A week gone by

Last Friday we picked up our new fuel heater. While putting it in place, Ed used the opportunity to clean the chimney and made quite a sooty mess. (Lydia walked through the soot at some point, and we found kitty footprints in the shower.) The old and new heaters are exactly the same dimensions and look very similar, but the new one has a "decorative" plaque on the front.

We keep a skillet and a pot on the hot stove, to discourage Lydia from trying out this nice warm place. We think you should be able to keep a pot of stew or soup simmering on the the poêle, so we'll try this soon. On Saturday we took the old heater, along with more empty cardboard boxes, to the dump.

We've started on the processes for moving our health insurance and car registration to France. Lots of paperwork. We hope we can get our new car plates before the end of the year. After that the departement number will no longer be a part of the license number, as if the individual state license tags were replaced by national US plates.

Tuesday evening we drove to Limoges to pick up Kaye's graduate school friend, Jody, who had just been to the annual Slow Food conference, Terra Madre, in Turin. The weather had been fantastic for the last week, but turned cold and rainy since her arrival. We had a sunny walk on Wednesday morning, and shopped in the afternoon as the rainclouds came in. In the night there was sleet, and there was frost on the pumpkins Thursday morning.

Wednesday morning, the postman rang the doorbell to deliver a package, a hoopoe nest box and a (very small) bat box from the Ligue pour la Protection des Oiseaux. He was much younger than we expected, and didn't fit our image of M. La Poste at all. We think he wanted to see just who was getting all the mail.

Wednesday night, the air mattress sprang a leak again, in protest against its coming replacement, we suppose. We pumped it up, but it quickly went flat again so we spent much of the night folded up in a V with our bottoms touching the ground with just enough air to lift our feet and heads. Ed may try to patch the mattress again, but there's no hurry right now. (Jody is sleeping on the queen-sized mattress from the old bed.) Thursday afternoon the new bed arrived, sans headboard (which will arrive at the end of November).

Lydia was very stressed out by the changes. First, a stranger, albeit a very cat-friendly one, in the house. Then, the air mattress, one of her comfort spots, disappeared. And then another strange person brought in the new bed, disturbing the tranquility and order of her bedroom. The new bed is lovely to sleep on, but it's a bit higher than our previous beds. Poor Lydia seems to crash to the ground when she jumps off. We haven't seen exactly what happens yet, but it sound like she's falling as she hits the ground. We hope she'll get the hang of it soon.

After the bed was delivered, we went to the dépôt-vente and bought the china cabinet that we both liked. It's price had been reduced in the last week, so we knew it was just for us. (We decided against the second cabinet, so we'll continue looking for something we can use for towels.) The china cabinet was delivered this afternoon, and our old queen-sized bed (not the mattress) went away to be sold. It won't make a lot of money, but it's out of the house now. (There's no Freecycle group in this area -- yet.)

The style is rather similar to the little cabinet we had under MeMama's mirror by the terrace door in Amstelveen. It has a pink marble countertop and beveled glass mirror behind. We'll replace the pebble glass in the doors with plain glass. We're feeling quite proud as this is probably the biggest, nicest piece of furniture we've ever owned, excepting the piano, of course. It will make a nice home for our grandmothers' dinner services. With the cabinet in place, you begin to get a sense of how the room will feel when it is no longer a construction area. (That's the glass brick window to the right, with pots of cuttings from Amstelveen house plants.)

Friday morning, we had an unexpected sunny spell and took a nice walk in the area. No one thought to bring a camera unfortunately, as there were lots and lots of different mushrooms out. We brought home a handful of sorrel for our salad. Kaye will go back in the next days, trowel in hand, to bring some plants back to start the garden.