Great day to be British in France today :o)
What an amazing achievement by team Sky Procycling in today's Tour de France stage:
Stage winner: Chris Froome
Leading Team: Sky
King of the Mountains leader: Chris Froome
And, GC leader and Yellow Jersey wearer, Bradley Wiggins. Wow, brilliant performance.
All details click here:
Will be getting the Union Flag out above La Basse Cour tomorrow for Brad, hope it stays up until July 22nd when he leads the TDF home on the Champs Elysées - dare to believe in a first British winner of the Tour de France!
In Sapa, Vietnam
About Me
- Tim Claridge
- 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.
Saturday, 7 July 2012
An Anglo-French disagreement
There are many things that unite Britain and France - two countries separated by only 35km of La Manche. Many more things separate them; language, the price of wine, the social maturity of children, the currency (maybe only until the Euro crashes and burns ....) and, perhaps most contentiously, Plaster. When I was at school we used Plaster of Paris to make casts of animal footprints - Plaster of Paris, along with most of the interesting things I did at school in science, is now banned from British schools on health and safety grounds. It is, of course, still widely available in retail outlets in France.
In the UK we are used to a pink plaster that needs to be mixed to its final consistency and then gives a consistent 45 minutes of working time. French plaster, being French, is different. It's white for a start, needs to be mixed to the consistency of cream and then left for an indeterminate period of time until it firms up (a non-linear processs) and then you have anything from five to thirty minutes get it on the walls or ceiling. Forum boards and blogs written by Brits in France are full of "How rubbish is this French plaster ...." sort of posts. And, I have to confess, when we plastered the house I imported UK plaster to do that. Faced with the enormous task of plastering the utility area in the lean-to and all the upstairs and downstairs barn ceilings, Adam, Barbara and I thought we'd better get the hang of this French stuff.
Plaster seems to me to be a metaphor for the different working methods in the two countries - UK style is to use something consistent, get it done fast, shave off all the time possible and get on to the next job; the French style requires faith that the end will be reached, allows a certain undefined period of time for reflection and discussion while casually stirring the wet plaster sitting on the table and then, suddenly, a huge outpouring of energy once it's decided that the correct consistency has been reached.
As a precaution we used Lutece Rouge L (the L is for Lente - slow) - the C (courte for short) stuff must be amazingly quick setting - probably between pouring it out of the bucket and it reaching the table. [Interesting fact from Adam: Lutece was the Roman name for Paris and, initially, all gypsum for French plaster was mined from under the city].
We had decided to plaster all the walls and ceilings in the lean-to as a warm up for the main barn and Barbara reprised her role of mixing and timing supervisor with the drill and paddle and Adam and I were the plasterers. Plastering requires a team of two or three to be efficient, solo mixing and plastering must be a very hard task. After a couple of tricky batches (too soft, too hard) we all got the hang of the process and turned out a consistent result that, even though I say so myself, looks pretty good. It's not a mirror flat polished finish but the odd trowel mark and line looks appropriately rustic in an old building.
The other slight difference between French and UK plaster is price - about €15 for 35kg in France compared to £4.20 for 25 kg in the UK. That's about twice the price ......
In the UK we are used to a pink plaster that needs to be mixed to its final consistency and then gives a consistent 45 minutes of working time. French plaster, being French, is different. It's white for a start, needs to be mixed to the consistency of cream and then left for an indeterminate period of time until it firms up (a non-linear processs) and then you have anything from five to thirty minutes get it on the walls or ceiling. Forum boards and blogs written by Brits in France are full of "How rubbish is this French plaster ...." sort of posts. And, I have to confess, when we plastered the house I imported UK plaster to do that. Faced with the enormous task of plastering the utility area in the lean-to and all the upstairs and downstairs barn ceilings, Adam, Barbara and I thought we'd better get the hang of this French stuff.
Plaster seems to me to be a metaphor for the different working methods in the two countries - UK style is to use something consistent, get it done fast, shave off all the time possible and get on to the next job; the French style requires faith that the end will be reached, allows a certain undefined period of time for reflection and discussion while casually stirring the wet plaster sitting on the table and then, suddenly, a huge outpouring of energy once it's decided that the correct consistency has been reached.
