Day: August 11, 2012

Before I left England, I gave away lots of things because I just didn’t have the space in the truck to bring them. When my 7 tonne truck was weighed, as they are, on the way over at Dover, it was almost a tonne overweight and if I’d tried to pack any more in, I might have added the last straw that broke the camel’s back! One of the casualties in this was my old garden set, comprising a large four-legged oval plastic table (seen in lots of my MYRO repair pictures actually), its accompanying six plastic chairs with separate cushions in a tasteful shade of pink and the large pink sun umbrella that capped it all off.

I gave all of this away to a neighbour, along with my gas-fired barbecue and cylinder, but although I was sad to see it go, and it would all have been very handy to have down here, believe me, I don’t regret it for a minute. She loved getting it as much as I enjoyed giving it to her and she showed her appreciation by giving me a bottle of French wine before I left, which gave me a lot of pleasure.

Sitting outside my house down here wasn’t very much of a priority when I first arrived but as the weather has improved and it’s become hotter, I soon realised why it is that sellers of French houses around here often list an ‘outdoor’ or ‘summer’ kitchen in the list of attractions that their property has to offer. The reason is that at this time of year they spend an awful lot of time outside, sitting, eating and generally enjoying each other’s company. From time to time I must confess that I’ve felt quite envious when Jean-Claude has been entertaining guests next door with his family and the conversation, laughter and whoops of pleasure have carried across into my garden.

Well, I don’t have such a group around me yet to enjoy the space with me around my house, but it doesn’t mean that in due course I won’t have. And in any case, I want to be able to sit outside in the cooler evening air, under my lime tree, enjoying a cold glass of beer, cider or rose wine! So after I’d managed to get the grass cut and under some sort of control, I decided that I needed a set of table and chairs to allow me to do just that.

But where to look? Now I’ll be perfectly honest here. Prices of some items in France are truly horrendous compared to what I’ve been used to in the UK. I find this extraordinary because like me, French citizens can purchase things from wherever they want, so why pay 150€ for a clapped out, second-hand motor lawn mower when you can get yourself onto Ebay and buy a brand new one for less from Germany? That’s what I did, and I also did the same with my powered brush cutter for the same reason, but for some reason the French seem not to. I ask you, who did the seller really think would come along and buy a rotary mower, without engine and blade, of unknown brand and hand over the princely sum of 50€ 🙂 To be honest, in the UK it would have been a ‘down to the tip’ job, but not here apparently.

There is a serious side to this, of course. I’m not in any way a fan of unbridled ‘consumption for consumption’s sake’, but if you expect to hang onto clapped out old stuff ‘for ever’ and never send it off for recycling, how do you expect new stuff to be manufactured and enter the marketplace? When that process slows down or stops, that’s why factories close and jobs are lost, which is one of the reasons why the closure of a large Peugeot factory outside Paris has just been announced. Old 1994 cars are NOT worth 2000€ as sellers here would have you believe – in most cases they are only fit for the scrap-heap and recycling, allowing people to be employed building new ones so the process can start all over again.

But getting back to my table and chairs, my first port of call was therefore Ebay and what did I find? Just what I was looking for – a set of slatted wooden garden furniture comprising a folding table and four folding chairs, with arms because I just think they are important. The German seller clearly had a lot of these available so I decided what my bid limit would be and began to stalk my quarry. Time after time the French bidders (I’m pretty sure they were, because this was on Ebay France) appeared to lose their nerve and in the last few moments, the bidding went stratospheric. But eventually on a lot that finished at a weird time on a weekend, it happened and I acquired the set that I’d been waiting for. All that I had to do was wait now for delivery – and wait you have to, because for some reason over here, there’s no sense of urgency involved in getting stuff to its destination. A parcel that I’d arranged to be picked up in England on a 3-4 day delivery eventually got to me after 13 days and I had the frustration of tracking its arrival in France from England, seeing it somehow being sent to the wrong regional depot, then to the correct one and then being ‘out for delivery’ for day after day. Luckily what was inside wasn’t perishable 🙂

Eventually I got the usual call on my mobile from the delivery driver asking where my house is, and the two parcels were delivered. I cut them open with eager anticipation only to find that one of the rather attractive wooden chairs had a chunk sliced off one of the back uprights, which set me back a bit. Then came the assembly of the table. All went well until I came to attach the last of the three slats that run underneath the length of the table between the legs and, despite taking lots of care, when I inserted the securing screws at each end, first one end split and then the other.

My initial reaction was that I’d have only the slimmest chance of getting these problems sorted out with me contacting a German supplier in French, but it turned out that my fears were totally groundless. I took several pictures and after a few emails back and forth, during which I said that no, I didn’t want to return everything for a refund because despite the problems I liked the stuff a lot, it went quiet. Then a couple of days ago a parcel arrived containing a new, replacement chair. The driver said that he wasn’t expecting a pick up to return the damaged one but that he didn’t have a replacement wooden table slat, which I was therefore resigned to attempting a repair on myself. I needn’t have worried. The next day, back came the same driver with another package, this time containing replacements for all three table slats, two longer ones and one short one.

