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| Our lap of honour with NB Puzzler before exiting the port! |
My apologies for the lack of
transmission over the last two(!!!) months…. We’ve been a bit busy….. We have now become home owners again and
finally made a break for freedom from the Port of Roanne, saying goodbye to
friends on land and water as we set off on our summer marathon cruise
(2500km!). So with a bit of date
manipulation (pretend it’s last week), here’s a catch up on what we’ve been up
to until the end of March.
We signed for our new house
on Friday 9th February and the first thing we did was go to the
supermarket to buy 2 plates, knives, forks, spoons as it turned out our ‘sold
as seen’ deal didn’t stretch to the crockery and cutlery after all and we had
nothing to eat our tea with. Everything
else was left however, though we did have to use pool towels for a few weeks until
John Lewis delivered the bath ones. The second
thing we did was light the fire as it was bloody freezing (the micro-climate
Jerry????!), and the third was have a bath.
We then headed to Jerry and Caroline’s to join them for drinks for
Caroline’s birthday and meet some new friends.
It was a chance to reconnect with our neighbours and B&B owners we’d
stayed with last visit, Jeanette and Richard, which was lovely.
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| At last - OUR house :) |
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| Rather a wintry view from our bedroom window |
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| Our friends Michelle and Kevin had put us up the night before we signed, they live about 20 minutes away. When they came to us for lunch, Kevin brought his toy with him! |
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| Walking from the house down to Jeanette and Richard at Labarthe |
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| When we were building the concrete base for the pool heat pump, we had to clear some vegetation around our well, so then had to make it safe until we will restore it later this year. |
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| Apparently the migrating cranes signal the arrival of spring. I'm still waiting...... |
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| One of our many frogs from the garden trying to get into the sitting room! |
We then spent the weekend unpacking
what we’d brought from the boat and going through every cupboard and drawer in
the house, clearing out what we didn’t want/need and shifting things around to
how we wanted them. On Tuesday we woke
up to no water. A quick call to Jerry,
our estate agent (and friend) and he discovered that the previous owner had
cancelled his contract meaning our water had been shut off. Jerry had specifically told them not to do
this, as he would contact the water and electric people and simply change the name
on the contract from theirs to ours, thus preventing anyone being cut off……. It all got sorted out by Jerry and by late
afternoon, our taps were running again.
By the time Pete and Jane
arrived for the weekend on 22 Feb, we’d set up our EDF and Saur (water)
contracts and direct debits, tried to set up our internet, but the house didn’t
appear on Orange’s system, so an appointment was made for an engineer to come
out the following week, purchased towels and sheets for letting the property
out over the summer, taken our lives into our hands and travelled to IKEA in
Bordeaux for everything else we were missing, bought and had delivered a new tv,
got a pool person and gardener in place for over the summer and found a couple
of good local wineries (5 minute drive from the house!). We’d also started the ball rolling to get a
pool heater installed, which was going to prove to be a bigger job than we
thought…….
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| We took a couple of days off to do touristy things with Pete and Jane; our local Chateaux de Duras, being one of them. |
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| The chateau is a great visit and we were all greatly amused by the secret door in the wall! |
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| Could've done with these bellows for the fire...... |
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| Super views of Duras from the tower. |
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| And looking the other way towards our house :) |
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| Then we went to St Emilion |
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| Mike was there too! |
When we were booking our hire
car to take us to our house, we discovered that it becomes very expensive to
hire for an extended period of time as they won’t hire for longer than 28
days. The only way we could get around
this was to hire for three and a half weeks, then return to Roanne for a few
days, then pick up another car for another couple of weeks. Unbeknown to me, Mike had decided to squeeze
in a quick trip to Paris for a couple of nights as he had bought tickets to see
First Aid Kit live on 5 March, as an early birthday present for me. Very early – it’s not til the end of May! We had a lovely couple of days and the
concert was fab. We then had a couple of
nights back on board Quaintrelle and then it was the 4 and a half hour drive
back to Baleysaggues.