As a precaution we used Lutece Rouge L (the L is for Lente - slow) - the C (courte for short) stuff must be amazingly quick setting - probably between pouring it out of the bucket and it reaching the table. [Interesting fact from Adam: Lutece was the Roman name for Paris and, initially, all gypsum for French plaster was mined from under the city].
We had decided to plaster all the walls and ceilings in the lean-to as a warm up for the main barn and Barbara reprised her role of mixing and timing supervisor with the drill and paddle and Adam and I were the plasterers. Plastering requires a team of two or three to be efficient, solo mixing and plastering must be a very hard task. After a couple of tricky batches (too soft, too hard) we all got the hang of the process and turned out a consistent result that, even though I say so myself, looks pretty good. It's not a mirror flat polished finish but the odd trowel mark and line looks appropriately rustic in an old building.
The other slight difference between French and UK plaster is price - about €15 for 35kg in France compared to £4.20 for 25 kg in the UK. That's about twice the price ......
Sunday, 27 May 2012
Marriage - French style
We were working in the garden during one of the rare breaks in the rain in April when Nicole, our neighbour who runs the farm with Dominique her husband, came down the drive to
show us Awen, her new grandson, (three weeks old) and give us a wedding invite
for the marriage of their oldest daughter, Sophie. She said it’s
traditional in Bretagne to invite all the
neighbours to a wedding (we hadn’t actually ever met Sophie – she lives in Angers). It was extremely
kind of them to invite the auto-constructeur Rosbif neighbours to the wedding; the invite was to the civil ceremony in the
Mairie followed by the church
service and a vin d'honneur.
It was the first time we had been to a French wedding - lots of things were similar but there were a few puzzling and entertaining differences for us:
Note for English readers: In France the church and the State are completely separate and so the "official" marriage ceremony can only be performed by a representative of the State, in this case the Mayor. Actually in this case the mayor wasn't present so it was an ajoint to the mayor who conducted the service.
The ceremony wasn't nearly as solemn as we expected - everyone piled into the room at the Mairie trying to get the best place to take photos from - the prime place seemed to be behind the table looking over the ajoint's shoulder.. Those who couldn't get in chatted loudly to their friends in the foyer. I'd guess that the Maire isn't absent very often and it seemed like it was the ajoint's first marriage ceremony judging by the number of times he had to stop and thumb through the book he was reading from.
But everyone was in a good mood and the ceremony completed with Sophie and Vincent being declared as married and everyone applauding,
It was the first time we had been to a French wedding - lots of things were similar but there were a few puzzling and entertaining differences for us:
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| The couple arrived together in a specially decorated car that had seen better days - and probably wouldn't get through a Controle Technique .... |
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| Arriving at the Mairie: L to R: Vincent, Vincent's mother, Dominique, Sophie, Vincent's father, Nicole |
The ceremony wasn't nearly as solemn as we expected - everyone piled into the room at the Mairie trying to get the best place to take photos from - the prime place seemed to be behind the table looking over the ajoint's shoulder.. Those who couldn't get in chatted loudly to their friends in the foyer. I'd guess that the Maire isn't absent very often and it seemed like it was the ajoint's first marriage ceremony judging by the number of times he had to stop and thumb through the book he was reading from.
But everyone was in a good mood and the ceremony completed with Sophie and Vincent being declared as married and everyone applauding,
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| Not sure who was more hesitant - the newly married couple or the ajoint |
Next, everyone left the Mairie and headed the 100m over to the church - it was our first time in a French church for a service and, I guess, we'd expected things to be a bit more solemn than at the Mairie. Not a bit of it - the bride and groom were led down the aisle by the priest to Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" - a bit different to "Here comes the Bride" - and the priest had to chase the same posse of amateur photographers away from the altar area where they had taken up residence. The singing was good although only printing 50 service sheets when there were 200 in the church meant we weren't able to join in - maybe a good thing .... !
