This is an account or blog of our life here in Le Deshayes. We, Jo and Jonathan Turner, moved here in October 2004. Our first task was to renovate the adjoining workshop into a high quality Gite or holiday cottage. This we managed by Easter 2005 - the next two projects, the renovation of a development house for resale and the renovation of our own house, took a little while longer! We are now planning to construct a very low energy timber house on our field - our last big project! We hope you enjoy following the ups and downs of life in France.
10 February 2010
Good news on the new timber house front - our application for full planning approval (permis de construire) has been accepted by our Mairie or Town Hall - things tend to be done a local basis this side of the Channel. Okay, they did then ask us to complete the form regarding drainage as we will be installing the usual septic tank, but as the local expert has visited, taken some measurements, agreed where everything will go and completed the form for us - hopefully it should all sail through in the next two months. Although as this is France we expect they will find some minor issue or omission!!
Now that things are finally moving, we have been looking to find suppliers for the main materials and services. We prefer to use local people, but with our limited budget we will have to find the best prices even if they are from England, Germany or Eastern Europe! Trying to get responses after leaving messages on the manufacturers' web sites is proving difficult, but we will persevere.
At this time of year our biggest bug-bear is the state of the roads. The farmers are moving vast amounts of manure onto the fields in preparation for spreading it before the next crop of maize is planted. As the field are very wet and muddy, so are the roads - absolutely filthy!! It means the cars are all a similar colour, but as the region depends on these small farmers we mustn't grumble too much. It'll soon be spring and we can enjoy the early roadside flowers!
Wednesday 13 Jan 2010
After a week of snow and cold weather we finally managed to get out for a walk. This photo summed up the beauty of our snow covered landscape - just so long as you don't try and drive up the lane! The tracks are from our farmer's tractor.
Apart from the usual "must lose weight" new year resolution, we resolve to keep this blog up to date this year, so you can all follow our life in this tranquil corner of Normandy and the progress of our new house project. Apologies for the lack of entries for most of last year.
We have been planning our new timber house for a couple of years, but were delayed early last year by a refusal for outline planning due to issues with the supply of electricity. We thought this had been sorted out by our new Mayor when he came round with an approval. With the help of a local Architect we then prepared the necessary plans, etc, for the full planning application - the Permis de Construire. However, when we came to hand in the documents at the Mairie they told us to come back mid-January after the Council meeting where they would decide if they could afford to pay their share of getting electricity to the site - only in France! More in the next episode.
The best bit of the Christmas break was our son's wedding to his beautiful Shells in Ireland. The official registry office wedding on 31st December was great fun and followed by a super new years eve party. But the highlight of the visit was the blessing and reception on 2 Jan 2010. So well organised and such a memorable day - meeting family and friends, a great meal and dancing into the small hours! Loads of photos - many of them on Facebook (search for Jo's profile by using our email address) - but this is the best one of the happy couple:
We were tasked with making and decorating the cakes - a traditional fruit cake, a chocolate biscuit cake and a lemon sponge cake (Matt's favourite!). Great fun to do, although it was rather stressful having to transport them from France through England and on to Ireland!! Fortunately the ferries weren't too rough and everything arrived in good order. Everyone loved them, especially the amusing bride and groom on the top tier!
We hope to get a picture of the two of us in our wedding outfits soon and will add it to the next posting!
We are quite hopeful for Gite bookings this year. Last year was quiet at 16 weeks - but we already have 8 weeks booked or waiting for deposit cheques so far this year, pretty good for January! If we get going on the new house build in the spring we will need all the help we can get, so the more the merrier!!
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