 | LES GUIS - THE PHOTOS FROM 2002 |
| LES GUIS - THE PHOTOS FROM 2002 |
THE FARM
MY LIFESTYLE
ON MY TRAVELS
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1- Dismantling the crashed Passat.
There always has to be the obligatory photograph of Paul here whenever he comes to visit, so that Vanessa knows he's here and not running after loose women! (Even if he is always armed with a screwdriver ready to screw all the loose women back together again!)
2- More dismantled Passat. Aren't cranes wonderful!
In fact, this is the Passat estate that formerly belonged to Laurence's father Claude - he of "Tin Tin" fame. It was written off in the Czech Republic, trailered all the way to Spain, and then Paul and I trailered it all the way back to here so that we could break it for spares for my white one. No sense in letting a good diesel and nice interior go to waste.
3- Yours truly hard (ahem!) at work.
It takes over 5000 nuts to hold a Passsat estate together, yet look how easily 2 nuts can take one apart!
4- The old Transit, waiting for the cutter's torch (or in this case, the cutter's stihlsaw!). A sad end for a reliable van. All those nettles have grown since Easter (4 months!)
5- Jeez!! Has all this grown since Easter? Any idea where the Agent Orange European salesman can be contacted? This is getting out of hand and calls for some serious machinery.
6- Look at these! Apples! This is super news. I'm really impressed!
7- And yet more apples!
8- And what do you eat, apart from apples? MORE APPLES!It's really a good job I happen to like them, innit?
9- The front of the barn has never looked as tidy as this, has it? You can just about see the ex-army trailer that I bought over the internet for £95 ($150) for hauling scrap metal and building material around, and the hedge I've been planting slowly over the last couple of years.
10- The Transit - mostly dismantled - waiting for the autumn to be finished off.
11- The Lomax body, dismantled from its chassis and loaded onto the roof of the LDV ready to go back to the UK.
12- 3rd battle of Flanders, or Passendaele 1917. When Field Marshal Haig wrote in his diary that "the little locomotives sank up to the boilers in the mud" or that it took 36 hours to move a field gun 200 yards I can understand. It took me two hours to move my concrete mixer less than a hundred metres. And even though we paraphrase General Launcelot Kiggell's famous remark "did I really mix concrete in that?" the reply is very much the same - "oh it gets much worse further on".
13- But at least the tractor shed is up, with its roof on and its rainwater collection system. The latter proved its worth in watering the new trees (see below) and for the concrete and mortar mixing. You can see the hard standing I've put down to concrete over to make a decent entrance to the lean-to that's going to be my home for the next two or so years.
14- Now here's a tragedy! The lean-to I was planning to move into - two of the beams have collapsed! (Closer inspection revealed that it wasn't two but four, and by the time I'd finished rebuilding it, it was actually seven beams I replaced!)
15- Beam-replacing time! Good job I found a scaffolding in the scrap metal container at the dechetterie in Commentry!
16- Here's a photo of the village of Virlet (upper left is the church spire) taken from the lane near the house. For a commune of 280 people it covers an enormous area. The village itself is about 3 miles away as the crow flies and I'm by no means at the outer limit. On the right is the Abbey of Bellaigues
17- Three hundred quidsworth of timber and roofing felt! Repairing and reroofing old houses can be an expensive proposition, not to mention exhausting and muscle-building! Good job there's a good roofrack on the LDV
18- So here I was easing out the rotten beams with a Flynn's bar when the roof and part of the wall collapsed. Now if I had been on a ladder (or even standing on the wall!) instead of standing on a scaffolding, I wouldn't be writing this now!
19- However it's an ill wind that doesn't blow anybody any good. So a collapsed wall can be quickly extended and altered into a square hole made to fit a window found in the dechetterie a couple of years ago.
20- So here are the new beams installed and the hole for the window, with oak lintel supported on hollow brick columns filled with concrete
21- Couldn't resist this photograph. One of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen for ages.
22- So here are the beams again - you can see the shuttering that's used to form the support to hold the beams in whilst the ferrous concrete (yes, I found some wire netting in the dechetterie!) sets everything in position. You can see the window I've fitted.
23- Sunday is always gardening day on the farm. So as farmer Parret put some barbed wire up to keep his cows in his side, I bought some laurel bushes from the supermarket to hide the wire.
24- Here's a view of the work so far. The window is fitted, and the place is reroofed (corrugated iron courtesy of the dechetterie!). Now compare this photograph with photo 5 above. Here you can actually see the Merc. Now I did say "serious machinery" - and by that I mean the John Deere petrol brushcutter I bought when I was in the States in September! Marvellous machine!
25- Like I said, Sunday is gardening day. And gardening in November means fruit trees. There's now another 18! I mean, I was there for three and a half weeks! You can see the Cortina now too! So, serious machinery having duly been bought, this just shows you how much damage you can really do with an American brushcutter when you set your mind to it!
26- The fruit trees again, looking down the slope. You can see where I've gone berserk with the brushcutter. Trouble is, there just aren't enough Sundays!
27- Here's as far as I've got with the work I was doing. I've put a line of breeze blocks (parpaings) on the ferrous concrete I laid around the beams, because I want to take away the large breeze blocks on the outside of the lean-to because they look ugly (see photo 24) and replace them with stones to make it all look nicer. Here you an see the window, the oak lintel and the large beam (it's nearly 6 metres long!) my neighbour Claude and I lifted up to nail the corrugated iron to.
As you've probably noticed - bricklaying is not my strong point!
28- Getting ready to go back to Brussels, so I mowed the lawn (petrol Flymo destined for the tip because the bearings had gone, rescued by Paul. Thanks, mate!) Compare this with some of the photos from 1999, and you can see how much we've come on. You can see the brushcutter and its rotavator attachment. Under the plastic is an old wood-burning stove Claude gave me.
29- They should really stop having tree special offers (buy one, get one free!) when I'm shopping at tree-planting time with a free Sunday to follow. Here are 9 trees planted to make a hedge to match the one you can see in photo 9
30- Compare this with some photos from 1999. Mowed area actually now sprouting grass! Soom there'll be the "gazon anglais" if I keep this up. You can also see a 305-litre water butt bought from Auchan at (would you believe) eight quid. There are another two of those in the barn waiting for fitting. I mean, at that price you would have done so too!
31- Thanks to the brush cutter you can now get to the commune's sand heap. If Paul comes over at Easter and we rent a mini-digger that sand heap will disappear. I know just the place. See photo 12!
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