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| In the Noyal Muzillac church |
After the service everyone walked over to the Salle de Jeune France for the vin d'honneur and in a convivial setting we met up again with the singer from Claudette's garden party last year. Instead of a Liste de Mariage people queued up to meet the bride and groom, wish them good luck and give them an envelope with money or a cheque, appropriately given Sophie's background these were then posted into an elegantly painted milk churn.. Being English we had brought them a gift that they couldn't post in the churn!
During the vin d'honneur Lucien, Sophie's grandfather and our neighbour from over the road, came to talk to us and took care to introduce us to his new friend - an elegant lady who we have seen at his house a number of times ....
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
Progress Update
The build has progressed a lot since my last update.
Adam has completed one of the two new windows on the North Side, this was done in a similar way to the doorway but was complicated by the position of the beams and the size of some of the stones in the wall.
We've also had our new souterrain electricity supply installed and the old, ugly overhead cable has gone, the huge steel cable support has been taken down too:
Barbara and I have been working on the fit-out of the lean-to, we've done the first-fix electrics and plumbing and have framed out the walls for the plasterboarding to follow. The lean-to will be one of the areas of the building that will be finished using conventional framing and plasterboarding; actually of course "conventional" in this case means modern rather than the techniques that the original builders would have recognised. We'll be using more traditional methods and more ecological materials in the main barn. Interestingly, after my previous blog post on my green confusion, the insulation in this picture is made from recycled bottles - so we'll be continuing our efforts to contribute to the stock of empty bottles to be turned into insulation ;o)
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| The first new window partly completed. The support posts, props and Strongboys are stabilising the wall whilst the work is underway |
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| The finished window from the inside of the Barn |
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| And from the outside - soon it will look as if it's been there two hundred years like the rest of the building. |
Barbara and I have been working on the fit-out of the lean-to, we've done the first-fix electrics and plumbing and have framed out the walls for the plasterboarding to follow. The lean-to will be one of the areas of the building that will be finished using conventional framing and plasterboarding; actually of course "conventional" in this case means modern rather than the techniques that the original builders would have recognised. We'll be using more traditional methods and more ecological materials in the main barn. Interestingly, after my previous blog post on my green confusion, the insulation in this picture is made from recycled bottles - so we'll be continuing our efforts to contribute to the stock of empty bottles to be turned into insulation ;o)
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| Framing using the French metal rail system (rather than the British tradition of using wood) |
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| Electrical and Plumbing first fix in progress. The window we found and re-opened can be seen in the back wall. |
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| Electricity "Connection Central" - hopefully we'll be able to connect all this lot up correctly. |
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Green value ... ?
A couple of things happened over the Easter break that made me reflect on energy efficiency and costs.
After the floor insulation had been laid we took the offcuts and remnants down to the déchetterie (recycling centre) - two cubic metres of polyurethane foam, produced from a fossil fuel, non recyclable and hence another 2 cubic metres went into landfill. I'm a bit ambiguous (and frankly confused) about the green credentials of some of the techniques and materials we are using - we've put 80mm of foam insulation into the floor (more than the recommended 60mm which should reduce our energy consumption - good) but it's made from oil based products - not so good. And we're using electric underfloor heating which is significantly cheaper than oil, gas or heat pump technology, has fewer CO2 emissions than oil or gas (as most of the electricity in France is generated by nuclear and renewable power - but is that good or not?). Air source heat pump technology is the favourite technology for heating in our region, it consumes about 30% of the power required for our underfloor heating but it would take over 11 years to recover the initial cost. So is that good or bad ...... I'm confused.