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| Sacre Couer |
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| Paris |
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| The beautifully harmonic First Aid Kit - fantastically talented young ladies :) |
This next chunk of time was
spent getting the house ready for rental over the summer. We’re not going to do this as a business, but
we’ve bought a bit quicker than we intended and rather than leave the house
sitting empty over the summer, decided to do some rentals. The bookings would be managed by Tracy and David
of HolidayCottagesandVillas.co.uk and we’d need to get House Managers in place
to do the turn around between guests. We
had to have the house ready for a photoshoot presenting it exactly as it would
be when rented out, so some tweaks here and there, painting some old tables to
make them look more contemporary (thank you again Caroline!), and shifting
anything not included out of the way and hiding all our own paraphernalia. The visit with Tracy and David went well and
they were confident we’d get a few bookings.
The only thing left to do was have a pool heater installed……..
On 15 March, we drove the
long drive back to Roanne again as Mike had a commitment. Over the long winter weeks, he’d got together
with Dave (musician) and Roger (wannabbee, but more advanced than Mike) to play
his ukulele. As talk of the Roanne
Rockers went around the port, there was much interest (curiousity?) and suddenly
they were doing a gig at the Thursday night port social in L’Authentique on 15
March. I got pulled in to sing a couple
of numbers and thoroughly enjoyed myself doing so. As Dave predicted, the night was a roaring
success.
Then two days later, we were
back in the car for a final 10 days at the house to try and get the pool heater
installed. Ordering the heater and
arranging installation had been straight forward, until Paul the electrician
arrived, and along with pool lady Katie, confirmed there was not enough power
at the pool box and we’d need to install a new supply from the house to the pump
– a distance of roughly 35 metres right across the garden, but more worryingly,
right across the EDF mains supply to the house.
Mike spent a couple of days trying to find somewhere to hire a scanner
so we could see the route of the mains, but they don’t seem to do this in
France. He contacted EDF who remarked on
what an unusual request it was, but they’d pass it to their technical team. With a week to go, Mike contacted EDF again,
told them we’d be excavating that week and we really needed someone out ASAP to
show us where the line lay. By the way,
Mike hasn’t become fluent overnight, EDF have an English Speaking helpline……… Someone would call us back. They did.
They didn’t speak English, but they were only calling to say someone would
call us back. Yes, we know that, we were
told that this morning by the English-speaking person….. And then there was a call to say someone
would come the next morning – wooohoooo!!!
At last. I may have glanced over
this issue on here, but it was causing us quite a lot of stress, to say the
least!
We could now book in Will,
our grass cutter, with his mini-digger to dig the trench and we could begin lifting
the turf on the part of the route before it would meet with EDF.
It was back-breaking, and
there was only more to come……
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| My first ever concrete base - not sure I signed up for manual labour!!! |
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| Then we lifted the turf |
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| Mike digs around the EDF cable by hand - the wine bottles mark the route (as the EDF man had run out of spray paint...... |
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| Then having dug out the trench and laid the ducting, Will begins to fill it in again and re-lay the lawn.... |
The day after we dug, it
absolutely chucked it down and whilst this was great for the trough across the
grass as it settled the grass back in nicely, it turned the clay at the front
of the house into slush! Mike hurried
off to the local Batiland (builder’s stuff) and bought several bags of stone
which he dug into the clay and then tamped down with his new screwfix
hammer. Ten days on, he still has some
soft tissue pain in his hand from this, and the front of the house was such a
mess, we had to stop using the front door and use the side one instead. The timing with Paul the electrician wasn’t great
as he was going away for a few days so we were now faced with having dug in the
ducting, he may not be able to pull the cable through and have to get Will to
dig it all up again, and we wouldn’t be there.
The rain continued as we tried to get the house in the final state for
renting, completed the Guest Information book etc. Our House Managers, Stuart and Ursula, came
round for a final visit on Monday 25th March and assured us that
they’d make sure everything was okay and not to worry. Clair the gardener had also done her first
session for us, and then invited us round for drinks before we headed off. She also assured us that she and Will would
make sure everything was tidied up and looked good after the installation was
complete.
