Serrurier, anyone?

A very nice man came to do the energy assessment of the house for the HIP yesterday (that's the Home Information Pack - yet another of the government's 'jobs for the boys' and means of extracting ever more money out of us). As I say, he was very pleasant and even changed into another pair of shoes to come into the house in case he made the floors dirty. Apart from that, he prowled round the outside of the house for a few minutes, counted the radiators, looked at the boiler and stuck his head into the attic space to check on the insulation. Money for old rope, really. I was tempted to ask him if there are any vacancies in his line of work.
Then he told me that the highest score any house can possibly get is about 66% as the system is set up to take account of the years ahead when houses will be ever more energy efficient, but not a lot of people know this. Given that, according to estate agents, very few people bother to read the HIPs anyway, those who do are perhaps not going to be terribly impressed by a reading of 66% or less.
Anyway, to get the the title of this post. Keith is now getting very excited and is wondering about taking his van with him when we go to live in France so that he can carry on with his business. He has spent a few hours this morning searching for auto-locksmiths in France and has not come up with any. I told him the word for locksmith is 'serrurier'. Try saying that after a few glasses of vin rouge and pronouncing the 'r's properly!

It's all going on!

It's been a hectic few days. On Sunday, I decorated the bathroom - yes the whole room in a day, including popping out to buy some nice little colour co-ordinated accessories for the finishing touches. Then there were the paint touch ups around the house, tidying up the garden, chucking a few plants in strategically placed pots and.... the big one, dismantling NASA and putting it in temporary retirement in the shed. Not for nothing am I a fervent desciple of 'House Doctor'!

A busy week

Lots of running around and organising things has been going on this week chez Jennyta. For various reasons, not least of which is 'because we want to,' we have decided that we want to up sticks and move to France; not next week, you understand, but in the not too distant future.
So this week, I have been mainly meeting with estate agents and showing them round our palatial mansion, resulting in an interesting range of reactions and suggested prices.
One wanted us to practically re-decorate the whole house and redesign the front garden for her to take it on board, whilst another quoted a suggested asking price considerably less than the others and hoped I hadn't spent too much on having the conservatory built, with the inference that it would have been a waste of money as regards selling the house. He spent most of his time enthusing about France and telling me about his recent holiday there before apparently realising that he needed to be somewhere else, as he put it 'to ruin someone else's afternoon.' Naturally, we want to sell the house and so are all in favour of a realistic price but we also don't want to give it away!
Anyway, the choice of estate agent has now been made and the HIP (Home Information Pack) ordered and paid for - with gritted teeth - and a programme of touching up, brightening up and tidying up has begun.
Now the good side of this, from my point of view anyway, is that all the estate agents, without exception, suggested that it might be a positive selling point if NASA were no longer commandeering the living room. Now that Keith has his new laptop, a little twist to his arm has persuaded him that the PC can now be moved upstairs to the study to do duty as a server and the living room can finally become a 'proper' living room.
My dream of achieving the minimalist look may at last become a reality!

End of an era

Three months ago, Keith decided to throw in the towel and give up the shop. The lease was coming to an end and the new rent was going to be increased by 50% whilst business was decreasing, in common with the experience of most other small businesses, so he went mobile. The shop still needed clearing, however, which is gradually being done, but yesterday, it was all hands to the pump (in a manner of speaking), as we dismantled the fixtures and fittings ready for Keith and Giles to transport them to their new home in 'Sath London'.
So that's where Keith has been today - a long trip to London and back, and now, completely exhausted, he is tucked up in bed, snoring away to his heart's content.
A good day's work.

Back again

Yes, I know I have been conspicuous by my absence for a few days but I just haven't been in the mood for blogging, I'm afraid. A distinct lack of energy and motivation has been the problem, which could just be a bit of reaction to what happened in France as Keith has been similarly afflicted. However, I haven't been languishing on the sofa doing nothing, oh no. There have been the insurance claims to sort out, which fortunately, have been fairly straighforward, so we have now replaced our laptops and GPS, which just leaves the phones.
Now that's another story. We have a contract with a company called Challenger, and boy is that name appropriate. It started off all-right. We were given new sim cards in loan phones (the size of small house bricks, but they work) and told that our account handler would be in touch when he returned from his holiday. That was a week ago yesterday. Since then, Keith has managed to speak to him twice, each time to be told that he was just about to go into a meeting and would return his call afterwards. You can guess the rest.
So, ever the impatient, I decided to take the bull by the horns and ring the company myself.
"Oh, hasn't he got back to you yet?" the receptionist tutted. I'll send him an email right away and I'll email his boss too."
"I'd be glad if you could do that," I said. "Keith needs his phone and especially the mobile broadband for work and it's causing him problems not having it."
Another day passed.
Today I tried again.
Again the receptionist commiserated with me and announced that she would put me through to the boss, only to report seconds later that, guess what, he was on his mobile, but he would return my call as soon as he had finished.
Half an hour later, I decided that he must have finished his call by now and rang again, this time to be answered by another of the office staff who toddled off to find out what was going on and came back saying...yes, you've guessed it... our account handler would ring me back before the end of the day.
I am presuming she meant midnight, as I am, yet again, still waiting.
Tomorrow, they ain't gonna know what hit them.
Jenny is not happy!

