Wood

Wood for the winter is an emotive subject around here. We had been warned early on that just because you live in an area which is surrounded by woodland, does not mean you can just take any fallen wood that you find. Oh no, you must first ask permission. But finding out the owner of the individual parcels of land is easier said than done. And people here are very protective of their 'land rights'. It has been that way for centuries. Anyway, we came unstuck a couple of weeks ago. The previous owners of our house had told us before they left that they had felled a tree just down the lane but had taken the bigger pieces of wood for the wood burner in their new house but we could take what was left. So we tootled down the lane and found loads of decent size scraps which would do us very nicely. We also discovered half of the fallen tree which they had obviously left and which was just begging to be logged. So we did just that - spent a very hot afternoon chain-sawing and hauling the resultant logs back up to the roadway, into the car and back to the house. Fantastic! A great start to our winter log pile! But oh no, we were wrong! The previous owners (who, incidentally, did not own the land which actually belonged to the bloke that THEY bought the property from!) turned up on the Saturday for a brief visit (still not sure what for) and we got a call from her that evening taking issue with the fact that we had taken the tree that they had spent days felling with a great deal of back-breaking effort
and that they wanted the wood that had resulted from it! Bear in mind that they now live a good hour away and we had not idea that they would be returning for it. Anyway, we were eventually accused of 'stealing' it which didn't go down to well. Andy managed to speak to her other half the next day and came to arrangement that we would leave half of the wood next door with Claudine, which was only reasonable seeing as he had spent hours chainsawing the tree trunk into logs. But all in all it was a very unpleasant episode. So anyway, we have spent this afternoon sorting out the bottom level of the barn and have finally removed the old manger structure which Andy has chainsawed into some reasonable logs for the woodshed. We have also chainsawed the big pile of pine pannelling which we removed from the attic and which will now make great kindling wood for the winter. I have also got more of the beams cleaned up in there ready for treating, hopefully over the weekend.

Still on the subject of winter and wood-burners, we have finally got somebody who may be able to get the door of our woodburning stove repaired. The glass panel broke when Andy was attempting to replace the heat resistant cord on the door back in July. A number of calls and answer-machine messages to a local 'artisan' who had been recommended to us have been left unanswered and I was beginning to despair of ever getting it fixed. But Gils, the boulanger from down at Espies came up trumps with another recommendation who came and fetched the door today (and had some very uncomplentary things to say about our neighbours up the road, incidentally!). Hopefully we should have the door back early next week in time for the cooler autumnal weather. That said, this house retains the warmth (but also keeps out the heat) amazingly well, probably because the ground floor is half built into the hillside. In the 30+degree heat, it is like walking into an air-conditioned room when you open the front door! Marvellous!

Tomorrow, hoping to get the bathroom wall painted white so that we can put the basin unit back and have a functioning bathroom again (at least the shower and the loo are unaffected!). Also hoping to either get out on the bikes or head up to the Col de Port from where we will head to the Pic d'Estibat and beyond to the Pic de la Journalade to reccy the route for what is apparently a very good ski de randonnee outing in the winter. The good weather has returned with temps in the low 20s and sunny skies, so we need to take advantage over the coming days :-)

Meanwhile, we leave you with a lovely summer's evening view from our front door!