Ryder Cup, Big 50 and Renovation Update

Life in le Sud de France 

With the coming of fall in Occitanie come many changes within the village. Locals started with the sweaters and jackets around the 5^th of September. The vendange is now complete and the vignerons are taking some time off except for the few who still produce their own wine. The vines are looking very tired and haggard.

Mechanical Picker

Picker out very early
to harvest the blanc raisins

They are literally shaken to their core by the mechanical pickers to harvest the raisins. The vignerons are not concerned with any damage because the cutting season begins in November and the tired branches are trimmed back to the skeleton for next year’s growth.

In the fall, shops and cafes start their winter schedules and become very unpredictable. Many depend heavily on the high season for their income and struggle to make it during the winter on only local trade. All the tourists have gone home by the end of September. Those who work or have kids in school have gone by the end of August and a few retired sorts linger into September. Many of our friends who have homes here for half the year are starting their migration back to their home base. Aussies in particular as they spend the Australian winters in the sunny Sud de France.

Ryder Cup in Paris

We had a small getaway to Paris in late September. The “excuse” was to attend the Ryder Cup golf but we were really trying to escape all the drama and limitations of the past few years. The golf was great but the logistics were very difficult for me with a gimpy leg. I still have limited mobility with my knee and the distances involved were very long: 300-500 meters to the train; 200 at the station and 200 at destination station; 800 meters train to the shuttle bus, and once at the course, 1200 meters to security check in and 800 from security to the west village. Almost 2 miles before you see anything! (and of course 2 miles back)  We had a beautiful B&B and we used trains to/from Paris and also the course. It is phenomenal speeding along at 186 mph and passing cars on the motorway doing 82 mph like they were standing still.  

Once there, we dropped a wad in the souvenir shops and toured around the booths in the village. The village sat down low and it was about 300 meters uphill and stairs to get to the actual course. But we had a good time as it’s always good to get away for a few days. We took it easy mostly but made time to tour a chateau and had some good food. Pictures below of the course, chateau and our B&B.

French red,white and Blue flyover

Sergio, Rose and Hatton for the Europeans

Our B&B jardin

Ancient Roman Viaduct at
the chateau

Chateau Maintenon

Waiting for the train after a long day

Our B&B

The BIG 50!

Prior to our getaway, we rented the Salle Culturel in Place de Liberte and held a wee celebration for 50 years of wedded "bliss". We invited 72 of our friends to a Texas Bar-B-Que of brisket and ribs. Bad timing, I suppose, as we found out that many had already left town for the winter. But we had 44 confirmed for dinner and had a great time. We found that our French friends didn't eat much and we had tons of food left over. I had printed about 90 photos of us across the 50 years and scattered them randomly on the tables for all to see and share.

September 21, 1968 

We also shared larger wedding photos one of which I tried to colorize. I also printed about 50 jokes/funny quotes and scattered those about. I translated many into French for our French friends.

Despite requesting no gifts, our French friends, led by Laurence Galzy pooled their money and had a hand blown glass plaque made for us. The inscription reads, in Occitanie, "Whoever saw Alignan du Vent will remember it all his life." It was written in a poem by a poet named Pierre Vidal 1811-1888. He lived in the village and is still revered.

Laurence presenting the gift

The shield of Alignan made by a verrier in Pezenas and inscribed
"Whoever saw Alignan will remember all his life"

1969

1968

1972

1978

1985

1974

1987

1985

2007

2004

Renovation Update 

With this writing, we are making the grand announcement that 7 years of work to renovate our old place is now COMPLETE! I have posted below some of the last projects that were not priority when we started but gradually got accomplished. We are now in maintenance and repair mode with nothing on the renovation horizon.

However, in the meanwhile, we bought and renovated a second house that is only 50 meters from us. We have guests and family come for visits and it is a very comfortable home. The original house came at a bargain price and the renovations were mainly cosmetic although we did add a second ensuite bathroom and clim (HVAC).

Please forgive if you have seen some of the photos and descriptions before.

Rear façade

Our house sits between two streets with the front on the original Rue de la Glaciere. It is/was part of the second circle in the circulade village. In medieval times, the center of a village was usually a high point with houses built in a loose circle around the center, usually an eglise or mairies. Then as growth ensued there were secondary and tertiary circles. The back of our house sits on the new Rue de la Glaciere which was the old trade route and somewhat bypassed the core of the village. In any event, the back façade was pretty rough and very crumbly with the concrete falling into the street.