And after my previous blog on European Integration / Car Servicing Costs http://labassecourfrance.blogspot.fr/2012/03/european-integration.html the CR-V was serviced by Hendy Honda (bear with me - there is a link). You'll remember that the car service at a Honda dealer was over €150 cheaper in Southampton than in Vannes. I was given a courtesy car but instead of the usual slightly tired and used courtesy car I got a brand new Insight IMA Hybrid with 118 miles on the clock http://www.honda.co.uk/cars/insight/. This car is powered by a petrol engine/ battery system and is one of the green technologies held out as the future for vehicles. I managed to get 69 miles per gallon out of it driving on the motorway at 60 miles per hour - that's pretty good but here's what confuses me. Even our big old 4x4 CR-V will do 49 mpg on the same route so the Insight is 28% more fuel efficient - which is good - but the Nickel Metal Hydride batteries require large quantities of nickel and other heavy metals and the chemicals used are both corrosive and carcinogenic - not so good.
So are hybrid technologies the way ahead or is my diesel less damaging in the long run? Are heatpump technologies worth the huge extra cost? Is it more environmentally sensitive to insulate our floor with foam made from oil and dump the remnants into landfill or should we not insulate and spend more energy made from nuclear technology in the future heating the barn?
It's not obvious to me .... but the CR-V was beautifully washed, waxed and cleaned at no extra cost so the only clear conclusion in this story is where the car maintenance will be done in the future.
After the floor insulation had been laid we took the offcuts and remnants down to the déchetterie (recycling centre) - two cubic metres of polyurethane foam, produced from a fossil fuel, non recyclable and hence another 2 cubic metres went into landfill. I'm a bit ambiguous (and frankly confused) about the green credentials of some of the techniques and materials we are using - we've put 80mm of foam insulation into the floor (more than the recommended 60mm which should reduce our energy consumption - good) but it's made from oil based products - not so good. And we're using electric underfloor heating which is significantly cheaper than oil, gas or heat pump technology, has fewer CO2 emissions than oil or gas (as most of the electricity in France is generated by nuclear and renewable power - but is that good or not?). Air source heat pump technology is the favourite technology for heating in our region, it consumes about 30% of the power required for our underfloor heating but it would take over 11 years to recover the initial cost. So is that good or bad ...... I'm confused.
And after my previous blog on European Integration / Car Servicing Costs http://labassecourfrance.blogspot.fr/2012/03/european-integration.html the CR-V was serviced by Hendy Honda (bear with me - there is a link). You'll remember that the car service at a Honda dealer was over €150 cheaper in Southampton than in Vannes. I was given a courtesy car but instead of the usual slightly tired and used courtesy car I got a brand new Insight IMA Hybrid with 118 miles on the clock http://www.honda.co.uk/cars/insight/. This car is powered by a petrol engine/ battery system and is one of the green technologies held out as the future for vehicles. I managed to get 69 miles per gallon out of it driving on the motorway at 60 miles per hour - that's pretty good but here's what confuses me. Even our big old 4x4 CR-V will do 49 mpg on the same route so the Insight is 28% more fuel efficient - which is good - but the Nickel Metal Hydride batteries require large quantities of nickel and other heavy metals and the chemicals used are both corrosive and carcinogenic - not so good.
So are hybrid technologies the way ahead or is my diesel less damaging in the long run? Are heatpump technologies worth the huge extra cost? Is it more environmentally sensitive to insulate our floor with foam made from oil and dump the remnants into landfill or should we not insulate and spend more energy made from nuclear technology in the future heating the barn?
It's not obvious to me .... but the CR-V was beautifully washed, waxed and cleaned at no extra cost so the only clear conclusion in this story is where the car maintenance will be done in the future.
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Summer Visitors
The first swallow of the year flew in on Sunday, shortly followed by another. They paid particular attention to the lean-to where we found an old nest on one of the beams when the roof was taken off in December. Since the swallows left last autumn the lean-to now has a new roof, windows and floor so must have seemed like when one goes back to somewhere where you grew up and find it has changed almost beyond recognition.
A small flock of house martins flew in over the pond on Tuesday in the midst of a rain storm and 50kmh winds - they must have thought they'd taken a wrong turning somewhere on the route from Africa !
A small flock of house martins flew in over the pond on Tuesday in the midst of a rain storm and 50kmh winds - they must have thought they'd taken a wrong turning somewhere on the route from Africa !
Thursday, 19 April 2012
The Longest Day ....
"It's not flowing very fast is it?"
