Month: April 2022

But ended up rather disappointed as I’ll go on to explain. I went off to Sant Astier this morning to pick up my third new ‘tonnelle’ that I found the other day on Le Bon Coin. I’ve not been to Saint Astier before. It’s to the west of Périgueux and only about 45 minutes or so away and I found that it’s a pleasant little town that’s full of narrow streets that have been made into a one-way system. It confused my satnav (and me) somewhat but I managed to find my way to the seller’s house without too much trouble.

She turned out to be a charming lady who having bought the ‘tonnelle’ for her own garden then had a permanent one built for her out of wood by her children. Consequently it had stayed unused and unopened in its packaging and she had only just opened it before advertising it to make sure that it was all there as it should be. And it was, just as she had described. Unlike the other two ‘cheapies’ that I acquired last year, this one is a branded model – Hespéride’ – and is of much better quality with thicker fabric and an all-round much stronger and better made metal frame, and I couldn’t wait to get it home and start putting it up.

Here’s a shot of the framework going together. Although its design is slightly different to the other two, having a proper vent in its roof to let the heat out, the basic principles of its design are the same and it didn’t take me that long to get the frame together. I’m also pretty skilled now at getting it erected single-handedly without subjecting the framework to any undue bending or strain.

Here are a couple of shots with its roof on showing the vent that I mentioned.

And here’s a view of the roof vent from the inside.

The quality of detail is immediately apparent. The metal tubes are much more robust than the ones in the two ‘cheapies’ with good, strong welded joints and care has even been taken with the finishing of the nuts and bolts in the structure with there being one type of plastic cap to cover the bolt heads and another to cover the nuts and the exposed bolt stems.

But it was when I unpacked the ‘tonnelle’s’ curtains, that my disappointment was immediate. The polyester fabric used for the roof and side curtains is thick and of good quality with a nice appearance. The curtains are also suspended from the high level horizontal rails by velcroed tabs so no difference there, but whereas the curtains of the ‘cheapies’ are closed by full length zips, those of the new ‘tonnelle’ are only secured by tie-together tapes, and then only two per edge at a third and two-thirds distance. And whereas the curtains of the ‘cheapies’ are secured to the frame uprights by three tapes, top, middle and bottom, those of the new ‘tonnelle’ only have tapes at their middle points.

This means that in the gusting winds that we had today while I was erecting it, the curtains of the ‘cheapie tonnelle’ were hardly moving whereas those of the new one were billowing madly in the wind, exposing most of its interior and its contents and also leaving much of its floor uncovered and open to the elements.

I find this design lapse not only extraordinary given the attention to detail that’s been applied elsewhere, but also incredibly penny-pinching. It occurred to me that I still have the side curtains from the original damaged ‘cheapie tonnelle’ which are of almost identical dimensions and have survived pretty much intact (one suspension tab’s stitching gave way I think and also possibly one upright securing tape) and I’m going to have a go at swapping them tomorrow. They are a slightly lighter grey than the new ‘tonnelle’s’ fabric but that won’t matter.

I moved the wooden furniture into the new ‘tonnelle’ when I’d finished and laid its floor mat and when the wind wasn’t blowing, it looked OK as shown below.

I don’t want to leave things as they are whatever happens tomorrow. Even if the old curtains do fit I’ll probably end up getting my sewing machine out and modifying the new curtains myself, by adding full length zips and more upright securing tapes. Hopefully if the old curtains do do the trick though, I won’t be forced into doing it straight away as I have other jobs on my list to attend to. As usual 😉

But better this time. Having yesterday dismantled the original ‘tonnelle’ that I erected on my land, today it was time to dig the second one out of my ‘abris’ and put that up. Having learned the lessons from last time I was able to modify my approach to minimise the strain imposed on its metal framework and I also moved it very slightly to get a flatter area for it to stand on. It took half a day or possibly a bit more, but I was very pleased with the results and here are some shots that I took at the end of the afternoon, starting with the view from the caravan

I don’t want to get out my ‘Sunday best’ parasols that I had at Plazac until my house is completed and for the time being I have put up a ‘cheapie’ circular parasol over my small round metal table that I got from CDiscount for only 20€ including delivery. I know what I said yesterday about cheap rubbish from China but this is really only intended to be a very temporary arrangement.

