Things that go bump in the daylight

Every now and again the Moroccan lady next door goes a bit loopy. She and her husband have recently returned from a two week holiday in Morocco.
They returned to find that their landlord had removed the rickety, dangerous wooden fence from around their garage roof top terrace, leaving it in a more open plan condition.
Their garage roof was a bit of a nightmare, it was littered with gas canisters, broken plastic chairs, a pair of crutches, large baby doll, old boots, plastic bags, scraps of food, bits of old wood, etc etc. I have never seen her husband do anything except drive his car, sit in the town square, or carry the occasional shopping bag full of groceries.
So, a girl comes back from her hols. All is calm, then her husband goes out. She then starts shouting. I am inside and can hear her vocalising but I ignore it. Banging, dragging and crashing sounds follow gradually seeping into my subconscious. No of course I wasn’t sleeping, I was just … resting my eyes.
The lady is dragging stuff about the garage roof and muttering darkly. She starts picking things up. Going to the front edge of the garage and hurling stuff onto the driveway below. This continues for some time, but due to the delay between pressing the camera shutter and it taking the photo, I only succeeded in getting one action shot. The angle of the shot also hides the amount of stuff thrown out.

Once the roof has been almost cleared, she stomps, or waddles and rolls back into the house. She returns with more items including rugs, which join the growing pile on the drive.
Hmmm I think to myself. I hope her husband doesn’t swing into the drive too fast, or he will crash into that.
The husband returns and stops before hitting the pile. I whizz off to get my camera again, but miss the initial getting out of the car, what the f*** look while the camera gets itself ready.
He stands trying to take it all in.

She comes out of the house onto the garage roof and starts shouting again. Words are exchanged (but not in French) and he reluctantly starts picking stuff up and taking it out onto the pavement, piling it up outside my wall.
A while later, there is more shouting, and a three-seater leather settee appears. Some time later this goes back into the house as negotiations are finalised and the treaty signed.
When I speak to Madame later, she tells me rather gleefully, that the lady is not at all content…
I am happy because they seem to have got the hang of phoning up the council to get the stuff removed, and furthermore the absence of the railings means that the granddaughter and grandson are not outside.
The little boy is a bit of a pest as he just keeps repeating Monsieur, Monsieur if he sees me in the garden. The girl chooses to use any vocabulary and just screams and screeches non-stop for hours at a time whenever she is outside and they never tell her to shut up. Her noises are so piercing that even if I am inside with the windows shut, there is no escape from it. Even Madame finds it too much.

There’s bin changes

On Tuesday last week the publicity in my post box held news of the changes to household, recyclable and green waste collections which starts on Monday 20th. I read it carefully to note changes to the days affecting me. No green collection was listed for me. I went to the Mairie after my French lesson to get some yellow sacks for the recyclable collections and to ask about the green stuff.
I had to go to the Technique department where I have previously handed in my building alterations request forms,
The lady from my first visit was on duty and she volunteered my name (could this mean that she had just dealt with my forms?) and gave me a roll of bags. I explained my green collection dilemma and she looked over the leaflet that I had brought along. She then phoned another department and after they had in turn gone to consult, the verdict was that someone will phone me next week….

18.12.2008 Thurs – Clou less at last

Up relatively early thanks to the noisy bin men waking me up at 5.10am. The weather is still dull, but no more rain after last night’s showers.
I noticed that the neighbour’s manky old mattress and all his other junk has been removed from his drive / my wall.
I got a phone call from the Commune on Monday. Did I know that it was forbidden to dump items on the pavement? I said yes I knew that “Is that your mattress on the pavement?” “No I said, it is my neighbour’s. What is his house number? What is his name? I told them that I did not know the answer to either question and that we were not best buddies due to me not letting him park his car in my parking area (as long time readers will be aware).
I don’t know if they managed to contact the lazy sod, but the junk has finally gone after lying around for months. Hooray!!
I am starting to feel fitter.
This morning’s task was to have my slow leak investigated. Before you get too excited, it is one of my tyres that is leaking.
“Vulco” removed the tyres to investigate. The tyre mec quickly spotted a small nail located right in the middle of the tyre.