In fact the driver of the mixer was on our step ladder with our spade trying to persuade a reluctant 7 cubic metres of chape (screed) to run out of the big mixing drum. What had arrived wasn't what either Kevin or we had expected (we thought we were getting a liquid screed like the subfloor that had been laid in 45 minutes back in November). We weren't set up for this chape traditionelle that had to be laid by hand and was clearly going to take a long time, worse it wasn't auto-nivellent (self-levelling) so it would have to be trowelled out to level.
Kevin and Adam set to to begin to lay the chape and Steve, our electrician arrived soon after to re-test the underfloor heating system - this needs to be done after the floor has been laid over the cables and I'd recklessly said to Steve that we should have finished by 10am. Steve kindly rolled his sleeves up and joined the team laying the chape, By lunchtime we had about half the floor done but the chape was going off rapidly so it was decided to cut our losses and abandon about a third of the chape unlaid and finish the work on another day.
After six hours of intense work Kevin must have been looking forward to something a bit easier - an afternoon of digging out a trench from the lean-to up to the road to carry our new underground electric supply. Unfortunately after 2 metres he found our water supply pipe with his bucket and the trench started to rapidly fill up with water. Our supply has a stopcock out in the road that only Veolia have a key to so we had to put in a call for them to turn off the supply. Cue a farcical sequence of events as one Veolia van arrived and, despite running up and down the verge several times with a metal detector, the technician failed to find our stopcock. He called out un mec who "knew the area" so quickly there were two Veolia vans on our drive.
The mec couldn't find the stopcock either despite increasingly frantic digging and hammering. Eventually they did succeed in turning off our neighbour Lucien's water supply, meanwhile Barbara was in the ditch pumping out the water:
Finally the stopcock was located and, after yet another delay when the key wouldn't fit, Noah's flood was finally averted and the leak repaired.
A difficult and stressful day - surely one of us must have walked under a ladder that morning .....
In fact the driver of the mixer was on our step ladder with our spade trying to persuade a reluctant 7 cubic metres of chape (screed) to run out of the big mixing drum. What had arrived wasn't what either Kevin or we had expected (we thought we were getting a liquid screed like the subfloor that had been laid in 45 minutes back in November). We weren't set up for this chape traditionelle that had to be laid by hand and was clearly going to take a long time, worse it wasn't auto-nivellent (self-levelling) so it would have to be trowelled out to level.
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| Our not very liquid chape |
Kevin and Adam set to to begin to lay the chape and Steve, our electrician arrived soon after to re-test the underfloor heating system - this needs to be done after the floor has been laid over the cables and I'd recklessly said to Steve that we should have finished by 10am. Steve kindly rolled his sleeves up and joined the team laying the chape, By lunchtime we had about half the floor done but the chape was going off rapidly so it was decided to cut our losses and abandon about a third of the chape unlaid and finish the work on another day.
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| L to R: Adam, Tim, Steve working on the Salon-Sejour floor |
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| Kevin and Keith working on the cellier floor |
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| Adam finishing the Salon-Sejour floor |
After six hours of intense work Kevin must have been looking forward to something a bit easier - an afternoon of digging out a trench from the lean-to up to the road to carry our new underground electric supply. Unfortunately after 2 metres he found our water supply pipe with his bucket and the trench started to rapidly fill up with water. Our supply has a stopcock out in the road that only Veolia have a key to so we had to put in a call for them to turn off the supply. Cue a farcical sequence of events as one Veolia van arrived and, despite running up and down the verge several times with a metal detector, the technician failed to find our stopcock. He called out un mec who "knew the area" so quickly there were two Veolia vans on our drive.
The mec couldn't find the stopcock either despite increasingly frantic digging and hammering. Eventually they did succeed in turning off our neighbour Lucien's water supply, meanwhile Barbara was in the ditch pumping out the water:
Finally the stopcock was located and, after yet another delay when the key wouldn't fit, Noah's flood was finally averted and the leak repaired.
A difficult and stressful day - surely one of us must have walked under a ladder that morning .....
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