So what a fabulous supplier Deuba in Germany turned out to be! I already had enjoyed several evenings sitting out at my table and chairs, in the evening, sipping a cold drink until the darkness fell (or until the sneaky little biting insects became too much to bear 😐 ). Now that I’ve fixed the wood on my table my pleasure is even greater and when I’ve carried out a little fibreglass filler repair on the damaged chair back, so I’ll have five chairs around my table rather than four and can look forward with anticipation to having them filled in the not too far distant future with family and friends, my pleasure will be even greater.

I find that now that I have more time, the smaller, simpler things of life can and do give me great pleasure. Maybe it’s because now I allow them too, whereas before I didn’t, I don’t know.

To finish off, here’s a pic of me that was taken an hour or so ago, before I typed this post. And there’s Toddie too, enjoying the shade under the lime tree with me.

Well, first and foremost, it’s time to get My Trike back on track. A lot has been happening over recent weeks to do with things, people, my house and my new life here and I haven’t posted about any of it.

First, one small but rather sad event. Readers may recall that I mentioned the little brown mouse that chose to come and live with me and Toddie and made his home under my freezer. Unfortunately the little critter overstayed his welcome when he decided to come out to play every night in search of food, even though after I found he’d had the cheek to nibble at a nectarine I’d left out and the seal of a tin of chocolate biscuits (it’s a long story, my son bought them for my mother for Christmas and they ended up down here with me…), everything he might be interested in was safely packed away in plastic containers. Trouble was while he was out searching, he was leaving little calling cards everywhere – yes everywhere – that his search was taking him too, meaning that I was spending the first part of every morning cleaning up after him. And the agile little devil was so clever too – I still can’t work out how he managed to climb onto a table with shiny legs and an overhanging top, but Tarzan-like, he did.

So regrettably the time came to deal with him. From the number and volume of calling cards he was leaving, he must have been getting food from somewhere, so the only conclusion I could come to was that he was going out during the day and sneaking back in when my back was turned. This was more or less confirmed one day when I was sitting at the computer in the kitchen and saw him bold as you like strolling across the kitchen floor! So I jumped up and grabbed the broom in a Mrs Mop kind of way and the mouse, seeing this tore and hid round behind the mop bucket. I bashed the bucket with the broom in a gladiatorial kind of way and the mouse then shot out sideways under the sink where the two gas cylinders stand. I was ready for him. As he tried to race out from behind the left hand one in a desperate attempt to make for the freezer, I expertly parried with the broom and blocked his passage. He then spun round and dashed back behind the mop bucket, so I gave it another thwack with the broom and out he shot again for a repeat performance.

This happened a couple more times but when it comes to mouse speed and agility, man with broom is ultimately no match and on his final attempt he managed to do a crafty flip and twist that left me standing and allowed him to reach the freezer. But in doing so, he only increased my resolve as in the final event, man will not be beaten in the mouse stakes. And so it was that I ordered a couple of humane traps off Ebay but with three more killer-snappers as back up just in case my adversary didn’t get the message.

Things didn’t start off well when on their arrival, I found that one of the humane jobbies was missing its end cap, rendering it useless in the mouse capture and containment stakes. Nevertheless, I tried making and sticking a cardboard replacement for the missing part, stuck a lump of choice Camembert in it (of which more some other time…. YUMMM!) and plonked it down next to the freezer. Well dang me, I was in another room when I heard a sound and returned to see that the trap door (no, not the trapdoor…) had fallen, presumably trapping the little wretch inside. Success!

Er, no. When I checked, the little rodent had expertly removed the Camembert and escaped with it and was now enjoying a fine meal at my expense. Not deterred by this, which I concluded had to have been a total fluke, I did the same with the other humane trap and put it the other side of the freezer. In the morning I checked it and once again, the trap door had fallen and once again the little thief had nicked the cheese and taken it off. So I’m afraid that there was nothing else for it but to bring the big guns into action. It was a sad decision to have to make because I confess that I don’t like killing anything for no real reason. After all, what difference does one less mouse make in the whole scheme of things, so why not try to catch him and free him down the road, next to someone else’s house so he doesn’t come back to mine 🙂

But now I had no choice. Later that evening I set one of the snapper-traps with a large lump of smelly cheese from the Auvergne (at least I thought he’d go out in a bit of style) and within less than half an hour, there was a loud snap that made me jump. And when I got up to check, there was little mousey. I think he had a quick death but I can’t say that I feel any sense of triumph about it. I would have been happier to have caught and released him, but it wasn’t to be and sadly, things couldn’t go on as they were.

It’s lovely getting up to a clean kitchen and food area, but on balance I don’t think the world is a better place for having one less little brown mouse in it 😐