While I waited I took a photo of one of the businesses across the road.
Viewers of the TV comedy “Only fools and horses” will be familiar with Del Boy. I don’t know if the owner is a Brit or just a French fan, but I would have thought that connotations of Del Boy total incompetence and ‘ookey gear (goods of doubtful provenance) "Transports DELBOY" might not be the best marketing ploy ever.

The man in the tyre office was very keen to try out his English, which is unusual as most are too shy to try.
Tyre repaired, I parted with just under 30 euros, but now I don’t need to worry about remembering to pump up the tyre every week.
The bad news was that I could not remember the PIN for my carte bleu. Fortunately I had my big cheque book with me.
After going home to check my PIN, I headed out to Intermarche for a bit of shopping.
The sea food counters were groaning under the weight of the number and variety of fish on sale. There were also lots of boxes of oysters on offer. I didn’t see anyone rushing to buy them though. The big tank with the huge live crabs seems to have disappeared for the moment.
I don’t know about you but I prefer my supermarkets not to have crabs.

19 November 2008 Wednesday – Play that again Punk!

Happy birthday sister number two!
The rain is back. It rained all night and is still raining at 10.45am as I start this day’s blog.
Madam’s pile of rubbish remains uncollected in the bin and leaning against the front wall. The garden waste collection and the extra recycling collection have passed it by.
Tonight we put out the household waste for collection, if we can find any space left in the bin.
Due to the success of my recent storage solution DIY I add a small shelf to
The sun shines so we walk into town before it can change its mind.
Currently I am reading another James Hadley Chase book in the French, the wall under my new storage platform. listening to Labyrinth (Audible book) and I am rediscovering my vinyl collection, currently Elvis Costello (about 8 discs). His earlier stuff was by far the best in my opinion. Much of the later output sounds too much alike. His earlier lyrics were much cleverer as well.
I am not doing this all at the same time though.
What I should be doing is learning French grammar, verbs etc etc.
Cooking a Mexican meal for ten people I am not. My little kitchen has just room for one person at a time in it and a chopping board sized worktop, which also houses the kettle, in use mugs etc.

17 November 2008 Monday – Thunderbirds and storage

We are drinking our mid morning coffee and have been watching my Duplex tenant and her friend clearing her patio area of all the crap that it seems to have accumulated. The bin is now full so where we and my other tenant are going to put our rubbish is a mystery. The bin will not be collected until 4am Thursday morning.
Next we watch as a car mechanic, Madam’s female friend a woman and two children mess about with a car which is parked across a driveway across the road. Various people sit in the driving seat and the others stand at the front of the car and appear to push. We can see the front left wheel spinning round furiously. S thinks the car has broken down, I say that there is probably a low wall there and she has driven a wheel over it and got stuck.
About 10 minutes later my door buzzer goes. I take my coffee down the 2 flights of stairs to see who it is. Madame explains that a car has got stuck as the lady has driven over the wall.
She has also buzzed Daveed and we go across, lift the correct front side of the car (not the silly side that they had been lifting) and in seconds the car is back on the level. The lady thanks us and we return home to Tracey Island.

I assemble the tools and wood ready to build a raised storage facility (shelf platform) in the utility alcove located in the main bedroom and work on the construction project goes remarkably smoothly, a statement which anyone who knows me, or has seen my DIY making things efforts, will find hard to believe.
So now I can get some more of my “useful one day” items off the floor.

Extra choir practice tonight and for once it is not raining. I get a lift part of the way home, from my new “best friend” Jeanette.

