I had a bright idea this week; like all my ideas there has turned out to be a downside to it, not properly thought out as usual.
We have been trying to think of something to get Isabella for christmas, but not really getting anywhere (although she wants everything she sees, of course). Then I had an inspired thought that she might like a cd player for her room. Had an optimistic look around the shops, prices starting at €60,00 for 'girl's' (ie pink) cd players (in the kiddies sections). After picking myself up off the floor, tried to regain my dignity and staggered off to the proper electrical departments. Ugly old things for sale and not much cheaper. I thought perhaps she could have it as a joint present from a few people, not much to open on the day, but what else to do?
Then I had my brain wave. We have little stereos in all of the gites. To be quite honest they are French and most of them a bit crap. This year we are putting dvd players in all the gites so we are going to be removing the stereos as people can get radio through the tv and play their cds on the dvd players. So I thought, why not let her have one of the stereos that we already have and will only be sitting around gathering dust? Wouldn't matter so much if she broke it and no money wasted if she never used it. First one I got out of the gite didn't actually work (told you they're crap) and has gone in the bin. Good start. Went into another gite, I think the stereo in there must be quite new, it's small and has a little blue lcd display and really easy to use buttons and she loves it.
And there in lies the flaw in my plan. She loves it so much she keeps playing cds on it. She gets up, she puts it on. She comes home from school for lunch, she puts it on. She comes home in the evening, she puts it on. Not just the constant playing, but she has discovered Boyzone (Adrian's, not mine I hasten to add. Keith Moon will be turning in his grave). She's also learnt how to use the 'repeat' button. Repeatedly. I'm also listening to Mary Poppins, Mama Mia (Georgia's favourite) and 'Junior Choice - fun songs for kids' on a frequent basis these days.
Actually, it's quite nice really, I'm pleased that she's using it and enjoying it (plus it's saved a fair bit of money) although I am going to have to try to give her a proper musical education and get some decent stuff into her collection. And I shouldn't complain really, in a few years time, it'll be French pop and there's nothing worse than that! Did you know they use it to torture British citizens in France? It's true, they play it on the radio all day and night. British folk are warned at immigration not to tune in or they'll go mad.
18 November 2009
I'm going to be moaning about money in this article, so for your info £1.00 is currently about €1,10, although all too often it's almost £1.00 to €1,00 these days, so you can see how horrified I am by the prices I am quoting.
Weather has been a bit lousy of late, so we've started redecorating inside one of the gites. It started off as a lick of paint here and there to brighten it up, progressed to whole new colour scheme (which took enough deliberation in itself), to changing a couple of kitchen cupboards, to putting in a whole new kitchen, moving the fridge, adding new cupboards in it's place, new worktop, new sink (cooker is only a year or so old, so that's staying. Mind you the sink's the same age.) And so the money adds up.
The cost of paint doesn't help. We spent the better part of an afternoon traipsing around town trying to find a decent colour paint, at a decent price, in a decent size tin. 0 out of 3 for that one. No tester pots, so you have to assume that the colour on the lid is the colour in the tin. (It's not, it's several shades darker. The jury's still out on this one, we've decided to finish off the rest of the gite and then see if we have to change it. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely colour, just a somewhat darker than expected). Could only get the paint in 0.5L tins, it's expensive enough in 2.5L tins (average €52,00).
Went to another town today for other reasons and happened to pop into one of those shops which sells a bit of everything really. They had brand named paint on sale for €9,99 for 2.5L (dented tin - I can live with that) and their own make for €16,99!!! It might not be great quality, but then neither is a lot of the expensive paint over here (get the white stuff and you think you're painting with milk).
