May, 2016

Little chapel next door to us

 Hog Heaven

The month of May is a busy time here. Currently there is the Cannes film festival. In a few days the international tennis championships in Monte Carlo will begin. Finally, the yearly Grand Prix race in Monaco wraps up at the end of the month. But this month's treat was discovering that every year in early May there is a motorcycle rally of sorts that occurs in our neighborhood. Now that is an understatement if there ever was one. This year was the 10th anniversary of the "Harley Davidson Euro Festival", reportedly the biggest motorcycle owners club in the world.

I would hate to be going the other way

Let's start with the numbers: 25,000 motorcycles converge locally for 4 days of vroom, vromm, VROOOMMMM!!!  Lest you think this is a Hell's Angels reunion, it is surely not. (Although we did see some Hell's Angels from the 'France' chapter) This is show and tell for mostly Harley aficionados but is also a gathering of some of the most customized rides on the planet. There was so much chrome on some of these bikes they practically needed a trailer to lug it around. With a lot of "mine is bigger than yours" going around, testosterone was flying all over the place.

Why hold the event here?  Well it's a decent neighborhood for one and a great coastline to explore for another.

For the uninitiated like us, it was shocking to realize that these guys come from all over the world with their machines. From the US for instance, they rode or trucked they bikes to an east coast port, put it on a ship to the French coast, then rode, trucked or put their bikes on a train across France and pick them up locally for the show. They then cruise the Riviera or wherever till they do it all again to go back home.

Many are not just nice bikes, but serious pieces of art worth more than... well, anything I have. At night, to prevent theft or damage, some even store their rides in custom tractor trailers built to hold dozens of them. By now you can figure that the riders are not just a bunch of wild, long haired, dope crazed gang members out to rape and pillage. These guys are doctors, lawyers, bankers, businessmen (and women) who have the means to enjoy their passion. 

Fashionable and VERY friendly security officers ensure riders complete attention and cooperation.

While some might see them more as the skunk-at-the picnic, they generate a lot of money for the local economy and is a huge promo event for Harley Davidson. To that end, it is said that if there is ANY incident in a bar, restaurant or with any of the locals, the Harley reps swoop in with their checkbook and make it right, on the spot. They have a good thing going and like that they are welcomed back every year. I can't help but chuckle at how much effort they went to to make this as much of a 'California' experience as they could. US culture has a strong attraction. The highlight of the event is a 25 mile [40km] ride around the gulf of St Tropez. The roads are closed for almost two hours while the throng rides by onlookers who line the route.

 Incoming...

No sooner had island friends Ian and Lyne left last month that they returned with their friend Diane who was visiting them from Canada. They spent a few nights with us, then made the obligatory round trip to Monaco, followed by lunch in Italy for the day before returning back home to us.

Not to be outdone, long time California friends Ed and Marilyn followed, spending 5 days with us checking out our new digs, swilling wine and visiting this area for the first time. We always appreciate friends showing up to take us off the perpetual chain gang for a few days.

Ed and Marylin in St Tropez

Speaking of our digs, things got into serious gear with our continuing renovations, reaching the point where we  had the entire outside of the villa re-textured. It took them 4 weeks to do the deed, often 7 days a week, while plumbers and electricians were crawling all over the place. We currently have another outfit installing the heating and air conditioning units in the garden level of the villa. This by no means finishes the job, but clearly are big steps forward. We will do what we can before we leave.

With as much hiring of folks to do work for us as we have, both in California as well as here, you would think I have been slowing down and getting old. Balderdash! I am not, I am not, I am not! 

Why didn't I do the work myself? Because Janice refused to buy me a $20,000. compressor to do the job. It's my story and I am sticking to it.

The fact is that the big stuff has been done by contractors with the equipment and the crew to make it happen. We have mostly focused on the things that needed fixing, painting or removing. Hard to believe but that has kept us going non stop. What happened to the big plans to do the actual interior renovation of the garden level this year? 

Well, we have worked 8-10 hours a day for nearly 4 months and if there is one thing that I am notoriously poor at, it is estimating how long a task will take. I can figure all the steps in my head so it seems 'easy' to just do it. Generally, it is. But how long will it take?...anyone who knows me, knows I am clueless.

Was the property in poorer condition or more work  than we expected? No. It will just take more time than 'Mr.-I-can-do-it' planned. Rather than being bummed by the delay, we continue to be thrilled to have the opportunity.

