
I even examined our isp's grey mail server for any sign, nothing. What's next? Take then to court I guess and sue. We can't wait all summer for the stuff, it's been three months already. The project is stalled and we are out the 500+ US dollars. I contacted the Florida State Attorney General's Office and the Better Business Bureau as well two weeks ago. I'm exasperated and not a happy camper.
I want the Nansulate paint and I want it now.
I guess I'll have my daughter call them once again and then start the paperwork to sue them.

All,s Quiet On The Western Front...Or Is It?

Truth is...it isn,t, at leqst not on this part of the Western Front. We have been busy as beqvers and that,s pretty darned busy. The guest room is our latest target now that the sewing room is partially papered with the yellowstriped stuff Kelly wanted. Now we have attacked the walls available tobe coverred with a grey and beige trois...a set of scenic drawings of the fancified continents, all manner of animal life and winged persons interacting with them in colorful and maybe even questionable ways. We cannot compplete any of the external walls as they must first be coated with the magic paint nano_naunt or some such which will aid in heqt retention in the old place. The stuff, all 5 gallons of it was to be shipped on/about the 18th of May and though I have written the company and they have cashed our check there has been no reply and no paint either. So we wait and strike out in directions that the situation allows. Which included the following activity.,
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We had a dinner for 8 last night, our best friends A&R, S&D and nearly relaives by marriage to A&R whose daughter is in a serious relationship with. Future mother in law and father in law types. It went off quite well if I do say so myself. The main event was a coq a vin done in the style of Bay Wolf the restaurant in Berkeley, California. Not the usual cooked to deth chicken boiled in red wine, no, noth this. Every ingredient gets carmelized first then assembled into the dish with the chicken skin side left out of the liquid thus it gets/stays crisp. The cqrmelized mushrooms were sweet and eqrthy at the same time, delicious!

Is There Ever A Day Off?

Yesterday was not a day off, worked my olde, decrepit ass off scratching away moss and well entrenced root systems of numerous weed-type plants from The Courtyard...our backyard when in lovely Lignieres in lovelier France. The surface under the moss is packed broken limestone, very white and pretty in it's limestoney way. Initially we had planned to unleash a couple of tones or more of Loire River rock as we did at the little house. It solved a plethora of problems in that space and I felt it would be likewise here. That went on the backburner some time ago as the Gedimat in town folded up shop, closed, gone, kaput. So be it then and on to other projects we went. Upon arrival this time in Lignieres our friends A&R had deftly removed a large patch of the moss, weeds, top soil and exposed the true courtyard of hell knows how long ago. So the path forward became abundantly clear, clean it all off and it'll be fine as a walking surface, play area for the drunken parties and for Marsha, the landscape designer to contemplate thoroughly. It does look better after yesterday's further efforts, I was proceeding at a snails pace until some unknown force struck me yesterday and I went at it with real energy. Now it is about 60% done, sweep-able in enough square feet to be a real chore now. More today.
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We will have D of D&S take a look at the wall at the little house to sort out what we must do to put it right. I know the walls of the waddle and dab construction style has to remain moist but this one has decided to get wet and stay that way considerably longer than it should. Upstairs I can see no such issue, good roof, dry walls in the corner. I was suspicious of the wall that adjoins ours inside the hidden garage next door but they had left the door open and I peeked inside with my trusty flashlight and saw no such watery signs therein. I also suspected the roof gutter overflowing but now doubt that after climbing up and taking a long look at the gutter system and seeing it's normal level in the water stain well below the lip. I used a sewer auger to delve into the gutter drain to the street too and though I went in about 7 meters, found nothing of substance to impede the flow. So I've asked D to come take a look and solve the mystery for us construction-challenged types.

