A bit more about Angouleme

Angouleme (about 45 minutes south) is the capital city of the Charente.
It is known as the capital of the ‘Image’ especially comic strips or ‘Bandes dessinées  and has a museum dedicated to this. Every year the City hosts the International Comic Strip Festival in January. Cartoon characters appear over more than 20 walls and even street names are contained within a cartoon bubble.

Angoulême also hosts the Gastronomades festival at Christmas, Music Metisse in May and Piano en Valois in October.

The streets of the old town are quaint and in summer it will be lovely to sit in the squares and cafes and watch the world go by. There are so many places to eat and drink - it will take us years to work our way through them all.

Here are some photos to whet your appetite

Cathedral - over the entrance

All post boxes should have character like this

Bust of Herge

Relais d'Alsace - Angouleme -reat food and service!

Some of the street art

Missed deadlines and first guests

Well our deadline of 1st April for an open day was abandoned.
we were putting ourselves under far to much pressure and we didn't have any bookings so we have decided to postpone until Phil gets back from the UK. He has popped back for a service.

We have been so busy on the social side.
Friends Simo and Meg visited from the UK and Simon has popped two coats of stain on the floorboards in Bedroom 3. Just waiting for me to varnish now.
The walls have been plastered where necessary, painted (3-4 coats) and the window painted. Also the beams have been painted.

Walls plastered

And filled

Walls and ceiling painted

Beams being done

Window satinned (is this a word?)

Floorboards going down

In the meantime I went to a brilliant hen night in La Rochelle. Really should get away more often. Then last Monday I picked Rich and Emilie up from Limoges airport before rushing back here to go to a wedding. John and Helen's MP3 player provided music and Rich sang a couple of songs as the 'entertainment' let the couple down at the last minute due to sickness. Rich was brilliant and I was so proud.
We had a lovely few days with them even though the weather could have been kinder. We had a lovely few hours in Angouleme (our first visit) and definitely recommended. Yesterday Phil drove them back to the UK - great for him as paying the tolls in a right hand drive van isn't the easiest of tasks.

Whilst I was in La Rochelle we had an enquiry from a family who found ud on google (I added the business a couple of weeks ago). Great that google is doing more for us than any of the other sites I have registered La Cour with.
Anyway - it seemed silly to turn the booking down just because we have postponed opening and they wanted to arrive the same day Rich and Emilie left. That gave me something else to think about! The upstairs room is ready and I had two Z beds for the two children so our first guests have arrived!
And what a lovely family they are. They are with me for 3 days and then I will be getting to work on varnishing the boards and starting to put Bedroom 3 together. Hopefully Phil will be back after doing some jobs of his own back at Evergreen.

I am looking forward to some warmer weather - I think it is forecast for the coming week and then we can celebrate the end of the first part of the project. Having said that - there is still loads to do outside but I am hoping that we can start to enjoy the sunshine and locality a bit more in the forthcoming weeks.

Bathroom 3

We are finally on to the last letting room with shower room en suite.

This will be our downstairs letting room and for those who that know me for some reason I haven't like this room at all. I am sure by the time it's finished that will be different.

We are starting in the bathroom. Phil has squared up the walls and they have been plaster boarded. Electrics are there and so is the water and pipes, ceiling has had a couple of coats of paint and today we have started the tiling. I really feel we are making some headway again now. The end is in sight and we have given ourselves until the 1st of April to get but finished. Before then we have a wedding and organising for an open day I am planning so that local businesses, estate agents etc can come and see what we have done. We also have to make the courtyard and garden look presentable so it's going to be a challenge.

Here are a few photos of where we are now

Shower tray and plumbing in

Tiles awaiting grouting

Ceiling insulated, plasterboarded and painted - awaiting beam surgery

The covered terrace has been levelled (so we don't spill our drinks) and concreted. Seb (a French friend of ours) is such a grafter. He pulls up in a truck and within seconds he is breaking up concrete. The man is a machine!

Concrete started

The work continues

Cosy seating area

Deck the hall - well, floorboards actually

The hallway has been a project in itself.

Electrics and water arrive in the house in this room and having knocked down a large wall last year and built the downstairs cloakroom we had a lot of fiddly jobs to do here.
The walls have been painted.
Phil has made some cupboards for storage.
I have made a feature of some exposed wall using chaux as some of you will remember we did in our bedroom.

Beginning of window seat on right

Wall, beams and floorboards

The floor was a disaster, having been dug up for soil pipes (I'm sure you remember this well Kim) and the timbers were in poor condition. I have painted the beams and Phil has laid floorboards and these have been stained and given 3 coats of varnish. The stairs have also been stained and varnished and it is really starting to look good. We have a sideboard that has been treated against worm and cleaned and polished that has a lamp on it to make the entrance hall look cosy and welcoming. I will also have a vase of flowers here.

Looking through to our living area from entrance door

Phil has built a window seat where the sink used to be. Another place for storage for us.

