Before I go forth with the French chatter, management (Terry) has asked me to add to the blog all his achievements in Australia over the last six months. As you know we are now retired! I think the definition is that we no longer work or in employment, as we still have the business which is embarrassingly being run fantastically well, far better than we ran it!!! I am not sure we are technically retired. Gavin who is the Business Development Manager and Karen is the Business Manager are doing an amazing job bringing the company into the 21st century and ensuring we are the leading training company in WA, so no complaints. Terry has worked about 8 days in the last 6 months, filling in and we are also in the slow process of writing a customised course for a oil and gas company the course is on compressed air fittings, so exciting, Gavin and Terry went up to Darwin to photograph and video the processes for the course and we have just received the company’s OK to what we have done so far. It is becoming increasingly difficult when in France to start thinking about compressed air fittings.
Sorry I digress as usual, back to Terry, his first big challenge was to secure our beach house affectionately known as The Shack, it is supported on 15 metal poles (as it is a typical Australian beach house on stilts) anyway the poles have been there for 45 years and have gradually rusted and the house had started to sway with the sea breeze. Terry needed get each galvanised pole specially made and then dig out and replace one pole at a time he used a jack hammer (kango) to get the poles out (the other residents were not too happy over Easter with all that noise) then prop up the house with about four or five accrows, then put in a new pole and cement in with 10 bags of quick setting cement for each pole. I have attached photos of the end result, I think he has got a couple of poles left to do now but no more swaying. The other big task was to build a huge alfresco area on the back of the house, we actually got builders in to do this but Terry had to keep an eye on things and was going round relaying pavers and generally ensuring everything was built as per the plan. Then to top it all we had a hailstorm in Perth I think above our house, it was weird, Perth had never seen anything like it before, apparently two ‘fronts’ hit each other and we had hail the size of golf balls for about a couple of hours with sheeting rain. This happened about 4.30 in the afternoon and we were out, it took us 3 hours to drive a 20 min drive home as Perth was flooded, then at home we were met with all our neighbours at the top of our drive trying to clear a drain that was blocked and a river was gushing down our drive to the side of the house. Water had risen to about foot up the front door and didn’t get in but the damage was the ground floor at the back of the house, water had gushed into the two downstairs bedrooms, the hailstones had broken tiles on the roof of the garage and family room, hence bad water damage on both ceilings, Terry’s brand new car roof and bonnet was pitted so badly it looked like a golf ball. Also where the water had gushed down the drive all the mud and debris ran straight into the swimming pool and undermined the paving and broke the pump and filter. All have been sorted out now except for Terry’s car.
I have attached photos of the deck, taken when almost completed and the shack poles!!
So here we are in France, we arrived volcano ash free and no problems with flights or connections, everything went to plan as they say. It is great to pick up where we left off in November and integrate right back into our French way of life, which really amounts to be very busy, socialising, gardening and travelling. The house was great when we arrived except for the landline and internet not working, I couldn’t believe it as I had organised it to be turned on last month just in case, to cut a very long story short including my French uncle ringing France telecom only to be told the line is on and running, his comment to this was “The French, they are liars”, in fact, as it turned out they weren’t and when they came out the next day (yes I said the next day) they found a break in the cable leading to the house, within minutes we were back in communicardo.
As I mentioned we have got right back into the swing of it including our Wednesday French lessons with Nicole (the Dutch lady who lives in New Zealand but teaches French when she is here for the summer), anyway she is a good teacher and with the background of the lessons I have had in Australia and I am pleased with my progress or should I say memory recall, but I can’t speak for Terry as he reckons he can’t remember any of it!
This year arriving in France I have noticed that although we are here two weeks earlier than usual the growing season is delayed, sohence there are flowers in the garden I have never seen before, iris, lily of the valley, peony and a number of others I don’t know their names. The Iris are stunning all over this region, beautiful colours, in fact I am taking my camera to a place where they grow exotic iris and need to get there today as they are just on the turn and I may not see them again.
The garden has been awash with wild life, we arrived to the sound of a lonely cuckoo and by the evening had been joined by a couple more, it is a beautiful sound, one which we don’t hear in Australia. There is a deer that just walks in the gate when he fancies, I think it is a he, and then leaps over the back fence in such a way a show jumping horse would be proud. The frogs and toads are back in the pond and very vocal, particularly at night. Yesterday we found a swarm of bees on the grass, which was amazing and also very noisy, we thought we would chat to the local apiarist but needed to go shopping first and spent the whole trip practising what we would say in French to him, two problems, didn’t take a dictionary and couldn’t remember the word for honey and didn’t know the words for swarm of bees, well you wouldn’t would you!! As luck would have it they were gone when we got back, actually it was a shame as it would have been good exercise to talk about the bees, Oh ha ha.
Not too many dramas so far except that I drove Terry’s new tractor for the first time to cut the grass in the paddock, well I knocked over the bird table, cut two large gashes into tree trunks (they bleed you know) and then the piece de la resistance I got bogged in the mud from the over flow from the pond, it was lucky that a friend had popped in at the same time, as Terry was very matter of fact over the whole thing. Our friend Philip reckons I owe him!! Later on Terry tied the tractor to the back of the car and pulled me out. He has now built an overflow into next doors ditch and is filling the area with rubble.
Well that's us without boring the pants off everyone except to say the weather is tres tres chaud la temperature il fait 27 degres, are should I say very hot and sunny and 27 degrees and should be getting hotter. Great for our Aussie barbie on Sunday. Our first visitors arrive today for a week and more for an overnight stay Saturday.
With that I will be away and try and find out why the internet is not working again!!!
