Our new (old, 50s? 60s?/70s?) house is a maze of discoveries - some wonderful, some less so. From climbing about in the attic it seems as if the original building must have been a small barn or dwelling made of the local stone - Tuffeau', which was added onto at various times during aforementioned epochs. The electricians, on showing me a blunted huge drill, said it's extrêmement custo meaning blooming ek, it's solid, and not going anywhere - which is great news for us, less for them and their equipment.
During the signing for the place the notaire did mention something about a dispute between the owners before us and their previous owners do do with a pig and chicken outbuilding; no sign of it now but there is a large garage that dates back a long time, no doubt without planning. Talking of such a thing . . . these days to put so much as a new down pipe in you have to get permission, but this whole road including our house looks as if things just developed rather than being planned.
There were apparently 32 windmills along this road, the area presumably covered with wheat fields not vines as is the case now. The vestiges of about five mills are visible, and we have some very ancient garden walls which maybe housed one of the mills. When I've slowed down from painting walls and trying to arrange building works I'll go down to the archive office and enjoy poking about - love old maps!
The reason why the windmills were up here - highest point around for some distance
An excellent DIY person and myself have been tackling the weird shower room/kitchen on the ground floor and its associated bedroom as I can see we'll probably need financially to start doing B and B again. Of course, in my mind I assumed this would take a day or two but during the house archaeology we have discovered prehistoric glue that refuses to come off under the vile plastic flooring, and hideous polystyrene ceiling tiles that I'd thought . . . yeah, they'll do with a good coat of paint, but they won't, and I remember my mother's daily occupation when we lived in a London flat years ago of re-gluing the various tiles that had gently spiralled down during the night. It's got to be wood which requires a frame, and so on . . .
Anyway, it'll all get done and one day the salon/hunting lodge will look great with everything back where it should be when I've finished the walls and the electricians have figured out how to rewire it . . .
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