The wooden furniture will be staying in this ‘tonnelle’ and my large garden table will be remaining in there also until a get a second one. I actually found a brand new one today on Le Bon Coin and will be going to pick it up on Saturday morning. It is of much better quality than the two I originally acquired so will cost more but hopefully once my house is ready I’ll be able to hang onto it and keep using it in the future. We’ll see…

Just when we were beginning to give up hope we got a day like today with just a very light north-westerly wind and a high of about 21 degrees Celsius. So just the day to dismantle my damaged ‘tonnelle’ and get it ready to go to the ‘déchetterie’ and then mow my grass to get it back under some kind of control.

While doing the former it soon became very obvious why the ‘tonnelle’ had collapsed – almost all of the horizontal cross-pieces that connected the tops of the vertical tubes and on which the side curtains had been hung had broken. In several cases the metal itself had snapped because it was so flimsy and of such poor quality but in others the welds had broken because they were almost non-existent and consisted of just a couple of dabs of metal to make a ‘joint’. So this was a reminder of what we already know – Chinese ‘cheap’ means that you get rubbish.

I was really pleased to get my grass cut because it was already much higher today than when I returned from England a week ago and I also managed to tidy the areas up a bit at the top close to the road. Here are some shots that I’ve grabbed from a couple of videos that I shot afterwards using my Fimi X8 2020 drone that show how amazingly green everything is following the several days of rain that we’ve had to endure since I got back.

You can also get an idea of how long the grass is now on the land neighbouring mine that hasn’t been cut. The farmers have already started cutting the grass for hay and it won’t be long before the grass either side of mine is cut too.

To finish off, here are a couple of general shots that I’ve included just because they show how amazingly green everything else. The first one was taken with my Fimi out to the east looking towards Plazac and if you look carefully you can see the pointed black tiled roof of Chateau du Peuch nestling in the hollow.

The last shot is just a general view with the drone out to the north looking towards the north-west. Spring has at last arrived and the mass of greenery everywhere proves it.

We have another day similar to today forecast for tomorrow so it’ll be ideal for me to erect my second ‘tonnelle’ in the same position as the last one as shelter for the furniture that I’ve now just got covered up. Then I’ll be able to think about acquiring another one, of similar colour I hope, in order to move forward again with my plan for a ‘hospitality area’ outside my caravan 😉

First the surfeit. It’s been raining practically non-stop ever since I returned from England last Tuesday. And I’m not kidding, except for one brief slightly sunny afternoon when my hopes of cutting my grass rose and then were dashed again. It was raining earlier today and although it has now stopped and it’s quite bright actually, here’s what the foundations of my house looked like earlier.

I’m chasing the builder who has not been on site for a month to find out what’s going on. They missed some good weather while I was away and now I bet that they’re excuse will be that they’re unable to do anything until the site has dried out and all of the water around the columns that they put in has drained away. I’m beginning to get annoyed again.

Now the water shortage. Several weeks ago when I moved my caravan from the top to the bottom of my land I had to extend its water supply. I did so by purchasing a 100 metre length of ‘potable water’ grade clear plastic hose pipe that I added to the 15 metres that I’d originally purchased to make the connection to my water standpipe. However, it immediately became clear that the new plastic was not what it seemed. For a start, the water that came out of it had a strong chemical taste and a distinct chemical smell and I soon decided that it was totally unsuitable for either drinking or cooking with.

And when it emerged from the taps in the caravan it foamed almost as though it contained washing up detergent, as the following couple of shots show.

I tried running (and wasting) vast quantities of water through it in the hope of flushing it clean but that never happened and the water coming out of it continued to remain effectively unusable as even when used for washing of either self or objects, it still continued to leave behind a nasty smell. In the end I complained to the supplier, saying that although the tube was labelled ‘for water’, this didn’t necessarily mean ‘drinking water’ and that I wanted them to take it back and refund my purchase price.

This being France, they ‘ummed and ahhed’ but eventually conceded that if I repacked the roll and provided them with its dimensions and weight, they would arrange for it to be picked up. But then, of course, I had to leave for England which let them off the hook, so naturally I’m still waiting, and I’m getting annoyed about that too.

