In Sapa, Vietnam

In Sapa, Vietnam

About Me

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Sharing time between Southampton and Noyal-Muzillac in southern Brittany. Sports coach, gardener, hockey player, cyclist and traveller. I studied an MA in Management and Organisational Dynamics at Essex University in 2016-17. Formerly an Operations Manager with NEC Technologies (UK) Ltd.

Thursday 28 March 2013

Bureaucracy - it's a French Word

Back in another life when I shared complaints with Lionel about some petty Japanese data requirement or other, I used to tease him that "Bureaucracy is a French word and the French are still the world leaders at it".

In December we received a Municipal Bulletin (a nice 32 page colour publication from the Mairie - not sure how much that costs a commune of 2000 inhabitants to produce). It was announced that a new local planning rule had been introduced requiring a Declaration Préalable (like a simple planning request) before a tree could be cut down on a talus - a field boundary. Stuart, our tree surgeon recommended that we take down a mature Ash tree to allow the adjacent Oak to fully develop - The oak is a rare tree that's never received the traditional local tree management method of pollarding. Fully mature trees are comparative rarities on field boundaries and we are keen to allow ours to develop naturally.


The Ash is the tree leaning to the right

So, down to the Mairie to confirm the new regulation, an informal meeting with M. Griaud who kindly printed off all the maps I needed, looked at the photographs I had taken showing the tree and said he'd look out for the application when I submitted it. All pretty straightforward ...

Next I received a letter from M. Le Maire inviting me to a meeting at the tree with the Tree Cutting Down Committee (my translation). All five members duly arrived in the Maire's car, spent fifteen minutes talking to each other and me about the tree and then disappeared promising a response in eight days.

When the response arrived it was not an agreement, rather a "Certificate of Non-Objection".

So that's an approval then ..... I think.

Hopefully it is as Stuart and Sébastien are in next Monday to take down the tree.

Wednesday 20 March 2013

La Vie Sauvage II

After Lucien's solumn warning about Les Ragondins (Coypu) I saw one that had been killed on the road just over the way last week. I've seen them in the wild before but close up they are really big animals.

Pond inspections will be more regular from now on .....

Tuesday 19 March 2013

Build Update - March

A remarkable thing has happened since I last updated the blog with the build status. We suddenly have a first floor – walls, rooms and doors; bedrooms, bathrooms and corridors.

The build has been assisted along since January by Steve the electrician who’s done plumbing, wall construction and door hanging as well as getting all the downstairs electrics and one of the underfloor heating zones running.



Adam’s done more plastering than he could ever have imagined – he probably wouldn’t want to be known as a plasterer but he’s really pretty damn good at it.




Barbara’s mixed, at the last count, 54 bags of plaster, that's about two tonnes of plaster as well as taping over a kilometre of joints between the plasterboards, cut insulation to fit into the walls, painted litres of PVA on the walls before plastering and kept us on track by planning each days’ work.




And we persuaded Ailsa, an old hockey friend of ours (well, not so old but we have had a lot of hockey experiences together over the years) to come out under the false pretence of having a holiday but actually she spent the whole week cutting and installing steel wall framing and plasterboard. She enjoyed this so much she was back three weeks later for another intense week of electrics, boarding out the lofts and yet more plasterboarding.




So, at last the rooms, the ceilings and the exposed timberwork that have been in our imaginations until now really exist. They’ve had to be in our imaginations as the architect never got to grips with the internal layout and so what we‘ve ended up with is entirely our work – and, in my opinion, it’s great.




When we first saw the barn in 2009 the height was one of the things that really attracted us and I think we've made good use of that, the bedrooms and mezzanine are really high and spacious and have some attractive and unusual roof lines.

Stop Press: Today we have finished the major plastering in the building, we started on 9th October so that's nearly five months we've been working on the walls and ceilings. It's a big job ....