Hot, hot, hot...

A VERY hot day in Le Dorat! Apparently my street is boiling and airless in the summer and freezing cold with a wind to rival the mistral in the winter...




...according to my old French neighbours, who I sat out with this afternoon.


This morning I started on the shop window at 9 am, because I knew it would be too hot later.  And it was.  I gave the window a coat of cream, then did the back of the door and gave the front a third coat.  Should last longer than me now!

Then I sat and had my lunch and a cold drink (I love grapefruit sirop and cold water) and sat and finished this little baby hat.

Then I started another Attic 24 bag with the odds and ends of wool I had upstairs in the shop.


I was part-way through the base of that when my French neighbour invited me to sit by the side of the road with them.  (I thought they had a courtyard garden, but apparently not). She said (her name is Nicole) they often bring chairs outside and sit in the shade just down from the house.  They can see if anyone comes, or hear the telephone (and it did ring, too)!


We chatted for an hour or so (poor husband missed the match, which he wanted to see) as Nicole pleaded with him to stay and talk to us.  Not that he's very talkative, but he did stay - wasn't that sweet of him?  He's 80 something, and she's 73. He calls her 'ma petite' - though she's not so petite any more - and she calls him Coco, though I gather his name is Jacques. How I wish I had someone to love me and that I loved like that.  They have been married 56 years and both have lived in Le Dorat all their lives.

Painting the Door

I went into the shop today to paint the front door.  I had hoped to do the board above the front window too but by the time I got started it was much too hot - the window being in full sun in the afternoons.


I got some acrylic paint mixed in the morning, in Deco Lim in Bellac - ridiculously expensive but an amazing paint scheme!  I took the shade card and they zapped it into the machine electronically, which mixed up the identical paint.  How's that for technology!


I gave the front door two coats on the outside, and also its shutter...

I love the colour - a sort of pale greeny-duck egg.


Whilst in Bellac I went to Vetriano's and got my craft things that had been on display in the window.  I banged some nails in the shop beams and put some of them up...

...and displayed other bits on items in the shop window...

It's been a really hot day here, but I'm not complaining.  Paint dries in about 20 minutes!


I'm going over early tomorrow morning to paint the front window.  I have to do it on a Sunday, so that there is less risk of passing people peering in and having a cream line across their clothes! With my luck it'll probably rain!

Voodoo at the Shop

Not the black magic kind, but geraniums. They're called Voodoo...

 ... red petals with black centres and rather pretty.  I had two tubs made up to go outside the shop door and brighten the place up.

Chez Penny - the Sunshine Shop

Well, not exactly...


I had a rendezvous this morning at 9am with Luke, who had a little bit of work to do inside the roof of the shop, and is coming back later to see why water is dripping down a chimney that he capped off last year.  So I was there first thing, and opened up the shop.  The weather was sunny and the forecast was for a warm day.  However, the shop (like many of these old granite stone buildings with thick walls) has its own micro climate and it was freezing in there.  After lunch (a great vegetable lasagne from La Petite Fontaine) the sun had come round and it was warm outside, so I took a chair and my crochet (another Attic24 bag) on to the pavement and sat there with a mug of coffee.  Lovely!!!


Look carefully at this picture and you will see me...

...and here is the view to my left:

I'll certainly do it again - there was a lot of interest - some people slowed down as they passed in their cars, to get a look!

Window Dressing

Today the sun has shone!  At last!  And it's forecast to be good for the rest of the week too!


I decided to go and arrange the shop window...

First I moved a table so it was under the window...

... and then I found a pretty cloth for it and arranged a few things on it...

...and then a few more...

...and more again!

When there was no more room I put in another table and some other small furniture behind the window, but with room for customers (!) to pass between.

I also hung some things from a beam and I think it looked rather pretty when I'd finished!

Later in the week I'm hoping to take over my welsh dresser to display some more things, and get a plate rack up on the wall to display (it's all there in the name) plates.


Two lots of people came in to look round while I was there so I think maybe I'd better come up with a list of prices in case there's any chance of a sale!

