Last week our local arboriste, Alain Benn, came to lop two tall Chestnut trees (Marronniers) and an equally tall Plain tree (Platane) in the courtyard at the back of the house. Their leaves had been falling on the tiled roofs of our dependences. They had been clogging up the gutters of an adjoining cottage and a row of stables. In the winter months the courtyard itself was thick with fallen leaves which constantly had to be raked up and burnt.
The taller of the two chestnut trees is over 30 metres (100 feet) but Alain was up in the top branches with his chainsaw as quick a squirrel. Tied round his waste were a series of ropes and tackle on a harness similar to that of a mountaineer. He showed me a special knot he tied designed by an Austrian climber called a Prussick which enabled him to winch himself 20 ft up into the branches of the chestnut without having to scale the trunk itself. He used a led weight like a plumb line to throw a safety rope over branches above him.
Fortunately it was a beautiful, sunny day so Alain was able to happily get on with what appeared to be an extremely precarious task. He could, he said, have done the job if it had been raining unpleasant though it might have been. High winds, he said, were what presented real safety problems with swaying trees increasing the chances of losing his footing and the danger of falling branches being blown off course.
After a day in the three trees Alain had totally changed the look of our property. He cut the plain tree back severely because many of its branches were diseased and the chestnut trees had also received his full attention. The result was that we were now able to see the attractive stone features of the cottage that bordered one side of the courtyard. Overhanging branches had previously hidden much of the sloping, tiled Perigordine roof and its beautiful limestone walls. The courtyard and the main house had also become much lighter
Instead of paying him to take all the dead branches and wood away we asked Alain to cut the wood to a suitable size for burning in our open fires and we now have enough logs and kindling for the whole of the coming winter. The remains we burnt on a huge bonfire.
When we bought Maison Mayets last year these trees were subject to a bizarre clause in the Act de Vente. They were still owned by the commune the vendor’s Notaries informed us and we were required to enter into another contract to be able to buy them at an extra cost. But when later I asked the Mayor of St Perdoux if he could arrange to have them lopped, he told me that they belonged to me. Ask no questions as they say!
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Paying the bills
We got back to our house in the Dordogne last week to find that our electrician and his team had finished rewiring throughout and had left the place surprisingly clean and tidy. There was very little dust considering the amount of walls through which they had to chase cables and wires.
That’s the good news. On the downside the work took a month longer than anticipated and the final bill, the electrician tells me, is likely to be considerably more than the original devis. This apparently was due to us insisting that the wiring was chased into the walls rather than boxed along the side of them.
Still on the subject of electricity, yesterday we had a third rendez vous with the EDF who agreed to change our 60-year-old fuse box. They came the first time in February and said they didn’t have the equipment. The second time they turned up unannounced, checked the existing fuse box, were unaware of a previous visit and went way again saying they needed to check back with head office. Luckily another EDF man arrived the following morning just before we were about to leave the house with no knowledge of the previous EDF visits. This time he had the right equipment and we now have a brand new white,state of the art comptoir in our hall. The whole saga reminded me of the story of a British journalist I knew who moved to Prague shortly after the Iron curtain had been lifted in the 80s. He asked for a telephone to be installed in his apartment but the telephone engineer turned up when he was out. He was subsequently told he would have to wait another year for the next appointment.
The extra cost of the rewiring and the estimates for other renovation projects has concentrated my mind on how to earn extra cash to pay for all this. The French Paper a new monthly newspaper for British expats may have come to the rescue. In the Work and Money section of the paper there’s a feature article about letting your house out to numerous film companies who are looking for locations all over France. Apparently you don’t have to own a chateau or Manoir – notwithstanding if you do own one you could earn between 3000-4000 euros a day. Film companies are apparently looking for all kinds of properties both modern and old to shoot low budget films on location. There’s a big market for old farm houses which can be used for everything from feature films and photographic shoots to adverts.
Let’s hope our place meets the criteria. I would describe it a something between a farm house and a Maison de Maitre. It has several dependences in need of restoration which include a ruined cottage. The latter could be good for maybe a crime thriller where mutilated bodies are found buried beneath its walls or the property could suit something like a French version of the English property programme Location, Location. The house has a classic, tall, sloping Perigordine tiled roof, hexagonal stone pillars at the front of the house, a fan window above the front door and it sits amongst rolling Bergerac vines. Come on Ridley Scott make us an offer.
We got back to our house in the Dordogne last week to find that our electrician and his team had finished rewiring throughout and had left the place surprisingly clean and tidy. There was very little dust considering the amount of walls through which they had to chase cables and wires.
That’s the good news. On the downside the work took a month longer than anticipated and the final bill, the electrician tells me, is likely to be considerably more than the original devis. This apparently was due to us insisting that the wiring was chased into the walls rather than boxed along the side of them.
Still on the subject of electricity, yesterday we had a third rendez vous with the EDF who agreed to change our 60-year-old fuse box. They came the first time in February and said they didn’t have the equipment. The second time they turned up unannounced, checked the existing fuse box, were unaware of a previous visit and went way again saying they needed to check back with head office. Luckily another EDF man arrived the following morning just before we were about to leave the house with no knowledge of the previous EDF visits. This time he had the right equipment and we now have a brand new white,state of the art comptoir in our hall. The whole saga reminded me of the story of a British journalist I knew who moved to Prague shortly after the Iron curtain had been lifted in the 80s. He asked for a telephone to be installed in his apartment but the telephone engineer turned up when he was out. He was subsequently told he would have to wait another year for the next appointment.
The extra cost of the rewiring and the estimates for other renovation projects has concentrated my mind on how to earn extra cash to pay for all this. The French Paper a new monthly newspaper for British expats may have come to the rescue. In the Work and Money section of the paper there’s a feature article about letting your house out to numerous film companies who are looking for locations all over France. Apparently you don’t have to own a chateau or Manoir – notwithstanding if you do own one you could earn between 3000-4000 euros a day. Film companies are apparently looking for all kinds of properties both modern and old to shoot low budget films on location. There’s a big market for old farm houses which can be used for everything from feature films and photographic shoots to adverts.
Let’s hope our place meets the criteria. I would describe it a something between a farm house and a Maison de Maitre. It has several dependences in need of restoration which include a ruined cottage. The latter could be good for maybe a crime thriller where mutilated bodies are found buried beneath its walls or the property could suit something like a French version of the English property programme Location, Location. The house has a classic, tall, sloping Perigordine tiled roof, hexagonal stone pillars at the front of the house, a fan window above the front door and it sits amongst rolling Bergerac vines. Come on Ridley Scott make us an offer.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)