Anyway, for the most part, we're painting the horrible stone interior walls in the gite this year (white) to help lighten and brighten the place up. We'd eventually like to plasterboard over them, but we just can't afford that at the moment (obscene amounts of money for that!). Two of the walls I've been painting in exterior paint from the uk (£28.00 for 10L) and it's been a pleasure to work with, lovely consistency, doesn't drip, brush washes in water, dries quick, looks good. The third wall I did the second coat on after Adrian did the first. He was using up some of the French exterior paint we had (€89,00 for 10L). I carried on with the french paint. It was like painting with syrup. It was so thick and sticky, a nightmare to get on the walls, but with an amazing ability to drip at will between the tin and the surface I was trying to paint, onto any other surface not meant to be painted. After quarter of an hour of this, messing about with a damp cloth, trying to clean up the drips, but really just smudging paint all over the place, I eventually did the right thing and put a dust sheet down. I wear those plastic gloves when I paint as I have a natural ability to get paint all over me; the paint was so sticky the gloves stuck to the paint brush and then I couldn't let go of the brush. I've done about two-thirds of that wall now, hopefully finish the rest tomorrow, it's the top bit, so I've been waiting for the step-ladders. At least if I think I'm about to fall off the ladders, so long as I've got enough paint over my hands/gloves, all I'll have to do is hold tight and I'll stick to them.
Weather has been a bit lousy of late, so we've started redecorating inside one of the gites. It started off as a lick of paint here and there to brighten it up, progressed to whole new colour scheme (which took enough deliberation in itself), to changing a couple of kitchen cupboards, to putting in a whole new kitchen, moving the fridge, adding new cupboards in it's place, new worktop, new sink (cooker is only a year or so old, so that's staying. Mind you the sink's the same age.) And so the money adds up.
The cost of paint doesn't help. We spent the better part of an afternoon traipsing around town trying to find a decent colour paint, at a decent price, in a decent size tin. 0 out of 3 for that one. No tester pots, so you have to assume that the colour on the lid is the colour in the tin. (It's not, it's several shades darker. The jury's still out on this one, we've decided to finish off the rest of the gite and then see if we have to change it. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely colour, just a somewhat darker than expected). Could only get the paint in 0.5L tins, it's expensive enough in 2.5L tins (average €52,00).
Went to another town today for other reasons and happened to pop into one of those shops which sells a bit of everything really. They had brand named paint on sale for €9,99 for 2.5L (dented tin - I can live with that) and their own make for €16,99!!! It might not be great quality, but then neither is a lot of the expensive paint over here (get the white stuff and you think you're painting with milk).
Anyway, for the most part, we're painting the horrible stone interior walls in the gite this year (white) to help lighten and brighten the place up. We'd eventually like to plasterboard over them, but we just can't afford that at the moment (obscene amounts of money for that!). Two of the walls I've been painting in exterior paint from the uk (£28.00 for 10L) and it's been a pleasure to work with, lovely consistency, doesn't drip, brush washes in water, dries quick, looks good. The third wall I did the second coat on after Adrian did the first. He was using up some of the French exterior paint we had (€89,00 for 10L). I carried on with the french paint. It was like painting with syrup. It was so thick and sticky, a nightmare to get on the walls, but with an amazing ability to drip at will between the tin and the surface I was trying to paint, onto any other surface not meant to be painted. After quarter of an hour of this, messing about with a damp cloth, trying to clean up the drips, but really just smudging paint all over the place, I eventually did the right thing and put a dust sheet down. I wear those plastic gloves when I paint as I have a natural ability to get paint all over me; the paint was so sticky the gloves stuck to the paint brush and then I couldn't let go of the brush. I've done about two-thirds of that wall now, hopefully finish the rest tomorrow, it's the top bit, so I've been waiting for the step-ladders. At least if I think I'm about to fall off the ladders, so long as I've got enough paint over my hands/gloves, all I'll have to do is hold tight and I'll stick to them.
17 November 2009
Halloween and Georgia's birthday
Our home-made Halloween!!!
I forgot to put this one in the other day, so they're a bit out of order now, but I couldn't leave out Georgie!
.JPG)
The witches!
We made broomsticks in the garden (from the garden), outfits out of clothes we had already (luckily Georgia was given a black top and tights for her birthday just a few days beforehand), green makeup on our faces and homemade hats. The only thing I bought was a packet of black crepe paper for the skirts, 75 centimes. Bargain!
Green Monster drink
For dinner:
Witches fingers, gone-off green worms and blood sauce. Made it all myself too - a rare domestic goddess moment.
