Jule's Hikoi: The bells

I don't need a clock here. I have the bells, the very best alarm clock as I lay there and count them. The best thing is they don't just chime once, they have a pause after the first time then go again just in case you miscounted. Apparently you're not late if you arrive on the second bells. That suits me. The bells belong to the Saint Gimer church, the new one. There's an amazing older version just down the road, 11th century. Saint Gimer is still a very active church with Sunday services where the bells go wild so no Sunday sleep ins, and there have been quite a few funerals lately. One I noticed had a young man standing on the steps with a very old piano accordion waiting for his relative to come out. One Jules thought yes, the church is open and met the coffin on it's way out. An embarrassing moment he has enough French to bow politely from. The bells are turned off at night thankfully.

We meet interesting people on our wanders, like the couple from the north of England I offered to take a photo of outside the church. We were carrying some bits to Andrea's van after a big day's work and were in our painting and stripping layers of paint off the stairway clothes. 'Do you live here?' she asked, probably on account of our clothing. Seems she's watched every A Place in the Sun and chateau renovation programme and was busting to be invited to see ours. So a guided tour was taken and she had some advice about the bathroom, as everyone does. Keep the basin and the tiles, the horrible peach basin ah nope. The tiles, yeah I was with her until quite recently but they both have to go so we can have a walk in shower and make better use of the space. A job for phase two. He loved the third floor study and it's view of la Cite, my favourite spot too.

We had a wine and a chat and it turns our our guest had been a forensic mortician for 30 plus years. We had quite a conversation about her work. Jules and her traded macabre tales from his time in the police. We often chat to people we find on our wanders and have made some good friends already, like Guy du Toit who is an amazing wood turner and artist has lived in New Zealand. And the couple we're meeting for lunch today Tania and John. Tania is an Aussie from Brisbane and John and Jules know each other from their work in Kosovo. A small world where they identified each other at a soiree we attended with Andrea.

Andrea drove us out to Rachel's soiree. Rachel has been here for ages and lives in the most beautiful village. She's a fix it up person, a tax and immigration consultant and author of my go to book Escape the Crazy or everything you need to know about emigrating to France. A must read and follow to get things done here, and I now have a signed copy. Bonus. Rachel is going to help us with the claiming insurance on the roof. Best done with the help of a fluent French speaker who knows the bureaucracy well. We're still waiting on permissions. Thankfully the roof held in the big storm we had recently with a bit of water on the tarpaulins and a few holes in the spouting from the huge hailstones. It was an enormous storm with one village and surrounds close by being hit by a tornado. Devastating and terrifying to watch.

We've made great progress the past few weeks with level 2 completed. Getting the toilet ready to paint and painting it was fun. Me perched up on a ladder wedged between the side walls precariously stretching to paint around the newly restored beams and the high ceiling. I'm getting quite good at painting and not making a mess and I love the satisfaction of the job done. We had a morning of cleaning yesterday clearing the wood and plaster dust from almost everywhere it is and cleaning the floor tiles. A big job, one we'll need to do again as we progress but it's clean for now. The kitchen is started with the utility room/butlers pantry relined on two walls and almost ready to plaster the others. Dan the tiler will come and tile that area then we'll move the giant fridge into its final spot and begin on the other part. The part with the proper kitchen going in. So exciting to be this far. The kitchen is chosen, the Smeg oven bought and the big decisions made.

I'm really enjoying living here. There's so much to do, like enjoying the music and activities of the Feria de Carcassonne. Four days of partying to the best music, like the Gypsy Kings and Gold. Dancing was done, as was enjoying the 10 euro pints of wine, yes pints served in plastic pint jugs with plastic cups. We may have had several too many and wobbly walks home a couple of the nights! We enjoyed our first dinner party at our place with Andrea and Gerry and Julie, lovely folks with so much in common, then onto the festival. A very entertaining and social evening. The best part, the whole festival was free so attended by local folks we had fun engaging with. Saturday and Sunday were more sedate with daytime activities like the string orchestra and flamingo dancing children at Place Carnot. And the rugby All Blacks versus South Africa at the Celt. The very best letting our hair down weekend, filling the fun cup to overflowing.