No turning back now

The house in Amstelveen was officially sold Friday about 14.30, so now we're really here to stay. Next we'll pay off the loan on this house, so it's all ours and we won't have any real debts. The reality of being here for good still hasn't set in -- we both still feel like we're on vacation, and the arrangement of the days is very vacation-like. Or maybe that's just the way it's going to be here.

Here's a photo, several days old, of Ed at work assembling one of the chairs we brought. You can appreciate the mess in the living room, perhaps:

Yesterday we got off to a late start, and went to the monthly foire in La Rochefoucauld shortly before it closed. The foire is a bit like a weekly or bi-weekly market, but with many more vendors and for all your household needs, shoes, garden supplies, yarn, mattresses, clothes (mostly granny-style), etc. We were too late to get to poke around a lot, and forgot the camera, so no pictures, but we did buy a smelly chunk of sheep cheese from the Pyrenees and some veggies.

After that, we had intended to go to Angoulême to look for a new bed, but ended up going home, lunching and piddling outside to enjoy the wonderful weather. Kaye potted most of the cuttings we brought from abandoned plants, while Ed burned the pile of cuttings and tore off part of the back wall of the shed (which needs replacing). Kaye even took some outside photos!

Here's the stable part of the house in the afternoon sun. Comparing to the older photo at the top of the blog, you might notice that the narrow window just below the peak is longer. Instead of the sill being shoulder height (on the inside, of couse ;-), it's now about waist height. Also, the multi-paned terrace doors have been replaced by single-paned double-glazed doors.

Here's a "side" view. You can see the small window that we added in the bedroom. Unfortunately, until we get rid of the hornets at the peak of the house, we have to keep this closed. The table and chairs were in the sun when we had lunch in the sun.

(We'll spare you the photos of the mushrooms in the log and the autumn crocuses blooming and the dying hydrangea blooms.)

While we were outside, the maire (mayor) dropped by to ask us to a lunch, Sunday week, for all the 60+ers in the commune. Sixty-plus! How can we be that old?

Another late start today. After lunch we went to Angoulême and bought ourselves a new double bed and mattress that will be delivered in two or three weeks. (We have only one set of sheets for the queen-sized bed that we're using, and find the bed too big.) We had a very nice salesman who didn't speak much English, but spoke French slowly and clearly so we could understand most of what he was saying. A minor success, we thought.

Next we went to a do-it-yourself shop to look (unsuccessfully) for materials to replace the back of the garden shed. Saturday is not a good day to be looking for this kind of thing, since the shops are very full. (Shopping on a non-weekend day is one of the pleasures of being "retired", if only we could remember.) Later we went to a Géant to do a bit of grocery shopping. Oh my, it felt just like a Target, only bigger! This is someplace we'll need to come once a month to stock up on whatnots. They had the biggest selection of fresh herbs we've seen, including coriander and dill, two favorites.

Ed was quite struck by being surrounded by French speakers all afternoon, feeling very alien. The same kind of feeling we had when we moved to The Netherlands. Kaye was quite pleased that we managed to buy a bed -- in French. She thinks she remembers that one of our first big purchases in Dutch was the bed and mattress that went to the dump just before we left. Same story, new location.