...you can expect to have glitches. Every silver lining has its cloud, after all.
At the end of Feb, an email from Tom, who had been around to measure up for a skylight in the dépendance:
"Someone has smashed into G's picket fence, near the water manhole on the corner of the dependence, it looks like it has been down for a while.
Also, I walked around and noticed that one shutter on the rear gable wall (ground floor) was open and looked like it had been blowing in the wind for a while (this is the door that G repaired in the summer).
On seeing this I got the key from the keysafe to go inside and secure the shutter. Everything looks absolutely fine inside, and how I presume you would have left it, but the door that G fixed was not locked when I went to open it and secure the shutter.
The shutter won't completely close due to the horrific amount of rain we've had causing it to plume up. It is now secured with a keep virtually shut. I will plane a couple of mm off it when I fit the velux."Hmm.
We didn't have to wonder too long before our English neighbour 'fessed up and offered to fix the fence.
That only leaves the unlocked door (!), and swinging, unsecured shutter - both facing the worst of the weather, and certainly the shutter visible from the road. It must have looked abandoned there for a while :(
Fast forward to end of March, and John-the-gardener's email:
"...it seems someone has knocked over the post box and fence."
This time, we got a visual.
Hmm, indeed.
With friend C due to arrive very soon for a visit, and the place starting to look like a junkyard, we asked said neighbour to fix it tout de suite, and the 'tooter the sweeter', to quote Punch (1917).
The fence was fixed and stained and back to normal within days.
Only for it to fail, once again, a couple of days later. This time, J-M was kind enough to lend C his car for an urgent trip to Objat. Then Y (J-M's mechanic brother) came over and cleaned the rusted points (I stand to be corrected, of course) and got it started again. He blamed the bâche for the buildup of humidity, and suggested we leave it off in future. That won't be as hard as keeping it on has proved to be: the wind has torn it right off the car - straps and fixings flailing - on more than one occasion.
These things must come in threes, because the Clio wouldn't start on C's last morning, so he couldn't move the car under the porch, as Y had advised.
Ah well, C will be back in May, and perhaps he can get Y to look at it then.
C's last day also revealed that the broom/mop handle has gone missing. It was there when we left, but apparently Hazel-the-cleaner couldn't find it after our last guest left. When I say 'last guest', I mean that - we've only had one guest, and that will be the last time. I don't count friends in that group.
It's simply not worth the hassle, the cost of cleaning, and all the unexplained curiosities (such as, but not limited to - as they say - the broom/mop handle, the unlocked French door and the unsecured and flapping shutter).
Don't get me started.
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