Operation Dragoon

OK, it's time for our history lesson. You remember 'Operation Dragoon', right? Well, to refresh your memory, on August 15 1944, the beaches of Saint Tropez, Sainte Maxime and Les Issambres (where we live) were at the center of Operation Dragoon, the invasion and liberation of Southern France during World War II.  A US Delta Force from the 93rd Evac landed here to begin the liberation of the south of France. Just by the beach entrance to La Garonette, there is a memorial of the beach landing honoring the US troops. The sailing center is named La Batterie as it was the location of a German artillery battery.

Further to the east is the village San-Peïre Sur Mer where we get our daily bagette (bread). This is really the center of our town with shops, restaurants, hotels, a promenade, a village beach and a town square. Continuing eastwards there is a winding coastline with creeks, rocks and "calanques" (rocky inlets) one of which is at the bottom of our garden. There are numerous nature trails including a coastline trail leading to a 2000-year-old Roman fishpond nearby. Many private houses climb up the mountain hills. However virtually all buildings – including hotels – keep a low profile, to the contrary to locations further east on the French Riviera.

As I write this, we are two weeks from pulling up stakes and heading to the island. When we board the plane to arrive at the Bee on June 1, this place will be but a memory for the next 8 months. We don't look forward to the next place we are going to until we are on our way and we don't miss the place we just left until we return. You don't want to wish your life away. Where ever we are at at the time is the best of the bunch!

...Listen! 

Did you hear that? There is plane with my name on it calling me.  ;) 

April, 2016

See, we don't just work, we take time to goof around too.

For several years, I had written about the forge I spent endless hours at in our old village of Langoat in Brittany. The blacksmith there had taught me some rudimentary forging techniques and allowed me to putter at projects every year when we were there. This month, a friend told me that a film crew from Paris had come and shot a segment on him and his forge, as he is the last of a dying breed. I have posted pictures before but they do little justice to the medieval environment where I had the pleasure of transforming raw metal into something of use or beauty. It is a short but quite impressive clip and can be seen by clicking  HERE

Working with the master

This month I managed to get the doors to our 'wine cellar' up that I had forged a few years ago and brought with us when we moved. This is just inside our front door where there had been a closet of sorts that we converted into our wine cellar.

Mayday!

We woke up one morning last month to witness an impending ship wreck. A few sailors misjudged a raging storm in the Mediterranean and lost control of their sailboat. It landed up on the rocks below our garden and I rushed over to see if I could help. Fortunately, they had had gotten out on the rocks safely where their boat had beached itself before I arrived.

 

We spent the next 36 hours watching it getting pounded on the rocks mercilessly every 5 seconds or so by one wave after another. This now being an insurance issue, they had to decide if it was worth paying for a salvage operation or if it would be cheaper to write it off, destroy it in place and haul out the pieces. 

It was a little harder to get to than it looks in the picture because after the storm, the boat was high and dry on the rocks in a difficult place to access. Another first for us was to discover that after big storms we have to go around and wash all our windows as the sea spray leaves a coating of salt on all our windows.

What a problem to have...:)

 More of the usual

Month after month I write about our projects and the progress we think we are making in improving the home we are at. It would be easy to mistakenly think its always smooth sailing and that we really know what we are doing since in one way or another, we are always at it.

Time for a reality check. Take the plumbing I was doing earlier today for instance. I have done plumbing for decades. What you may not know, because I have never written about it, is the simple fact that I am no darn good at it. Friends that have helped me with other projects would be quick to point out, given the opportunity, that there are a number of other skills I am no darn good at either. But I digress.

You would think that doing something for decades would slowly improve your skill set. Balderdash! For me, plumbing has always involved 6 old bed sheets to sop up the inevitable ‘few drips’ as a result of my fixing things, and a whole slew of words I learned in prison. 

You would also think that at some point of being a dismal failure, you would throw in the towel (I could have used one of those too), but noooooo, I am nothing if not persistent. As I have told my kids many times, “half of success in life comes from just showing up”. I will not quit. I will try again. Maybe someday I will solder a joint that will not leak. Apparently, just not today.

Are we done yet?

In a word: no. But, we are almost ready to start! Hard to believe that we have been here over 3 months and having worked our buns off, we would be right on schedule, if this was February 1st. In these kinds of projects, the old axiom is that everything takes longer that expected, costs more than planned and is far more complicated than anticipated. This project is following that to a "T".

In January, I wrote about my building a poor man's workshop. This month saw it's completion. So here is how to build a workshop in 4 easy steps.

One of many building material deliveries made this month. Step one was getting the sand and gravel to make the cement.

Step  two: get a competent, knowledgeable  inspector on site.

