Still at it

After mounting my ‘panneau’ on my land this morning I returned home to unhitch my trailer and then went off to Brico Marché at Le Bugue to put my next plan for the day into action. I only have just over 2 weeks before I move out of my house and I’ve already started thinking about my change of address. Contracts like EDF (electricity), Véolia (water) and Free (home phone) I’ve just got to cancel but there are many others who will need to be notified in good time of my new address.

But it won’t be enough for them just to be notified – I’ll also need a real address, even though I’ll be in the caravan, where I can receive post and that means that I’ll need a mailbox. And that was the purpose of my trip to Le Bugue because an internet search had revealed that Brico Marché has the cheapest mailbox around, less than half the cost of those being offered by other ‘magasins de bricollage’ and cheaper even than Brico Depot. That suits me fine as it’ll probably only be a temporary measure as I’ve seen other more elaborate designs that I’d like to have when the new house is finished.

After a quick lunch I assembled it with the intention of going straight back to my land to place it into position. I took all of the tools that I thought I might need plus a bucket of sand/ballast/cement mix without water. My plan was to get a hole dug and everything ready for concreting in at which point I’d nip just around the corner to Malbec to add water to the mix and return with it ready for use. My plan worked faultlessly but it was getting to that point that was the problem.

I took a pick-axe with me as I suspected that I’d need it but I hadn’t realised how soon that would be ie immediately. I started with a shovel which hit rock straight off and from then on it was pick-axe all the way and clearing the ever-deepening hole of rock and stone. There can’t be much wrong wih my health now because this was in direct sunlight at a temperature of 32 degrees Celsius, just stopping every now and then for a short break in the shade.

I wanted to get down to a decent depth as lots of people around these parts think that you only need to plant a ‘boite aux lettres’ support pole 10 cm in the ground and then wonder why it eventually falls over. I got down to almost 50 cm before deciding that enough was enough and was very pleased to find that by making a support base consisting of concrete plus hammered-in smallish pieces of rock, the mailbox stood firmly enough without any other support. I’m hoping that by tomorrow the concrete will have gone off enough for the job to be solid and permanent.

Here are some shots showing my land and the final result from across the other side of the road.

And I had a very pleasant surprise to cap the job off. I got my phone out and as I was aiming it to take the first shot, a beautiful little butterfly landed on my finger. It then flew off and landed on the new mailbox itself.

I don’t know if this was an omen or a blessing, but I thought that it was a lovely finale to the day. I’ve been toying with ideas for names for my land and hence my new house itself and the one that keeps coming back to me is ‘Pré d’or’ (look it up). The beautiful colours on the little butterfly’s wings now lead me to think that that will be the right choice, especially as the cut grass is now drying out in the sun and will soon be a beautiful golden colour.

I returned home hot and tired to be met with a wonderful surprise. My lovely French neighbour, Chantal, had taken it upon herself to clean right through the caravan and the results were evident to the eye (and nose!) as soon as I saw it. And she was still at it even as I got back, bless her. I’ll miss her greatly when I go as nobody could ask for a sweeter, better neighbour than her.