The same contractor that refinished the crepi (stucco) walls in our conservatory/ summer kitchen area dropped by one day looking for work and suggested it was time to fix the back façade. Apparently, he doesn’t enjoy a good reputation within the village as three voisins reminded me to keep my eye on him. But he has treated me very fairly and while cautious about dealing with him, he remains a seemingly good friend.

The work coincided with some waterline work that had the street blocked to one lane, important only because of the scaffolding required to reach the heights.

We negotiated for two weeks until he came to my senses and offered a good price.

It turned out that he sublet the work to his friend/apprentice and the final result showed a distinct lack of finesse in the quality of work. However, we were happy to get the erosion stopped and it looked clean and fresh. He insisted in putting another color down low close to the street that would hide splashes for passing cars. He also installed some iron grills to protect the back window that we had replaced the old sliding wine window with.

Looks a lot better

Not great work but no crumbles

It took about a week to get it done and when he wanted money we found he had not completed the window surrounds as promised. So we paid him half and he came back later and made good the the work.

old wine window

Finish/paint terrasse

Here are a couple of photos going way back to when the space was still the barn. It has truly come a long way.

The last interior work was to address the crumble on the walls of our terrasse area. You may recall we had removed a large section of the roof  to form an open-air terrace area in 2015.  Even before that we had salvaged this area which was the old barn for the vignerons and waterproofed the floor in the outside area and tiled the entire area around 2014. But the walls of the area were still very rough and literally falling down.

 We hired a painter from the village to refinish our walls. Again, negotiating ensued before reaching a comfortable price. Expats here say you can’t negotiate with the French artisans, but I have found (with all contractors), they will test your willingness to spend before getting down to business.

He had to remove the falling bits and refinish with beton (concrete) and do a lot of repair of cracks and fissures before he could even pressure wash the walls prior to painting. He did an excellent job of masking off everything that was not to be painted. He helped us move furniture, pots and other items to allow him to work unfettered.

He pressure washed the surface and then repaired more crumbles knocked off by the cleaning. He let the walls completely dry for three days before coming back to mask and tape everything. He then applied the first coat and waited a day to cure before applying a second coat. He then came back to demask and clean up the worksite. He did a great job and the walls look fresh and finished.

Taking shape after painting

Putting plants in their place

Finish the cave room

Gradually, we have reclaimed another room that was once part of the garage and wine making process. It is on the ground level which was/is problematic because of “rising damp”. Rising damp occurs naturally as water is forced upward form below ground level. It is not really a water table as such; more just water forced to rise by natural forces. It rises through floors and up into rubble walls to a height of about 1 meter. We have already lost the paint off one wall and have tried again to seal it off so it will hold paint. Stoyan will paint it Samedi.

Rising Damp damage

The floor was tiled and also suffers water stains but so far no structural damage. We had the ceiling finished with placo (sheetrock) leaving the beams exposed and added a lot of lighting . We added some cabinet storage as these old places had no closet space and used freestanding armoires instead. Then we painted to entire room being careful to preserve the cuvees where, from the 1800’s until somewhere around 1980, the wine was made. 

Adding the new floors

TV mounted 

We are now making it into a TV room which will probably be used more in summer since the ground level is about 20 degrees cooler that the upstairs TV room. The wine fridge will also be located down here.

The capacity was 160 hectoliters or
about 4,000 gallons of wine.
We have five cuvees.

Gary putting electrics and coax
for the TV 

Rebuild and paint the garage door

After the façade was refinished, we turned our attention to the garage door on the rear of the house. It was in bad shape on the bottom for about one meter up. The constant splashing from the street traffic had damaged it severely. Then it also had an ancient cat door cut out.

Before work

Interior not yet painted but
extra wood applied to cracks

Newly painted garage door

The way the door is engineered made it more difficult to completely rebuild so we decided to repair the damaged lower half and refinish the upper half. Our constructeur, Steve, also did some innovative work to reposition the door on its hinges which had the metal worn down so that the doors sagged toward the middle. So he was able to rebuild and reposition the door where most of the original cracks and openings were sealed. This should slow down the Tramontane winds in the winter. On the inside I added even more crack sealers, so we shall see if it makes a difference.

Stoyan, (our Bulgarian handyman) has sanded and painted the new door. Stoyan is an interesting guy in that he is an outstanding artisan who can handle almost any type or work. His quality is the best we have seen and he will not allow any shortcuts or less than proper methods in completing the task. This comes at a price. While he works dirt cheap (€10-12 per hour), it will take him longer to complete a job because he is so thorough. Richard pays him in tobacco that Richard gets cheap on his trips into Spain. Stoyan always asks me for a beer at the end of a hard day’s work and if I don’t have a beer on hand, I find him a small dram of vodka which he really loves.

Plus tard......