Step 3: pour the stab, seal with black waterproofing (in background) and gather a little wood.

Step 4: simply assemble, tile interior, add finish and roof. Bingo, time for lunch.

Having come to grips with the fact that we will not come close to completing what we had planned and hoped to do this season, we have doubled down in ambition and pushed ahead with adding considerably more to the mix. We will focus on getting the ground floor of the villa, the exterior and the grounds in tip top shape, then do as much as we can on the lower level before we leave.

A little terrace tile

So, what's left to do? Well 770 sf (70 sm) of terrace tiling for one, 710 sf (64 sm) of Travertine stone tile for floors for another and another 330 sf (30 sm) of kitchen bathroom and assorted tile [not shown] in the living room and bedrooms, for starters.

Travertine stone floor tile

We'll need a few bags of tile adhesive to start...more to follow.

All this work doesn't just create a mess but at some point it begins to amount to something as seen in the pics below.

As always, all work / no play makes for boring grumpy people so we were fortunate enough to have Island friends Ian and Lyne drop by for a few days away from their French home in the medieval hamlet of AUDABIAC in the  Languedoc-Roussillon part of France to give us a break.

Full disclosure: I took ALL the pictures seen here this month. 
Eh... except for the good ones that Ian took.
When I have 7 picture books  published and I get a bunch of awards for my photography like him and spend what little remains of our children's inheritance on cameras and the like I will take great pictures too.

Picture Ian took from our terrace at night

March, 2016

Our garden goes down to the water

Life on the 43rd parallel

Shortly after we arrived, we noticed an issue that we had not anticipated. A good deal of the furniture we had moved from our home in Brittany was not appropriate to the region or the style of this home. Bummer, dude. We also realized that it was 12 years old and of rather 'entry level' quality, a practical requirement brought on from our initial purchase in Brittany, showing up in France with a suitcase each with the need to furnish and decorate a 4 bedroom house from A to Z, right down to the last knife, fork and spoon, and our meager budget at the time.

Brittany is a unique area and we chose to furnish in keeping with the regional style. That was all well and good but moving that stuff here was like moving a house full of Texas ranch style furniture to a New York Manhattan penthouse apartment. That longhorn wall ornament and cowhide sofas just ain't gonna work, if you know what I mean. Besides, we were due for more grownup furnishings anyway.

As we continued cleaning up the property, I found lots of half buried trash. Odd pieces of metal, part of a garden hose, a bicycle wheel, old fencing, plastic bags, broken pottery and even a 20 foot (7 M) aluminum sailboat mast which we are considering turning into a flagpole. Oh yeah, and an elephant skull.

Excuse me?

It seems that two owners previous to us was a South African lady who had a little voodoo action going, chanting to a black Madonna in a small crypt in the yard. She had apparently brought the skull over and kept it in the garden. Whatever gets you through the night, lady!

This is the first time I ever had part of an elephant in my back yard!

 
Another little treasure was pruning our cork Oak tree.  The bark is the cork that is used in making wine bottle corks. So, the next time you pop a cork, it might have come from our tree! Speaking of trees, we continued cutting, pruning and clearing the property as if we were homesteaders. Having a dumpster available nearby, I would pack it with branches. Janice and I then drew straws to see who would get to dumpster dive to crush all the branches to the bottom so we could keep packing more in. 

Janice lost, but by some form of logic I was not familiar with, this apparently meant that I 'won' the task of climbing in to do the nasty. Somehow, I still feel like I got had. Still, I filled a dumpster a day (we have daily city trash pickup here) for a month before a neighbor clued me into the fact that that was illegal and would shortly face the wrath of the local authorities in the form of a stiff fine. We shifted to plan 'B' and have been burning our daily harvest since.

Our first 2 months here were a blur of activity. We would work in any and all directions feeling like we were running just to stand in place. When 20 things are priority #1, you can do little more than pick up the thing nearest you, fix it, paint it or put it where it belongs. It feels disheartening because you have little or nothing to show for the effort. But, this is not our first rodeo. If you persevere and do what you can every day, at some point the pieces begin to fall into place.

Lately, we finally started feeling like we are getting somewhere. The guest bedroom on the ground level had an old cast iron radiator which I removed (there are 11 of them throughout to be taken out as they were disconnected years ago when the previous owner went to a modern heating system). This left an unsightly area  with a different texture on the wall behind them that could not be duplicated, plus pipes and supporting brackets sticking out which I cut off. This was an issue which simply couldn't be fixed as any patch would stand out like a sore thumb.

