It's been seven months since dad closed up the gites and house at La Croisille and returned to the UK for an extended tour and although we expected a few hiccups what actually transpired was a tad demoralising. The flight and car hire things went without hitch (no amazingly extortionate deposit taken by Europcar for example) and we arrived at the house mid-afternoon after a brief stop at Intermarche for essentials, bread, wine and cheese. It took us the rest of the day to get the utilities to the house working, well those that we essentially needed, water and electricity. The boiler proved to be a bit of a problem so we gave up on heating and hot water, the phone-line was dead and as such left me annoyed having to carry on without internet. We all had a few drinks before retiring, I wish I'd had a few more as the night was 'kin freezing and carried on for far too long, even fully dressed under a duvet and sleeping bag I was cold. At one point I was awoken by someone opening the bedroom door, Tony was already awake and apparently saw the handle turn and the door open. I honestly believe that there is indeed a rational explanation for any such events but it was unnerving never the less.
The following day saw Tony and I tired and pissed off, the constant rain didn't help. We had planned to have a barbecue but called this off deciding instead to cook up a big pot of chicken stuff. We had visited friends, Dawn and Jason, and Jason had lodged the phone-line fault with France telecom, unfortunately they would not be able to address the issue until Monday, which was absolutely no use to us whatsoever but Jason volunteered to take charge of the situation and ensure he was present when the engineer turned up. The aim of the day was to get the clean up operation on the pool started and to switch on the utilities to the gite, not too taxing on the face of it but nothing ever runs smoothly. The pool was no problem, I spent an hour or so dredging leaves from the floor of the pool, largely to no effect but at least it was a start. It was when we turned our attention to the gite. The electricity had been on since Friday and the gite had been fine but the water was still off and had, in the past proved to be a problem. The water was switched on and it was immediately evident that there was a problem. I don't whether it was the fact that there was no water from the taps of that there was a massive pool forming in the dining room but some second sense told me that things were not as they should be. Tony, in his unique fashion, opted to rip the walls out to check for damage and to find the source of the leak. It was a good job he did.
The plaster-board cam away easily to reveal, what? A large pile of a soft dark matter coated in water and smelling a dank musty smell. I ignored this and thrust my head into the opening, which I could only just manage, and at the same time attempting to point a torch into the dark opening. There was water everywhere but I couldn't make out where the origin of the excess water, Tony, of course had a solution, rip out more walls. The result:
And we had to eventually remove the remaining panel. When the plater board was gone it was obvious what had happened. Something, some animal had been nesting in the walls, probably hibernating through the harsh winter. The plastic cold water inlet to the shower was disconnected and would have been spewing water all over the brown pile, which predictably turned out to be a rather impressive pile of faeces, now all damp and glistening. We put off the job of clearing that out until Sunday, there is a video but I'll not bore anyone with it. Just before we left, I bought a large bag of lime and battered the cavity with it to prevent a recurrence of this travesty, bastard animal. We still have no idea what it may have been but either a Pine Marten or a massive squirrel are favourite as the culprits.
Where did this leave us? We have a better idea of what is required to get the property to a point where we could let punters spend some time in the give, and of course pay for it.
As we sat around the fire we eventually managed to coax into life between the sporadic heavy rain showers, Tony and I discussed the various plans for events this year. The outcome was that we are giving the rally to Murmansk a miss this year in order to focus on the give and house in France. It is also looking more likely that another weekend visit in May will be required as well as an extended visit in June and August. The sausage trail rolls on and another trip to Shetland is on the cards.
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