25 October 2008 Saturday - emulsional

dUp early to go shopping at the retail park. Windscreen is frozen. Good job I dragged that spare sheet of fibre glass insulation material under the house and put it against the water pipes for the 4 apartments.
Eventually able to see through the windscreen so I set off. Intermarche first then Bricomarche, where I buy more emulsion, exterior wood undercoat and exterior wood paint.
By the time I have loaded up my car the sun is shining brightly and all thoughts of the morning frost have vanished.
I spend the next 3 or so hours sanding down the window woodwork in the 1st floor studio, applying masking tape (why does the window have to be multi-paned? Then applying the white undercoat.
After a sandwich, I walk into town. As usual on a Saturdayat 3.30pm, there is hardly anyone around, but the cafes with tables in the sun are doing well.
The English shop is closed until 4 November so I cannot ask about airport parking at Toulouse airport.
I take a few photos and return home about an hour and a half later.
Here is the small “recycling centre next to the Orange / SFM shop and the Halle au grains.

And here are two people enjoying the sunshine at a café.

The scene of yesterday’s road accident on my road but just out of sight from my window is marked on the road with green fluorescent paint.

23 October Thursday - a load of old rubbish

Today was another painting and cleaning day. I gave the bedroom side hall a second coat and various parts of bedroom walls got 2 coats. The bed and various bits of furniture had to be moved to get access to wall. The small kitchen / washing machine / sink area will have to wait until another day as the walls there will need to be cleaned first. They are thick with grease as there is a cooker point there and no one has cleaned the walls for a long time. The roof is at its highest point here and the grease reaches right to the top.
The space available to work in is too narrow for my step ladders as they are, so I will need to take the supports off the ladders to fit into the gap.
I also painted hall 2 which leads from the bedroom to the toilet and to one of the two exit doors.
Next it was downstairs to paint some of the ceiling beams in the 1st floor studio.
This morning when I pulled the wheelie bin back onto my parking area, I watched the neighbour’s stained mattress (which he has dumped against my boundary wall) steaming as the sun gained heat. There is also a broken parasol and a box full of old kitchen pots etc on my wall.

In the afternoon I look out of the window and see the neighbour’s wife sitting on my parking area wall, presumably waiting for a lift from someone.









I think to myself, “He’s dumping his wife on my property now” and I go upstairs to take a photo. I decide to move the mattress etc back onto the neighbour’s property.






Much better position

By the time I get downstairs, the lady has gone. I duly move the rubbish from in front of my house.
It is time to pack up. My paint pad is too soggy and drippy to continue today.
I reply to Y’s email of the previous evening, saying that it is a pity that she is leaving the choir for this year.

29 Sept 2008 Monday garden thoughts

Pascal the young builder arrives to grout between the floor tiles. I am not to walk on them until at least 6pm tonight. Looks like a late night second coat for the bathroom. The good news is that tomorrow I will have the shower back, as well as a new sink and wash hand basin. No more having to trek down the stairs 2 floors to use studio 1’s facilities. Hooray!
Regarding my painting, Pascal tells me that the undercoat needs to be done fast, and that the next coat of paint should be put on slowly and carefully.

Food supplies are running low, so I go to BUT to collect my second cube, visit Casa to measure a garment rail hanger / storage unit and on to the Intermarche which unlike the other stores in the retail area does not close for lunch.
I do a bit of gardening as it is green waste collection tomorrow. Madam has picked a few of her remaining tomatoes.
She comes out and has a chat and tells me which herbs she has planted and where they are. She does not mind if I cut down the big tree in front of her patio area. It has a thick trunk and its roots have cracked part of the concrete path. Her cousin could probably do it in the spring next year… I wonder how much having a tree cut down will cost me?
I attach a further two “Parking prive” signs to the wall in my parking area. Madame does not think that this will do the trick. She thinks that only a chain across the entrance will stop people parking on my property. It would also be a bloody nuisance though.
At 6.30pm I start giving the bathroom a second coat. I run out of paint at 9pm but only small bits behind pipes and an easy to reach bit of wall remain to be completed. I will have to buy more paint, but I will be able to use it in the new kitchen, so not too much of it will be wasted. Another busy day over.