Guest bedroom wall where old style cast iron radiator was removed (AKA: before)

Ceramic tile with wood texture

Janice's solution was simple. She found an Italian ceramic tile with a wood look that is so life like you have to touch it to know it is not real wood. Even the texture is wood like with ridges and knots. Plus, unlike any tile I have ever seen, these pieces are not like square floor tiles  but they are 3' to 6 ' long (1-2m) and the width of a piece of wood, adding to the realism. Each room will have a feature of some sort, giving it its signature. This was room 1.  Box ticked... next! 

The headboard is olive tree wood which I made from a raw slab a friend was going to dispose of.

(After) with new windows

If you promise not to tell, I will let you in on a little secret. 30 years ago when we were building our house in California, we were facing a similar 'this can't be fixed' issue. I was installing a 9' (3m) hexagon shaped mirror on the kitchen ceiling in an alcove of sorts. (Janice refused to let me put it on our bedroom ceiling) The installation consisted of gluing the mirror to the ceiling with supporting framing while the glue dried. Unfortunately, I got a little enthusiastic in pressing it to the ceiling to ensure a good bond...and cracked a corner.

A quick decision had to be made to either take it down before the glue set or leave it up and figure out what to do about it later. We chose to leave it. Later, we utilized one of the fundamental principles of magic: hide it in plain sight. Janice placed thin copper tape that is used in soldering stained glass windows over the crack and created a few 'veins' around it. It looked better than ever! Everyone who has seen it since is none the wiser and loves it. To this day, the friend who helped, Janice and I are the only ones who have ever known. With you, that will now make 4.

This was the month we also had all the 10 remaining windows and 5 French doors replaced, plus a skylight added in the garden level kitchen.  

Out with the old...

...in with the new

Next, we got the ground level kitchen (new fridge, oven and dishwasher) and bathroom set up, and some of our bedroom. Last, we got the dining and living room in acceptable shape until we have the time to return and put the finishing touches on them. 

 

Ground floor bathroom

On the other hand, we have yet to really get into the business end of the lower garden level build. Not to say nothing has been done there. We had a 3 man crew here for over a week to rebuild the roof  over a bedroom and part of the kitchen, repair the roof over the main part of the villa, waterproof both terraces as they were leaking water into the rooms below and pour a new cement floor in the master bedroom on the garden level where I had jack hammered the tile out of it. 

"Hey! Where j'a put my roof?"

The floor was laid on a thin mortar bed so it all had to come out to re pour the cement floor and covered anew. I now get to re-tile both terraces and the bedroom, all 750sf (75 m2) of them.The bottom line is that there is so much construction going around here at the moment in so many areas that the place looks similar to the Syrian towns after Assad's troops have dropped a barrel bomb.

Our place under construction

Oppps, wrong picture. My bad. This is the tile removal. It's just that both pictures look so alike.

A rather fun find was being in line at our local grocery store and discovering that two of the postcards of the local area show our villa in them. One is a picture of the bay in front of our window, taken from the bottom of our property. The second is taken from a boat, facing the opposite direction showing the bay in front of our place with our home on the hill. Pretty cool!

We have started making friends and one couple in particular have been generous and helpful to a fault. In an attempt to reciprocate, we invited them to come visit us in California next fall. Three days later, they had their tickets in hand. Seems like the plans are a go!

All work and no play makes us cranky so we have made some time for visiting a bell foundry. They produce everything from the little table side bells to call the maid to the 9' (3M) church steeple bells. Very cool! Today, we were 'kidnapped' by new friends who took us to Dolceacqua, a medieval  town on the Italian border for lunch.

I know it sounds kind of exotic and well....hell's bells, it is! Driving past Cannes and Monaco to have lunch in Italy, visit a glass blowing  museum and return home for dinner is my idea of having more fun that we should be allowed to have.
 

Dolcheacqua

The 'streets' of Dolcheacqua

Is it legal to have this much fun? 

An apology  

It is quite likely that some time last month you got a request to add us to your Linkedin account. One of us (name withheld to protect the guilty)  got a request from someone to do the same which the guilty party in this case agreed to, in order to 'be nice'. This, unknowingly, sent the request out to all in our email address book.

We do not participate in Linkedin, Twitter or any of the dozens of sites that keep up with Lady Gaga, the Kardashians or allow us to send risky photos which will self destruct  30 seconds after you have seen them. 

We just wanted to apologize for this inadvertent boo-boo while I have reviewed our 'safe computing' practices with her. 
I mean the guilty party.