In amongst all the housey
stuff, we had also being thinking about our winter mooring for Quaintrelle next
winter. I’d initially contacted the port
at Castets en Dorthe, who had sent a booking form and pricelist, which we’d
held back on completing until we’d looked at all our options. It turns out that Clair, our gardener, and
her husband David have just bought a boat that they are refurbishing, and it is
moored at Fontet, so on her recommendation, we went and had a look round the port,
found the prices online and emailed the local Mairie, who manages the port,
about wintering there next year. When we
visited, there appeared to have been spaces, so we were confident it would be
all systems go and were therefore slightly shocked when we got an email saying
sorry, they were full. We had a back-up
plan though, and headed to Meilhan sur Garonne, where we had visited last year
when on a house-hunting trip in September.
Last year we had met the English Capitain, Mike, who was retiring and now
the port had been taken over by someone else, who it turned out, was the father
of one of the girls opening the new florists in Monsegur, the opening night of
which we’d dropped in on when visiting Clair and Dave for drinks…. (to keep it
short!). He was there working on the
Capitainerie and was more than happy for us to over-winter there, although it
all seemed to good to be true when he said it wouldn’t cost anything, we could just
stop. He gave us his contact details and
said to ring him round about August to remind him, so it was all a bit loose,
to say the least, but he was a nice guy, spoke good English so we were confident
there hadn’t been a misunderstanding. As
we were about to leave, Mike, the old Capitain turned up, thankfully, as once
the new Capt. explained what was going on, he quickly said we couldn’t, despite
the DBA guide notes on the mooring saying you can….. Up until 2011 you could over-winter there,
but then the licence changed and it became a Haulte Nautique, rather than a
port, and under which terms you cannot overwinter. Mike suggested Castelnaudary, but that’s too
far for us to get to the house and back to check on the boat, and Buzet sur
Baise, where an English couple run the old port and take over-wintering. We knew we still had Castets on a
back-burner, so Mike contacted Buzet and they said yes, they’d be happy to have
Quaintrelle over the winter, and at a cheaper rate than Castets. We haven’t seen the port, but as we won’t be
living on her, it doesn’t matter so much.
As long as it’s safe and secure, and it’s only a 50 minute drive from
the house. The deposit’s been paid and
that’s another thing ticked off the to-do list!!
And so, leaving a
half-installed pool heating system, a big hole in front of the house and a pile
of clay under the tree we handed over wadges of cash to various people who we’d
only just met, left them with our house keys and drove off into the sunset. Well, we drove off into torrential rain and
had a horrific journey back to Roanne on Wednesday 27th – it absolutely
chucked it down for all 5 and a bit hours back – exhausting. We really did have mixed feelings. We are so excited about the house and have
only just started making friends there and we’ve had to leave them until October. But we were so excited at the thought of
being on the move and cruising again, breaking jail from the port. But we’ve got some great friends there, who
we’ll miss……….
Meanwhile, Marmande Piscines
managed to install the heat pump in between the rain, but we’re still waiting
to hear from Paul if he’s managed to install the electrics. Once he has, Marmande will go in and connect
it all up and test the pump. I hope it all
works. And then, if it ever stops
raining, Clair and Will will be able to go in and fill in the holes left and
make it look nice again. Crikey, it’s making
my heart race again just thinking about it all.
Back at Roanne, it was a
quick catch up with friends and then stocking up ready for our departure on 31st. Saturday dawned cold but bright and sunny – a
good cruising day! Just after 9.30am, Sally
and Andy on NB Puzzler pushed off their mooring and headed down the port
towards us, amid blasting horns from the other boats and shouts and waves as
they passed by. We were even accompanied
by the sound track to Titanic at one point – thanks Nikki – we’re still afloat!!! We followed them out to complete a lap of honour
and were at the lock to the port ready to leave at 10am. All our friends came to the lock to see us
off, it was really quite emotional, but what a great feeling to be out on the
canal again and on the move. We did
quite a long day, stopping at Artaix for the night, and I couldn’t stop staring
out of the window at the trees and rolling fields that provided my view, instead
of the back-ends of Portheus and Grizzled Skipper! These are boats by the way………
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| On your marks!!....... |
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| Here comes Puzzler - Get Set!!!....... |
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| Go!!! Saying goodbye at the lock. |
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| Puzzler taking it easy. |
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