Prospection and plumbing

Friday 5 June 2015

Hot start but clouding over later
32 degrees

It was already 28 degrees by 10 am so I got in the car, put on the air con and went around to drop off some keys with a colleague.  She had forgotten I was coming and had just emerged from the shower. Her cheeks were the sort of pink that you only see on a native Brit - she had been for a run.  

French and Spanish people never go flushed and sweaty - occasionally, after many kms pounding away on a running machine, they may develop a slight pink tinge. They never look hot and they never drip like we Brits do.  It is very annoying.  They also wear relatively thick clothes until the temperatures rise to the levels that would make a northern European pass out with heat exhaustion and, when we hotter blooded creatures cast off the layers in May, the French look at us askance and say to one another that we must think it is Summer.  For me, Madame, 20 degrees is Summer and a fine one.  I would be perfectly happy in a place in the world where the day starts off at about 16 degrees and then rises to about 25.  Here, you freeze or you absolutely boil, apart from September and October and even half way through November, which are absolutely delightful.

Armed with my new tablet, I had spotted two Century 21 properties in town which were distinctive and I thought I recognised where they were.  One of the pictures had a church tower in it so I went to that quartier and started to circle the area in apple peel circuits and struck lucky.  The house was empty but two phone numbers on a panneau on the front wall. Result - took photos and made notes and drove on.  I took a turn around a little estate and found another private for sale sign.  More photos and notes.  The second C21 house proved very difficult to find.  I stopped various post ladies and they all said they recognised it and none of them could remember where it was.

I was very hot and sticky by this stage so went for a fizzy water and showed the picture of the house to the contents of the bar - mostly Brits and all of them blissfully retired - and no one knew it.  One woman showed me a video of an island in Japan which is overrun by huge rabbits.  Interesting but no help at all.  Back out again and it suddenly struck me which area it would be in and I found it opposite a house I visit regularly.  The woman was in and said sod off so I did and went home and had lunch.  Watched Bargain Hunt.  People bought some bonkers things and the auction was run by a man who looks like the adult version of the little boy in the Adams Family.

There was a knock on the window and it was the plumber coming to fix the well.  He dropped an immense ladder down the hole, unscrewed the clappette at the end of the pipe, put on a new one and the tank filled.  The pump did not stop pumping when the tank was full so we had to switch it off manually but at least we would water and it took no time at all.  Yet another visit from the plumber next week to discover why it won't switch off.

Felt very wound up about the US couple's case as the seller still doesnt know and the agency still hasnt prepared the letter to send to them.  Finally got through to the business manager and he said it would have to be done by the notaires.  WTF?  Why couldnt they have decided this at the beginning of the week?  He said to leave it the weekend because nothing could be done and then he went off and I found that the dog had run off and I dug OH out of the front room, where he was washing and waxing fly line and had got himself in a real tangle, and made him go out and look.  This fishing thing would be great if he ever actually came home with one.

My notaire has prepared the compromis for the flat so we read through it and made some modifications and I sent it back off again.  Hopefully the buyer's notaire can see them next week and then they can sign and Robert sera notre uncle.

The dog came back on his own and OH tried to show me the various parts of the fly line which includes backing line - the bit first wound onto the reel, followed by the thick fly line followed by the leader followed by the tippet.  When I think tippet, I think of a shoulder stole, such as :

 usually in fur and thrown around in wild abandon in historical novels -

 "Yolande cast her tippet aside carelessly, and flung herself into his open arms".  

Alas no, wake from my reverie to find that flung into my arms is about three metres of very thin and badly behaved skinny fly line which has knotted itself into eye crossing confusion. After 20 minutes, I have made it considerably worse and am released to make supper. Once again, we have nothing interesting in the fridge so roast some peppers, onions, garlic and tomatoes and have some lamp chops, with parsley and thyme flung carelessly over.