Georgia's pink birthday - new duvet cover, new lamp, new rug.
My Peppa Pig cake and number '3' biscuits for Georgia's birthday.
I forgot to put this one in the other day, so they're a bit out of order now, but I couldn't leave out Georgie!
.JPG)
The witches!We made broomsticks in the garden (from the garden), outfits out of clothes we had already (luckily Georgia was given a black top and tights for her birthday just a few days beforehand), green makeup on our faces and homemade hats. The only thing I bought was a packet of black crepe paper for the skirts, 75 centimes. Bargain!
Green Monster drink
For dinner:
Witches fingers, gone-off green worms and blood sauce. Made it all myself too - a rare domestic goddess moment.
Georgia's pink birthday - new duvet cover, new lamp, new rug.
My Peppa Pig cake and number '3' biscuits for Georgia's birthday.
07 November 2009
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Aaaaaaahhhhh.....
Bloody hell!!! The Nits are back. I am so pissed off. Took me half the summer hols to finally get rid of the little blighters and two months after going back to school they're back again. I'm going to shave all our heads like Adrian.
06 November 2009
Someone giveth and someone taketh away
I'm not going to say 'The Lord' on account of not personally having any belief in Him, but someone is definately having a laugh at my expense these days me thinks.
I had been getting quite pleased with the way things have been going for us of late. We're not in the money yet (not even out of debt), but things having been looking a bit more positive. We recently took two separate weeks bookings for next year already and two more weeks for this year at the end of the month. I won a discount card at the supermarket for €3,00 which said on the back 'use once or many times, valid until 31 Jan 2010' and I found a load of cut down oak at the side of the road at the weekend - the council have been trimming the roadside trees and hedges, most of it is little branches and leafy stuff - but this was good chunks of oak tree, so Adrian and Dad went and cut it up a bit and collected in the trailor the other day - free wood for burning on the fire! Can't use it for a couple of years, but even so, free fuel is free fuel. Also, one of the two massive council bills arrived and it was down about €500,00 on last year! And we're starting to organise ourselves (well I am) and sell some stuff we don't need. Some is in small ads and some (the bigger furniture stuff) I thought we sell through the local 'depot vente' (a place where you can sell your stuff. They take a bit of commission, but they're popular and it's like walking round a shop, but it's not like cash converters, you get your money after it's sold).
So, with all these good things happening, I started to think that maybe things were looking up for us....
Went to the supermarket today, handed over discount card at the till, which was applied to my bill and then the cashier threw it away! I was not a happy bunny. After slight argument with the cashier it turns out that the phrase 'use once or many times' means 'you can use it many times so long as you haven't used up the total credit shown on the card'. ie you can buy three things for €1,00 on three separate occasions, but once you've used your €3,00, that's it, there is no more. Too good to be true, eh? I'm sure in the uk I could have sued under the trades misdiscription act or something (well worth it for three euros), but they've not heard of that over here, they say what they want, they do what they want, they charge what they want and 'what's this EU law you keep telling me about? Never heard of it, don't know what you're talking about. This is FRANCE madam'.
Then we got one of our personal tax bills in for €645,00. Then yesterday morning found out that since Georgia turned three the other day our child benefit has now dropped by €177,00 per month!! That's €2124,00 per year of income gone!
After the succesful supermarket trip this morning, I thought I'd pop along to the depot vente and ask them about selling our stuff. They are closing down, not taking on any more stuff. Couple of sofa's anyone? Two children's cot/toddler beds, one electric reclining granny chair (pleasant shade of dusky pink)?
However, this evening at school I was introduced to another parent who is looking for a gite for christmas for her relatives, so hopefully that might come to something, even though it's only three nights. And then later on this evening we had an email from some lovely folk who stayed here last year and they're coming back next year - two weeks in middle of August!! Am very pleased, they are a really nice family, so looking forward to seeing them again.
But I am just wondering how long will it be until it all goes bad again......