In the meantime I’ve had to order a replacement hose as I can’t bear to live without a water supply in the caravan for any longer. It’s not much fun trudging up to the top of my land to fill up two 5 litre water bottles in the pouring rain. In case anyone thinks I was imagining the old plastic tubing producing foaming water, here’s a shot for comparison of the water coming out of the new pipe that I connected up today. Case proven I think.

And lastly, my damaged ‘tonnelle’ that Victor kindly secured for me while I was away after it had been destroyed by the high winds that hit it the day after I’d left for the UK. As the next shot shows, although much of its metal framework was only flimsy, it wasn’t just bent but was torn apart by the wind.

The fabric is also damaged so there’s nothing of the ‘tonnelle’ to be saved. It’s being used to cover, not very effectively I might add, what I put into it before I left for England.

With all the rain we’re getting, as soon as I can cut my grass I’ll have to get my second ‘tonnelle’ out and put that up in the same place as the old one to protect the stuff that’s been covered up. It looks as though there might be a window during the coming week and if I can do that I’ll then be able to think about sourcing another to move my plans forward for creating a cosy little ‘hospitality’ area in the area between the two ‘tonnelles’ and my caravan. I must say, I’m getting a bit sick of all the setbacks that I’m receiving lately, seemingly one after the other… 😐

I’ve just watched this film on Amazon Prime. Absolutely outstanding in every way. Catch it if you can. You won’t be disappointed.

Don’t be misled by the above image. It was in English throughout.

I left Fleurac for the UK on Thursday having made my land and caravan as secure as I could. I was very concerned, however, by the weather forecast for the following day which showed that there would be strong northerly winds with very fierce gusts of over 80 kmh/50 mph in the late afternoon and early evening which made me fear for the safety of my ‘tonnelle’ that was standing at the bottom of my land next to my caravan.

Nevertheless, I thought that it would be safe as the winds were expected to be from the south-west and the ‘tonnelle’ would therefore be relatively sheltered in its position at the bottom of the dip. But it turns out that I was too optimistic. My friend Victor said that he’d keep an eye on things for me and sadly on Saturday morning I received the news from him that my ‘tonnelle’ had been destroyed.

Here are some of the shots of the aftermath that he took and sent over to me.

The winds on Friday were so strong that they’d succeeded in destroying the ‘tonnelle’s’ metal frame bringing the whole structure down. I find this quite extraordinary being as the tie-down cords were still in place and until I return and am able to see the damage for myself, I find it difficult to understand how this happened.

But in any case, I’ve now lost the ‘tonnelle’ without it ever having been used for its intended purpose and it now leaves me with a problem. I had two ‘tonnelles’ of the same dimensions and design that I wanted to set up in the area outside my caravan to use for eating outside and the like and I’d even bought a second floor-covering that’s the same design as the one I’d put into the damaged ‘tonnelle’ so they’d both match. I need the two for my plans but if I just buy another they probably won’t match. I guess I’ll have to leave the decision as what to do now until I get back 🙁

It’s mid-morning as I type this and yet again there’s no activity on my house-build. So that’s two weeks since anything was done to move the project along and there’s nothing much that I can do about it.

The contractual period by the end of which the house must be completed is 12 months and the builder must know that even with delays like this at the front-end, they can still get the house finished within this deadline to avoid paying penalties. That doesn’t do much for my hopes, however, for a speedy completion that will see me moving in by the end of the summer.

I certainly don’t look forward to facing another winter in my caravan, especially as if it does happen, it will be down at the colder bottom end of my land. This delay and the uncertainty it engenders is highly frustrating to say the least, the more so as I plan to leave for the UK in just a few short days.

But there’s more to this. According to the contract terms, I transferred a sum equivalent to 15% of the cost of the build on commencement of work but I don’t think that I see that value in the work that has been completed at this moment in time.

Nevertheless, I’ve been requested to make a further transfer in the meantime and have complied, bringing the total up to 25% of the cost of the build and for that I would like to see the groundwork completed and reasonable progress having been made on the walls.

I don’t much like paying for results in advance and not seeing anything happening so we will have to see what happens over the coming couple of days before I start asking some leading questions.