5 Days To Go...back in 2 weeks!

I wish...alas, we will NOT be back in two weeks, too many people to see, too many Mexican meals to consume, too many rare steaks to make a meal of. When then, you might ask, do we come back? October, nice month, being Autumn and all, but too soon I figure, no sponsership from spouse Kelly either I imagine. In November, there's Thanksgiving, always a wonderful All-American holiday, friends, relatives, kids, grandchildren and a turkey to prepare for who knows who? December, a REAL candidate believe me, I can not stand Christmas as it exists in our neck of the woods...it seems such a Christian Holiday (really you say, really?) and has become for a long, long time so very commecialized, so in-your-face ANTI-Christian that though I am NOT a Christian it feels disengenous to a high degree. I would rather ignore the entire holiday, it-doesn't-exist like than suffer through the day and the weeks before and after (the sales you know!). So onto January...well...a candidate for sure BUT it is damned awful COLD HERE then, like Winter personified. This giant house will be freezing day and night. Currently we have no way to heat it. That's right, nothing. The heater (chauffage) is an oil burner and we have NOT filled the 2000 liter tank as the cost to do that is beyond prohibitive...it's outrageous! 2000L X .80 (price per liter) X 1.39 (current exhange rate, going the right way but not there yet!) = 2224 US Dollars! Huh? Not me poopsie, no way. How many months is winter here you might ask. Well it was a nice warm 81 degree day here today but who knows about tomorrow. It was getting cooler and cooler in the last 2 weeks...60's during the daytime and 50's at night. Soon it WILL be colder, the horse chestnut trees leaves are browning to golden and that, according to our French friends is one of the first signs of the coming winter, so early this year it appears. By the end of October perhaps will be the first freezing night. Brrrrrrr. So heat will be needed Late October thru...April?
Yes and maybe part of May. Six and a half months, will the chauffage have to be operartional that whole time? Maybe...if it's cold enough. We though have adopted a radical system both here and in California where the winter is mostly mild. We only heat the room we are in. That's right, floorboard heaters or more clothes or both and the central heating remains at a cool but supportive 60 degrees all the time. That was all about January as a return date. Hmmmm doesn't sound too likely does it? February we understand last year had both extremes, snow to a depth of 2 feet and a warm period that lasted a week...what is warm after 2 feet of snow? I dunno. So onto March, we came this year on March 20th...and the house was a freezer.
We weren't warm until late April and I'm not really sure that we were then. Terrible actually, we ran from the TV/Computer/Master Closet facility to the bathroom and back. We heated the place here and there with oil filled electric heaters, it worked but we didn't move about much and little was done to the house in a constructive way during that frozen time. So much for March. So April, the song "April in Paris" comes to mind but I have never been in Paris in April and it's 200 miles NORTH of here...wanna Parka Poopsie before you go? I do. Late April maybe is the Right Time for us, maybe a bit colder than we like but will get us back in time to enjoy the joys of Ligniere's horse races and Donkey Faire as well as the change into spring with all the Poppies and wild flowers blooming. Look for us then...though we might have come sometime a bit sooner...like in two weeks?!

The Doors...not the band

On the barn, well NOT YET ON the barn, are 2 doors, actually three for the big openning as the 2 "little" doors include one smaller door. These were not attached when we bought the house and barn. We're sticklers for the preservation of olde mouldy things (bits the Brits call them) and these doors have fallen into that very mascyline "trap". They are HEAVY, very heavy, the Right hand one (at least it's GOING to be the right hand one, weighs no less than 300 lbs and likely more. It has the small door attached sort of. The left hand one weighs about 200 lbs or slightly more. It is no mean feat for me to lift them on edge or reposition them. They are BIG in demension as well being 3+ meters tall and 2.8 meters wide. The openning NOW has been made smaller (sometime in the past) and is 2.62 Meters wide and 2.8 meters high. That means that your trusty handyman (me) will be sawing the old rotton bits off to get the things down to the correct size AND refitting the little door.
Great fun all this. I spent the morning standing them on edge which took some doing, then power washed them to clean off the old white wash, spider webs and tendrills from the vines of years past. Now to allow them to dry and begin sawing them, that'll happen after the Olympics.