I had been getting quite pleased with the way things have been going for us of late. We're not in the money yet (not even out of debt), but things having been looking a bit more positive. We recently took two separate weeks bookings for next year already and two more weeks for this year at the end of the month. I won a discount card at the supermarket for €3,00 which said on the back 'use once or many times, valid until 31 Jan 2010' and I found a load of cut down oak at the side of the road at the weekend - the council have been trimming the roadside trees and hedges, most of it is little branches and leafy stuff - but this was good chunks of oak tree, so Adrian and Dad went and cut it up a bit and collected in the trailor the other day - free wood for burning on the fire! Can't use it for a couple of years, but even so, free fuel is free fuel. Also, one of the two massive council bills arrived and it was down about €500,00 on last year! And we're starting to organise ourselves (well I am) and sell some stuff we don't need. Some is in small ads and some (the bigger furniture stuff) I thought we sell through the local 'depot vente' (a place where you can sell your stuff. They take a bit of commission, but they're popular and it's like walking round a shop, but it's not like cash converters, you get your money after it's sold).
So, with all these good things happening, I started to think that maybe things were looking up for us....
Went to the supermarket today, handed over discount card at the till, which was applied to my bill and then the cashier threw it away! I was not a happy bunny. After slight argument with the cashier it turns out that the phrase 'use once or many times' means 'you can use it many times so long as you haven't used up the total credit shown on the card'. ie you can buy three things for €1,00 on three separate occasions, but once you've used your €3,00, that's it, there is no more. Too good to be true, eh? I'm sure in the uk I could have sued under the trades misdiscription act or something (well worth it for three euros), but they've not heard of that over here, they say what they want, they do what they want, they charge what they want and 'what's this EU law you keep telling me about? Never heard of it, don't know what you're talking about. This is FRANCE madam'.
Then we got one of our personal tax bills in for €645,00. Then yesterday morning found out that since Georgia turned three the other day our child benefit has now dropped by €177,00 per month!! That's €2124,00 per year of income gone!
After the succesful supermarket trip this morning, I thought I'd pop along to the depot vente and ask them about selling our stuff. They are closing down, not taking on any more stuff. Couple of sofa's anyone? Two children's cot/toddler beds, one electric reclining granny chair (pleasant shade of dusky pink)?
However, this evening at school I was introduced to another parent who is looking for a gite for christmas for her relatives, so hopefully that might come to something, even though it's only three nights. And then later on this evening we had an email from some lovely folk who stayed here last year and they're coming back next year - two weeks in middle of August!! Am very pleased, they are a really nice family, so looking forward to seeing them again.
But I am just wondering how long will it be until it all goes bad again......
It feels like a long time since I've written anything, not really sure that I have anything to say now actually, but thought I'd better do something.
Not a lot going on these days, the girls went back to school yesterday after 12 days off between terms. The first week wasn't too bad, but by Tuseday of this week, when it had been raining for several days and they'd hardly been out I was getting a bit stressed. And then they invented a new version of 'hide and seek' which didn't seem to involve much hiding, more running up and down the corridor screaming as loudly as possible. I spent half of Wednesday afternoon making trips to the tip (we recently cleared out the cellar (remember - next to the house, not under it) - seven trips over two days to the tip to get rid of all the crap) and when I came back I said I'd take them out to the Ludotheque (toy library kinda thing) so long as I could have five minutes peace to have a cup of tea beforehand. Ha ha. Not even one minute and my tea was decidely cool by the time I got to drink it. They were driving me mad so I took them anyway. (A change to the situation was needed).
Not a lot going on these days, the girls went back to school yesterday after 12 days off between terms. The first week wasn't too bad, but by Tuseday of this week, when it had been raining for several days and they'd hardly been out I was getting a bit stressed. And then they invented a new version of 'hide and seek' which didn't seem to involve much hiding, more running up and down the corridor screaming as loudly as possible. I spent half of Wednesday afternoon making trips to the tip (we recently cleared out the cellar (remember - next to the house, not under it) - seven trips over two days to the tip to get rid of all the crap) and when I came back I said I'd take them out to the Ludotheque (toy library kinda thing) so long as I could have five minutes peace to have a cup of tea beforehand. Ha ha. Not even one minute and my tea was decidely cool by the time I got to drink it. They were driving me mad so I took them anyway. (A change to the situation was needed).
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