Glorious Spring

Our greengage plum tree is in full bloom. There were bees buzzing all around it and I hope that means we'll have some plums this year. The other plum tree is also in bloom, pink blossoms. I've planted the radishes and started other seeds. I've cleared the raspberry patch of weeds and now that there is lots of empty space we'll be able to transplant the newer raspberry plants that have started in front of the patch back to the pack, but I think it's best to wait until they've produced their fruit for this season. 

Today, France and the rest of Europe went on to daylight savings time, called "Summer Time" here. We are back to 6 hours difference with North America.

Today is a perfect day to go to a ball game. PUC 1 is playing Pessac in a double-header (PUC 1 and PUC 2 are always Sunday double-headers with a picnic lunch break between games.) and it's the first home weekend. I'll probably go for the second game, after lunch. 

Eating at home is a bit of a challenge right now. The painters are going faster than anticipated, but we've had to put on the brakes; there's just no space to move the furniture. They have to finish the living room so that we can store in there. Right now, they've almost finished the living room, dining room, and hall entry. The furniture is upstairs and in the entry and access to the basement. We wiggle around it. There is dust everywhere, of course. We do manage to have lunch and dinner, but it's a dusty atmosphere. Luckily for us, we are not prone to allergies or asthma. The floors, at least on the ground floor, should be sanded and varnished at the beginning of the week. Then we can move back into the living room and they can do the stairwell and hall upstairs. The repair and painting should not take as long as it has downstairs, so all in all, they will be finished with this almost a whole week before we expected. That means they'll want to dismantle the kitchen and do the electrical installations before we are ready. The new kitchen will be delivered on April 10, not before.

Must be off now -- to the market, lunch, and the ballpark!

Painters Start Today

I don't remember if I mentioned it, but back in October we had a bit of water damage from a freshly installed, faulty hose in the bathroom upstairs. The water could not have been flowing for more than two hours, but it was in the middle of the night. Emma had gone upstairs at about midnight and would have heard it if the hose had already ruptured and Paul got up at a little after 2 to discover the flood. He didn't get me up. I got up myself at 3. He was busy mopping up in the bathroom, but I went downstairs to find the flood there and I started mopping up the kitchen. Then, the basement.

Neither of us realized how much water had gotten under the floorboards, but as you can see, the damage to all the ground floor was pretty extensive. And the floor of the hallway upstairs is all warped. There's also damage in the stairwell....

So now, almost six months later, it's dry enough to paint. That's starting today. The painters are busy scraping what we didn't get, but you can see that we scraped a bit too.

We're taking advantage of the fact that we have literally moved everything from the ground floor (the floors there got damaged, too, and need sanding down and revarnishing) to redo the kitchen, too. This is something I've been wanting for many years. I'm quite happy with the layout. In fact, we're keeping the layout. After many tries with 3D software and paper cutouts, we could not find anything that served us as well. Still, it will be more modern, and the counter will be a few centimeters higher, which should be nicer for me, and will give us an extra drawer space all around.

Short Visit to England

 These photos of the kids on the slide were taken at the  Imperial War Museum at Duxford. I recommend you visit the website for more detailed information, because, as you can see, the girls really loved the playground. Aurelia was also a bit in awe of all the "big planes". She wasn't the only one; so was I. Charlotte didn't say much, but she was interested and a good, uncomplaining trooper. We were all interested, but Paul and Geoff were able to dig up all the information on aviation that they had stored in their brains, as well. The museum is still a working airfield for small aircraft, so we saw a couple of little planes take off and land, as we walked miles from one hangar to the next. It was sunny, not too cold, and very windy, which is perfect for an outing.

The girls were happy; we had a nice, late lunch; it was a perfectly nice day. Charlotte and I also had time over the weekend to do some knitting. I finished a ruffled scarf for Claire and Charlotte worked on a scrunchy to match the headband her mummy made. (For the men reading this, a scrunchy is to hold ponytails.)

Sunday, we went out to eat and then Paul and I had a little rest while everyone else went to the swimming pool.

Monday, we came home. The round trip train fare Birmingham-Northhampton is less expensive than the round trip RER fare Nogent-Roissy CDG! And it seems to go faster, only 50 minutes. Well, yesterday, it certainly did go faster!

Our plane arrived on time and we had to walk what seemed like several miles before arriving at baggage claim, but the baggage still took longer, so we didn't get out of that until almost an hour after arriving. Then, the long walk to the RER station, where we went through immediately since I had thought ahead and we had our tickets. (I remembered the long lines at the machines from some time ago.) Our tickets were stamped in the turnstile at 20h38. The train was waiting; we got on and waited, and waited, and waited. No announcements. Finally, the train left and stopped at the CDG1 station and then at the Paris-Nord Exhibition station, where we waited and waited and waited. When we got to Villepinte, the driver announced, at last, that there were some technical problems and some aggression somewhere on the line and that we'd have to wait 5 - 10 minutes at all the stations. We waited a half hour at Sevran, where he announced that the terminus would be Gare du Nord when we finally made it into the city. We made some more long stops and then another long, long, long one at the Stade de France before arriving at the Gare du Nord at 23:10! I was beginning to understand why some people might have been aggressive. Yes, 2 1/2 hours for a 30 minute trip and very little information. None in English. The people in our wagon thanked me over and over as I translated the little announcements the driver made. Normally, we would have stayed on one more stop to Châtelet-Les Halles, but we had to get off and take the métro. It's another fairly long walk from the train station to the métro station, but by this time, we didn't really care much. Then, after several stops, connect from the métro to the RER A, wait for our train and finally arrive at Nogent at about midnight. By this time, our tickets were no longer valid! We had to call for assistance and were let through with no problem. Arrived home a little after midnight! Somehow, driving door-to-door seems like a better option for the next trip.