Now what?

Been thinking about what comes next after fixing the leak in my kitchen. I had a big problem with my toilet cistern overflowing but that seems to have abated now that the water pressure in my house is down to a more acceptable level after fitting the new pressure reducing valve. The ball valve in the cistern now stops the water inflow but shortly after water begins running down into the toilet bowl.

This is what happens with just about every toilet you ever come across in France because the ‘standard design’ is basically so poor. It’s an anathema to a UK ex-pat because we hate to see water being wasted, especially when it’s metred, plus you also end up with lime scaling staining in the bowl.

But for now I’ll just live with it, probably until I can get around to totally revamping my bathroom, especially if I can paint over the mold on the panel that the toilet is suspended on caused by the overflowing water and make it look more presentable.

So next on my list is my planning. I submitted my plans for my house extension just over a couple of years ago and was asked to provide some more information – nothing much but enough to prevent my receiving a ‘tacit approval’. The way the system works here is that if within 3 months of submitting your plans to the local mairie you have heard nothing, that means that they have been approved.

You then have to erect a panel on the roadway that can be viewed by the public outlining your project and if during the following 3 months nobody objects to your plans (they’d be unlikely to succeed anyway as the local planning authority will already have deemed them acceptable) you can eventually get cracking.

I visited the local planning office in Rouffignac a week or so ago showing my responses to the original request for more information and they told me that with them included in my planning dossier, it will be approved. They also suggested that in view of the time that’s passed, I’d do better cancelling my first dossier and submitting a new one to give me a full three years after approval to commence the work.

If I want to start my extension in the spring I really need to get the new submission in ASAP because of the time scales that I’ve mentioned above. Then I’ll be able to talk to my contractor in the autumn so he can build my work into his 2019 schedule. So rehashing my plannig dossier is a priority.

The next target, which should be simple to achieve, is to get my X-Air advertised for sale. It’s all ready to go and all I need to do is test fly it, later this week as the forecast looks to be pretty good, and take some more pictures as the ones I already have don’t show it after its recent spruce up. After advertising it all I’ll then be able to do is wait.

And finally there’s the Savannah. I have the replacement wing slat and plastic wing tip to do the repair necessary after I damaged the wing while I was turning to take off to head to the UK back in June. Looking ahead, my plans are now to make that trip some time between Monday 10 and Friday 21 September as my friend whose field I will be landing on will be back in the UK then and I’ll also be back in France in time for my next check-up scan on 25 September.

So no pressure on getting the repair work done. I sprayed the wing tip white today and have by cordless drill on charge as I type this, so should be all set up to remove the damaged parts tomorrow. Whether I’ll then continue and fit the new replacements I’ll have to wait and see, but it’ll be nice to make a start anyway.

That just leaves my car to get back repaired, hopefully also this week, and my garden and probably Malbec to mow after the showers we’ve had recently which will start the weeds growing at high speed if not the grass. So with all that lot, I’ve got a pretty well defined plan of action over the next few days, if not weeks. And who knows, with all of the above going on, I might even be able to fit in a little bit of flying too 😉