Re-grouping forces

We have a few jobs which need doing on the RV. It is under warranty, so it will be going back to Telford, where we bought it, to have the starter motor looked at (a bit sluggish when we stop and then want to start again within a few minutes, the fridge door repair redoing and the electric window on the driver's side, which conked out during our short trip. As the RV is left hand drive, this was a potential problem for those times when we couldn't avoid 'autoroutes payages'. However, Keith to the rescue, as always. With the help of a washing line I just happened to have on board (Be prepared!), he effected a workable repair which, however, meant that he needed his two hands to close the window so he had to choose his moment carefully.
We also want to get it fitted to use LPG, which will reduce fuel costs quite a bit.
That leaves the question of what to do to to ensure that we get no more break-ins. The lock on the driver's door, which Keith doesn't actually use anyway, is very basic, as we have now discovered, so that will have to be upgraded and perhaps a deadlock fitted also.
Then there was talk of Keith keeping a baseball bat beside the bed and starting blocks on my side so that I can get off to a good start when chasing the intruders. Further discussion with Elder Son (who is in the Royal Engineers) has thrown up a few more interesting possibilities.
"Mace sprays are legal in France," he suggested, but Keith reminded him that, in such a confined space, it would affect us as badly as the intruders. So then he suggested stun guns, to which Keith, getting fully into the spirit of the moment, added the possibility of a Thompson sub-machine gun.
Oh and we need razor wire around the rear ladder and an electric current through the door handles. Now we just need to check if the good people in Telford can do all that for us.
Well, it is still under warranty.

Robbed!

Well, outside it is raining. Inside television is on and we are half watching 'Breakfast' on BBC. Bet you didn't think we'd be able to get British television down in the south west of France. The fact is that we are no longer in France, but back at home.
On Friday evening, we pulled up at one of the 'aires' beside the A70 for the night. This is quite usual in France. 'Aires' are sometimes the equivalent of our service areas and sometimes quite small picnic/resting areas but they are almost always well maintained, landscaped etc and people do use them to stay overnight if they are on a long journey in a campervan/motorhome etc.
This one was fairly large and very busy. I had forgotten when we booked our crossing that the first weekend in August is when the French depart like lemmings, hurling themselves down the motorway to the south for their holidays, so traffic was heavy, the aire was busy and there were comings and goings all night.
But despite all the people who came and went that night, it seems that we were the only ones targeted for robbery. Sometime during the night, while we were peacefully slumbering, some s***s took a screwdriver to the lock on the driver's door of the RV and let themselves in. They then proceeded to rifle through all the cupboards and lockers in the living area and relieved us of our two laptops, our mobile phones, the GPS, a pair of binoculars and, for some reason, our picnic set, before popping into the bathroom and collecting my watch and earrings, which were both absolutely worthless. The laptops, of course, have english keyboards, so would not be much use in France. They left all the cupboard doors open but did have the consideration to close the driver's door when they left. We discovered the deed when we got up at seven in the morning.
I have mentioned before on this blog, I think, that if I were escaping a burning house, the two things I would take with me are my laptop and my mobile phone so, as you might guess, I was less than happy. What I am tremendously relieved about is that something had prompted me to hide my bag in the cupboard beside the bed that night, which I hadn't done on previous nights, so at least we still had our money, ferry tickets, passports, credit cards etc and I had my business mobile phone in there too.
The police were good and describing what had happened and giving a statement in French took my mind off things for a few minutes, but for me, the holiday was spoiled. The doorlock still worked but was obviously insecure so we made the decision to come back home, although with mixed feelings. Keith felt that cutting short our holiday was giving in to the thieves but I knew I would not be able to relax until the lock had been replaced with something more secure.
Oh well, you can't win 'em all, it seems.