New wood burning stove
heat in this house has always been somewhat of an issue. With the old stone walls and rather large gaps in them and lack of a “proper” heat source we’ve always struggled to heat the house. We’ve used paraffin heaters to heat the rooms etc etc but these cost a lot to run and the only other source of heat possible is from an old cooker stove that is very inefficient and doesn’t throw out a lot of heat at all and all that changed today.. Welcome the Poele Godin to the house.

Now Poele Godin isn’t a name i’ve come across while searching for a wood burning stove and that’ll be because it’s a very French brand. This particular one is 40 years old and belonged to the parents of a friend of ours. A quick search on ebay.fr brings up a few available for sale in our area ranging from ¢300 to €500 and given the amazing change in heat this house has i’ll be bidding on one asap (eBay search : http://bit.ly/Poele )…

With the amount of heat kicking off this thing we thought we’d try out cooking bacon on it and since that was a success we even threw in some potatoes! Genius! For the first time in Autumn/Winter since we’ve owned the house i’m sitting here in a t-shirt and not a t-shirt, jumper and a body warmer If i can get one for €300/€500 then it’s really priceless.

Clearing the barn & more hedgehogs
Enough said about this, needless to say another 5 found, i’ve got a bloody hedgehog farm going on here!

Sorting the lawn
Today was full of goodies from Jacque and this time it was the ride on mower. Given the amount of sun and rain we get here the garden grows wild, and since Jacque has bought himself a ride on mower over the summer it was time to put it to good use. I’ll post a picture shortly of me smiling like a big kid riding it (it could be below by the time you read this) and trust me the smiles were involuntary but there is something that makes you feel great riding around on a mower feeling like a cross between a racing driver and a master gardner.. Anyway job done and i’ll be volunteering to do it a lot more i think

PS : The smoke isn’t from me crashing the mower in a hail of flames but still some of the hay from yesterday STILL bloody burning.

That’s it for today, as i said we took a short one and listened to Tottenham hotspurs beat Portsmouth 2-1 (great result) and watched the longest F1 qualifying in history and Jenson Button somehow blow a great opportunity to take the title.. Tomorrow we’ve got a day of lifting, lagging and roof removing if all goes well.

Task 1 – Repair the rear window.

Somewhere in a storm in the last few months we appear to have lost a pain of glass, so Dad has task #1 of fitting a new piece of glass to this rotten old window. Easier said than done as he had to be so careful not to either break another really thin 2mm thick piece or damage the window itself. Time & patience paid off and he got this done. Looking forward to the part of the renovation where we replace all the windows

Task 2 – Get the bloody car out of the barn!

This car is starting to be a right pain in the arse. The owners haven’t turned up, we don’t have the right paperwork to take ownership and we’ve got a guy waiting to take it but we can’t give it to him (at the moment) , plus it’s not been out of the barn in around 8 years we’re told, so starting it isn’t an option.
Now i don’t know a great deal about these Citroens but Jacque Chirac loved them and they have some great funky hydraulic suspension but after all this time it’s sunk and is actually below the level of the barn so getting it out proved to be a mission for NASA, a structural engineer and 2 English guys sheer stubboness..

An hour later, with some pushing, pulling, choice words and creative ramp building it sees the sun for the first time in just under a decade and now the barn clearing can really start.

The barn is full of hay as you’d expect but its not been used as a hay loft for as long as the car has been in hiding and there is a LOT of it.. With the help of the local farmers tractor we cleared most of it away ready for burning.

Take it from me any romance you had about growing up on a farm in Smallville moving hay like Clark Kent well forget it… It’s horrible, itchy, gets everywhere..

Task 3 – Rehome the wild life!

During the move we found a next of hedgehogs hibernating. Now being a city dweller i’m sure i was a little over sympathetic about their plight and rather just turf them out or burn them with the rest of the hay i found the Nature Channel watcher in me and we rehoused them. Seriously we rehoused them! I’m not going to be taking that part of the barn down till next year so we moved some hay, had a new bed then physically moved the rather cute rodents to the new area and buried them again. Not so much as a thank you or an uncurling ( see below ) but it felt really good and a dose of positive karma all round.

And that’s my good karma deed for the day well except feeding the local wild kitten

So a good start to the week, tomorrow is a very busy day of pipe lagging, tile removal, mowing of lawn (my first time with a ride on mower) &  fitting a new wood burning stove, so forgive me while i sit back here put my feet up and have a Leffe beer.

Lots more tomorrow…..

If you’ve not seen the first post it’s HERE

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If anyone knows a Citroen dealer or club in England or France that could help me out with as much information as we can get please feel free to contact us.

When we got on site after spending hours signing papers as you can image in rushed on in all excited. We’d already taken somewhat of a chance and got the utilities put on before we officially bought the property so we were ready for a cup of tea.

Now I know I’m dragging this out but it’s only to give you a sense that we had no idea what we had gained in the barn. That said I don’t know if “gained” is the right word or a bloody big headache would be a better description.

A CAR! A 1973 Citroen in dusty condition, open with 23,000km on the clock and somehow we’d taken ownership of it with the house.

This is going to be an issue! The previous (now deceased) owners of our house had been looking after it for years for a friend who went traveling and as yet has not come back.

So is it ours?
This is of course France and things may not be that easy. Yes it came with the property (unannounced) but it wasn’t the vendors right to sell it to us. We don’t know if the owner is still alive and we can’t (aren’t supposed to) dispose of it without ownership papers either and to make it worse my dad want to restore it

So that’s it for now, we have 1 house 1 barn 1 feed shed 1 grange and a bloody Citroen that’s older than me!

Right now that’s all the information I have on the situation, and while I try and work out what to do and while my dad keeps buying restoration manuals you can enjoy these photos and marvel at our unexpected addition to our French purchase. I bet you wished you had one

Now there will be more photos of the car when I get time to post them, and you’ll have to forgive the “moody” HDR photos of the car, after my shock had subsided somewhat I decided to get creative

Any Citroen owners clubs out there want a project for fancy giving me some advice?