Floorboards before staining

And after staining

All the cupboards and skirting need a final coat of satin but I will come back and do that in one fell swoop later.

Hallway from front door

Hall from our living area

Window seat

Hall

Time to move on to Bedroom 3 - the downstairs letting bedroom.
Hoorah - at last it feels we may get it together enough to open in April.
Only 42 days to go......

Spring?

We have had a glorious week!
Clear sunny days and cold clear starry nights.
The temperature has hit double figures during the day and the sun has some real warmth.
There are catckins on the trees and I saw a daisy ion the garden last week.

On Thursday we had lunch in the garden and made the most of the weather to do some jobs outside. Seems that we have been stuck inside for ages.

Phil has concreted in some posts so we can make a screen at the end of the garden. I spent the afternoon timber treating the garden furniture - in a T-shirt!

So happy to be in France!

Galette des rois - Kings Cake

Phil and I were invited for aperos (aperitifs, usually with a few nibbles) in early January. This was at a French lady's house but she invited five English. Part of the apero offering was a Galette des rois. Something I had never heard of. It is sometimes called Epiphany Cake. The season for this traditional cake starts on 12th night (the end of Christmas on 5th January( and extends until Mardi Gras - or as the British say Shrove Tuesday and commemorates the arrival of the Three Kings in Bethlehem.

Each person has a piece of this cake which is like a round sweet bread like brioche and frangipane, with sugar on top (I have since seen them with icing on top). The cake is generally crown shaped. Inside is a hidden baby or fève. A little like the silver coin inside a Christmas pudding.

In the past, the pastry would be cut into as many portions as there were guests, plus one. The last one, called the “part du pauvre” or poor man’s share, was for the first poor person who stopped by the house.

He or she who finds the 'baby' in their slice is designated King or Queen for the evening - and also must buy the cake the following year. (I suspect many a visit to the dentist is required afterwards as well.
So guess who bit into a 'baby'. Yep, you've got it. So I had to wear a golden cardboard crown for the rest of the evening.

A week or so later Phil and I were invited to the Mairie as we are new residents of Villefagnan and a galette des rois was served there along with some very nice sparkling Vouvray. As it was only Phil and I and another lady who has moved into the village in the last year they combined this welcome with a thank you to the staff of the commune. Very nice to be invited and interesting to see lots of familiar faces. Anyway - guess what! Yes you're right I bit down on to the 'baby' and was duly crowned!

No photos to show (shame, I hear you cry) but imagine being the only one wearing a Christmas crown out of a cracker on Christmas Day......

Concrete going down for gite floors, hallway and after much deliberation a downstairs toilet

Just to recap the first of the 2 gites in September was like this:

Then Trees arrived and with sledgehammer created this:

Gite 1

Gite 1

Fireplace Gite 1

After Phil's incident concrete making and spreading are out of bounds so a local and very lovely French man has come to help along with a friend of his.

Gite 2 - Before

Gite 2 - floorboards gone

   

The 'find' in gite 2 was below a cupboard that we thought may have been a 'fridge' or larder due to the latticing to let air in.

We have been told that what actually happened was that hot embers were put below - see hole that has been concreted in, in the photo and that the hear from these heated pans that were on a metal plate on the stone shelf above. So a cooker circa 1793 we think.

Cooker circa 1793

Cooker circa 1793

The gites are now concreted and once we have finished the main building we can start in there. Really pleased to have this done as the floors were rotten.
We have also had the courtyard dug up, a soil pipe and a water pipe are now connected in the second house so all ready to get started on plumbing.

Meanwhile, in the main house work slowed for a bit in the New Year. Partly colds dragging us down but a bit of the January blues I expect. The weather has been cold but also wet and grey, very UK so no wonder we have slowed up.

But we seem to be getting on a roll again now.

Plastering where the old sink used to be

Plastering in hall

New downstairs loo

Tiling is finished in utility room and the downstairs loo is tiled on the floor, plumbed in and painted. The doors have been painted too.

The hallway really is a huge job as all plumbing and electrics originate here so it really is the hub of the house. Next step - plasterboarding the ceiling so we can hide pipework and cabling. Not a job we are looking forward to but once the hall is done we can move on to the second guest bedroom. Something I am really looking forward to.

Aiming to open the two B&B rooms in April has meant I have had to do some marketing work.

I have built the website - check it out at www.lacourcharente.eu

Any comments gratefully accepted!

You can book online here as well as on the FaceBook page that I have also set up at - www.facebook.com/lacourcharente

This morning I registered the B&B with the Tourist Office in Ruffec and just in the nick of time as the insertions for their accommodation guide have a deadline of this week.

Paul very kindly helped me with the text for our entry - it had to be in French.

So right now things are starting to move in the right direction after what felt like grinding to a standstill.

Hope you like what we have done. On the 13th January we celebrated having the house for one year and on 24th we will have actually had the keys and been here for a year.

We haven't done too badly in that time really, have we?

Until the next time.

Much love  xx