Hearth and Home

It's been good to have Jason here this week - he has been a great help in the shop.  Yesterday he took down the bit of ceiling left by the builder who re-did the floor, and a dirty job it was too!

Here he is part of the way through...

...and here it is, finished!

It was the bit of ceiling under the hearth upstairs, and full of brick, stone and concrete!  Very hard to remove, and a dirty job.  This is what is upstairs...

It was extra difficult because the builder had boarded across it with the new floor upstairs, as you can see here...

... and it was only accessible from underneath.

He also removed the plasterboard from the underside of the stairs so we could see what the problem was with one of the steps, which had dropped.  Turns out it was that the support for the step has come out of the wall (was only in the plaster, it seems) so it will need to be repaired.


Tomorrow a builder is coming to have a good look.  Here's what the stairs look like from underneath...

...actually they look reasonably OK, so I'm hoping there's no major work to do!


Today I did almost nothing - only put some paint on the bit left up the stairs behind the handrail - but Jason painted the door shutter with undercoat again, put a couple of coats on the beam at the front of the shop, and some cosmetic work where bits of previous paint was 'bleeding through'.  No pictures, I'm afraid!

Pitter Patter Raindrops...

Yes, another rainy day in the Limousin! The morning - again - started out with sunshine. I got up early and was at the shop by 8.45 am. Unheard of for me!

I wanted to get some paint on the windows - and still be able to shut them in the evening, and I thought I might even (why did I even think it?) paint the outside of the shop front window... ...and the shutters on the side window, which have not been painted for hundreds of years, by the look of them.

Anyway, I had just put one coat of acrylic cream on one side of the shutters when - this happened...

...you can see the water pouring out of evenly-spaced holes along the guttering of the building across the street. My gutter was like this too, but I had it all replaced when the roof was done last year. So the water came down in massive drips - much harder than the rain itself (and that was pretty heavy) and bounced off the road... onto my paintwork. Ah well... c'est la vie!

Here's a view from the front door, looking across the road...

...the wall is the side of the senior school, which has its entrance in the square - Place Charles De Gaulle. I couldn't go out any further, or I would have been drenched. As it was, the water came in under the door and I ended up rolling up dusters and wadding them under the door. Oh for a sandbag... There was thunder and lightening as well as the rain, so I just carried on painting inside and drinking coffee.

I managed another coat on the stairs and the front and side windows have both had 3 coats, as has the stairs, which I think is enough, so the day wasn't really a washout - quite a lot achieved, actually.

Tomorrow evening Jason arrives for a few days, but I intend to go in and paint in the morning if the weather looks promising!

Chiselling Old Oak

Believe me, old oak is very hard! The inside window ledge in the shop is a big chunk of it and it must have been there a very long time. The big rectangular holes you can see in it are where another piece was joined with a traditional mortice and tenon joint.


The other piece had, at some stage, formed a kind of work counter, presumably where the shop owner made his umbrella or knife handles, or finished off the objects. By the time I bought the shop the 'counter' was falling down, as one of the supports had either rotted or been knocked away.

I have been using a bolster chisel and lump hammer today to remove the top layer of oak which looks horrible and is very uneven. I uncovered lots of screws and nails embedded in the ledge, but have not been able to remove all of them. I had hoped to end up with a nice flat surface I could paint but, because of those nails and screws, I think I may have to get a new piece laid on the top to make it a usable sill.

I gave the stairs another coat of the gloss, but they will still need at least one more!

So much still to be done!

I bought some acrylic exterior paint this morning, as I hate using the gloss and it takes so long to dry. It was expensive, but worth it, I think. I gave the little window a coat and it was dry in a few hours. I also managed to give the front window one coat, and I'll do some more tomorrow.

I had hoped to do some painting of the outside - like the door - but the weather was against me. Although the day started out warm and sunny, by lunchtime it had degenerated into thunder and lightning, which seems to have followed me home! As I write this the rain is pouring down, punctuated with thunder and the odd bolt of lightening. Think I'll just settle down with a nice glass of wine...

