Beer, more fencing and the value of a helping hand

Jan 18, 2024

We walked into the converted warehouse space to find an eclectic cast of locals; hippy types interspersed with straighter-edged folk. Think lots of hair, occasional dreads, tie-dye trousers and plenty o’ beards for the former. Not that I was complaining.

In fact it almost felt like being back at a brewery tap back in Bristol, and with good reason, as I was in the Brasserie Belier in St Antonin, with top all-round gent Tom, a Bristol friend who’d come to help us for the last week or so.

We’d visited earlier in the week to sample the beer - a strictly work-related quality-checking exercise for future beer stocks at our place, of course - and the owner told us that Friday would see a band playing, with a falafel chef providing food.

So we found ourselves watching L’Baraka - what you could describe as world music of sorts. It was their first gig together, so a little ragged in places, though the individual musicians were clearly talented. Overall - great fun. The beer was also excellent, with a range of IPAs as as well as a porter, and a sour on offer. Lovely stuff.

L’Baraka in action. Points if you can tell me the lead singer’s instrument?

This was a welcome diversion from the ongoing task list.

It’s been quite a wet winter so far, so outside jobs have been prioritised in the dry spells. The fence in the lower meadow is now complete. With Tom’s help and many cuts, ratchets and u-tack hammering later, we’re done - in particular a tricky last section going up a steep incline, which also necessitated a spot of tree felling.

With Tom’s help we also repaired a separate, existing length of fencing in a different part of the land, in the overgrown wood. This section abuts a communal path that goes to nowhere* (used only sporadically by hunters) but needed a lot of spot repairs to re-tension wires and plug gaps. I also tried to lay a bit of hedge whereever there were trees available.

In gîte 1, all furniture (except one wardrobe that we’re keeping) is now gone, and we’ve started demolition, with tiles off the walls and the existing gas hot water boiler off the wall. This was served by bottled gas, and the bottle still had quite a lot in, so we’re now up a bottle for our kitchen - result! We need to buy a ‘thingy’ to plug the existing plumbing as we remove the rest of the pipes. The water is turned off in there, but doesn’t hurt to be careful. The removal of the rest of the piping will also be a bit easier now I have an angle grinder, or as Puddin' calls it - the ol’ slice and dice. I appear to have collected more tools than I ever thought plausible.

To finish the demolition we need to be able to take the rubble away, rather than just dumping it in the lower barn, as is the case maintenant. Thus I have been scouring Le Bon Coin (LBC) for a deal on a second-hand remorque. It is almost obligatory to have a trailer in the countryside here; so with the necessity of local acceptance adding to the rubble-removal requirements I tell myself that we have no choice but to buy one. The selection locally on LBC isn’t that great if I’m honest, so we’re off to a dealer in Albi later today to see if we can pick something up in the January sales. In a top example of the kind of thing the internet excels at there is, incidentally, a whole subreddit dedicated to terrible items being sold on LBC, called… le mauvais coin. Enjoy.

As well as fencing and clearance we also found time to test drive the mower a bit. I couldn’t deny Tom a bit of fun.

One of the first ‘big jobs’ is also in its infancy. We had Guillaume round earlier this week to take a look at the assainissement. An old chestnut of french houses, which in the countryside at least, are mostly not connected to mains drainage. We have a fosse septique which is relatively new (mais, bien sûr, pas aux normes - not conforming to code), serving our house and gîte 1. Gîte 2 has no drainage at all, and the barn that we plan to convert is also lacking. We therefore need a new system to serve everything, and which makes minimal environmental impact. Once we’ve gathered quotes the work on this will start in spring, at which point I’ll explain a bit more (and try, almost certainly unsuccessfully, to avoid obvious puns).

In amongst all this we did find time to walk locally, enjoy a snow day and take in the delights of the Sunday market in St Antonin - a tonic to soothe aching hands!