Back to the Rockpile

This section of the rockpile was the dining room in an earlier iteration of 35 Rue whatshisname. We don't know what it is now besides one very complete mess. We have been AT this room for at least 6 weeks and there is no end in sight. First it had to be sealed as the interior of parts of the outer wall was lying on the floor as dry red dust, horsehair and lime. Rot. Lots of rock rot. Upon inspection I decided the best course was to do as little as possible to retain the existing wall (no longer 18" thick but a mere 14") and by hook and by crook create a semblance of a flat surface once again. So I used the fibreglas mat material that is used here to prepare rough walls for paint and glued it over the existing hole's border...a vertical trampoline sort of. Then I fastened the chaor rail across and glued it to the fibreglas matting as well. It started to act and look like a wall! Then I glued thin strips of pine that I ripped from the finest French knotless pine 40cm X 70cm X 2.4meter board(s). This took some doing as my Ryobi Table Saw while quite powerful has a blade wobble problem that makes it take a wider cut than you may want on a particular pass. Several trys were made before I could create the necessary pieces.
Grrrrrr. Lot's of sawdust. Lots. Then I took these strips back into the dining room and edge and back glued them to the top and bottom of said chair rail. Now there was a place to staple the material to when we got to that step in this nearly endless project. I tested my construct with one whack of the electric staple/nail gun. Oops, that won't work, too flexible still. Blast! So back to the drawing board(s).
So I drilled a 10mm hole thru the thin wood strips and inserted and glued 10mm dowels to the rock surfaces below as a way of getting the stiffness I needed, sort of Viagra for the fibreglass mat. If all of this seems uncraftsman like well...it is but it is THERE now and while the dear reader would rather have torn down the entire three hundred year old, 17 tons of rock, lime, horsehair and common mud I chose not to. One day I MAY have to rebuild that wall and I know it but in the meantime it's what it is. Good enough. Just.
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Today more itching, aoutat again on all (well not ALL) tender parts. We tore away the sheets, pillow cases and washed them in hot water trying to eliminate these invisible bastards. Remade both beds and sprayed them with finest French Perfume...Insect Killer! Sprayed self with the Aoutat Repellant we bought at the Pharmacia downtown and lied down for a nice peaceful nights sleep. Sure.
2 am, huh? What the hell?! Flash, KA-BOOM! Lightning, thunder, repeatedly and nearby.
Then a downpour and the sound of wind ripping through the house! Uh oh...up and turn on the lights, no lights, electricity is out too! Merde! Oh well just another summer storm in the foothills of the Massif Central. Then I feel an itch, oh noooo...oh yes, my left forearm has a thousand bites in it! What? Large reddened welts, awful, hot and boy do they itch! Damn! Salves, creams, oil and grease, fingernail polish (yes) to the rescue. All it does is lube me up, something I do NOT like! Back to bed after finding the downstairs dining room window flapping back and forth while torrential rain pours down the walls. Boy isn't this fun!? Grrrrrr.
Asleep now dreaming of AOUTATS crawling over me, eating freely of my precious skin cells...ohhhhhh. Awake at 7. The aforementioned bites on my arm are GONE! What? There were a thousand of them!? Wrong diagnosis by my addled brain? Not Aoutat? The cats have them too...that's why we changed out the linens last night and sprayed enough French Perfume to drown most insects. Gads this IS complicated. So maybe NOT Aoutat? I itch under my arms allong both sides, I lift my T shirt to show Doc Kelly and she says Ooooh. Oh no...more bites! Good greif but where are the ones that were on my arm? now I have a thousand on each side of my precious body instead.
HIVES! I have HIVES! So off to the computer to GOOGLE "Hives". Cool! And sure enough while the EXACT cause is unknown it can be set off by INSECT BITES! Anto-histamines are recommended for relief. Don't you just love this stuff online?! GOOGLE to the rescue again and again!
By for now, I have a wall to attend to.

A Sunny Saturday Peeling Wallpaper

Isn't peeling wallpaper FUN! The sound of the 2" strips just ripping off the wall sends chills through my spine in anticipation of the wonder beneith. Shit. The room in question is the old dining room next to the Little Kitchen, the green and pale green and yellowed dirty white paisley pattern had finally worked it's magic on our brains and Kelly started and I soon picked up the task as well. Scrape, pull, rip, climb, scrape, pull, rip, scrape, rip...on and on for hours and up and down on the ladders to get to some of the more inaccessible locations behind water pipes and bizarre electrical thing-a-majigs...brother. A beautiful Saturday like this set to waste with this awful task, what is wrong with us?! Furry just walks into the room, it's floor coverred with thousands of 2" X 2" peices of ancient wallpaper and looks around, up and down at it as if to say, "Why did you screw up my purr-fectly good sitting room where I can vomit in peace under the lovely grey chairs?! Why?" Because we are DRIVEN you useless furball! Driven!
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We grow ever closer to having the bottom story of the olde place recoverred if not entirely refurbished...at least it looks better to US than it did, whether or not we have gotten the sequence right or not, well that is a question isn't it? Who knows, maybe we'll have to pull some of our cover-work down and fix a leak pipe or two, or rebuild the wall or...who knows? It's an olde place, it's been here longer than you dear reader, I and Kelly PLUS our two cats have been alive and I suspect it will do as well FAAAAR into the future. Once we sell the little house and get that money into our hot little worn out hands (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=130234244587&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=003 to see it and
MORE PICS AT http://flickr.com/photos/hnlute/ Go to SETS then click on DIX or go straight to the pictures of the house at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hnlute/sets/72157605912040170/ )
the roof will be assessed once again and a brand new INSULATED one will be installed by SOMEONE ELSE! Then what? Well, we have a plan to build a veranda structure between the two wings in the form of one of the lovely iron ones common in Paris. All glass and arty-like. We like the one we had built for us in Suisun a few years ago so much we'd like to replicate it here in sunny and warm Lignieres. We shall see what time tells us.
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What I wonder is how the hell we are going to get HERE next spring what with all the airline cuts. Booking the journey ought to be a thrill that's for sure, big bucks and few flights with many more stops. Shit!