Magnolia Gloss

I took a tin of magnolia gloss to the shop today, to do some painting. It was quite sticky and I had to stir it for ages before it was all the same colour in the tin! I started with the side window because Nod was coming to take the wood from upstairs, so I couldn't do the stairs rail until after that.



I didn't think to look at how long it took to dry...

...and it said on the tin that it would be touch dry in 6 hours. 6HOURS!!!!! ...and, of course, I had to wash out the brush in white spirit. Which I hate. You shouldn't put the used white spirit into the drains, so disposing of it presents a bit of a problem.

Anyway, after Nod had been I put a coat on the stairs rail too - and at least that will have overnight to dry.


I'll wait till I have a full day (and a warm one) at the shop before I do the windows again! That's if I can ever open them again. I had to close them before the six hours...

Along with all that palaver, I noticed a wet patch on the ceiling...


...and it seems that rain is coming down the chimney (which is supposed to be completely capped off) into the hearth of the old Limousin fireplace above and running onto the floorboards there...

...and seeping into the plaster below. Now I have been wondering what to do with that bit of ceiling downstairs - as it looks awful, being the only bit of lathe and plaster left. Now I feel I must remove the hearth and get a waterproof plate put in the chimney. I can't get up on the roof as there is no access, to see why the capping off has not prevented this.

Removing the hearth is not an easy job either, as it involves working in a very confined space and removing some massive stones and a whole lot of mortar. I'm going to take in a chisel tomorrow and have another go...

...you can see some of the stones in the picture above.

Then, of course, I have to remove the lathe and plaster downstairs and I just KNOW that's going to create a whole load of mess... Maybe I'll wait till Jason's here at the weekend, and he can hold a bucket underneath or something!

Sofa so good...

Ouch - yes, I know it's corny...

Yesterday I bought an old sofa bed from a brocante in Rancon - a nearby village, and today it was delivered. I love it - it's perfect for the shop.

I reckon it's 1920s art deco design. You lift up the back and sort of pull out the inside to make the bed. There is even a little wooden board that matches the arms, that folds down over the end of the bed when it's all set up. Of course it's old and a bit dirty, and I made at least two big spiders homeless when I vacuumed it (actually they have a new home now - in the vacuum cleaner bag) but it'll be perfect for me to sit and knit or crochet on while waiting for customers, or to sink back on in exhaustion after a sudden rush!

Brocante at Chauvigny

I went back to Chauvigny today (there is a great market there on Saturdays) to take some pictures of a fabulous Brocante shop...

...inside it is crammed full of all sorts of treasures - but at a price!

If Chez Penny ended up looking like this I would be a very happy lady.

I have a mixture of brocante and hand-made items that I think would go very well together, and maybe my prices could be a little lower than I saw in Chauvigny. The first time I turned a label over (why are expensive things always displayed with the prices turned over?) I thought the price was in francs and not euros!

The Whiteness of White

Today I finished the walls of the shop. They are so white! Well, to be honest, there are are a few dodgy bits, but we won't speak about those... they'll be covered with furniture anyway!

Now it looks like this...

At about 4 o'clock an Irish guy walked in through the open door, and asked if I spoke English. I said I did and was, in fact, English. He asked if I had any trophies - cups and the like. I said no. He asked if I had any English furniture and I said sorry, no - I was only just setting up the shop (I was in the middle of painting the stairs wall and the shop was completely littered with all sorts of stuff - as you can see). He then asked about the French high chair that was standing there, and I explained what it was and how it made into a low chair and table.


He asked the price and seemed interested, so I asked if he would like to see how it converted. He said yes, so I took off my vinyl gloves. parked my paintbrush and showed him. He said I should have no trouble in selling it at that price, and asked if I had any hats...

Parsley, Sage Rosemary and Thyme

I have all of these in the garden, but the parsley has been attacked...

... parsley-stuffed rabbit, anyone?