Green-Acres, or are they.

Now for a series of past romances. Houses that were a coup-de-coeur, but that we did not or could not acquire. But first a bit about Green-Acres.

www.green-acres.com is a really nice website if you are looking for a house abroad. Type in your budget, desired amount of land, possibly a region, and use the advanced search for more criteria. An omission is that you cannot combine a keyword and a budget, so you cannot search for "watermill" with a certain budget only. I tried to contact them about that, to no avail.

Store your search as an email alert, and you'll be occupied with your new hobby for a while each day, or each week.

Anyway, if you have found an interesting advert, it gets, ehh.. interesting. The pages offer "Contact the seller", where you can enter your personalia, and a message asking for information. The site is in English, but probably the estate agent behind the advert is not. Best send messages in both English and French. Google Translate is your friend, but beware that you need to check very well what it makes of your intentions. Always make copious use of "monsieur" ou "madame", and end letters gracefully with a "bien cordialement", or something similar. Being civilized in writing helps. How things are in real life may be another matter...

Don't be disappointed if you do not get a reply. In my experience you are lucky if a quarter of your inquiries actually get a response. There are a few reasons for that. One reason is that a house in France may be for sale at the same time by a number of estate agents, while in The Netherlands you have a contract with just one estate agent. So, in France estate agents are each other's competitors, and they all fear that their colleague will sell the house, and earn the fee. Or, that you will locate the actual owner, and buy the house off of him, and not pay any fee. One of the consequences is that adverts never tell you the exact location of a property. Worse, sometimes they will lie away 25 kilometers or more.

If you are in another country, and want to know if a house is suitable for you, and want to know the ins and outs before visiting you are in for an interesting ride. Do find the exact location of a house, not only do they lie about location, but a "havre de paix" and "cadre verdoyant" or even "bucolique" may have an open mine, Route National, a sewage processing plant, or a motocross within smelling and hearing distance. Google Maps, Google Earth (application for Mac, Windows, iOS) and Bing Maps are useful, and each have their own merit.

At the same time, French estate agents seem not to like prospective customers that are far away. It may be that they are foreign, or even worse: Dutch. And those types always want to know the location of a house, you know. And they ask all kinds of questions. Very tiresome. It can also be their experience is that more local sells better. Which is understandable, too.

Some people, on a certain forum, tell you that you first need to become French with the French. Convince them you are good for their family home. And then, perhaps, they will let go of their ancient heritage, and probably at a better price than you would have expected. Maybe that is true sometimes. But in love, war, and selling houses everything seems to be allowed. So beware. In the end it is a quite mundane business transaction where a pile of stones exchanges hands for a lot of money. And where a lot of money is involved morals shift. Be suspicious. Be very suspicious. And don't drink too much pastis with the owner. He might be better at it.

Here are a few tips for locating a property:

• See if you can find the house on holiday rental sites. Many houses are rented out to make them pay for themselves a bit. And location and directions are a lot less secret on rental sites, and they usually have a lot more photos.
  
• Google Maps is very good for quick searches. Switch between map and aerial view to find the house. Street View is brilliant to see if it really is the house you are after, and to see the environment. Sometimes the Street View images taken a year or more ago already have the "A Vendre" sign, which is a clue to you the house has been for sale a while already.
  
• Google Earth (PRO) is good if you know that a property is x km from another place and y km from another place. Draw circles on the map, and you have a smaller area to investigate.
  
• Once you have located your property use Bing maps for a better aerial view, using the "birds eye view", and select the "detailed look". The aerial photos there a much better than Google's. Bing Maps is useless for searching.
• The aerial photos of the various map sites are NOT updated very regularly. Beware that in the mean time that open mine, that route national, or that sewage plant may have been constructed, or a hi-speed rail connection planned near or over your prospective habitation. 
  
• Often adverts will tell you a property is x minutes from a certain motorway. Assume each km is a minute, and you have a distance. If they say it is located between A and B, have Google Maps calculate a route, and see if you can locate a plausible location.
  
• If the advert has a photo of the house with a satellite dish: that always faces south.
  
• Look at the colour and texture of the roof, and the shape of the house, then fly across the area with Google Maps in "earth" mode, or with Google Earth.
  
• Mills and houses near rivers: see if you can locate a river in the area. Google Maps shows rivers in blue on the map, unfortunately in "earth" mode the rivers aren't clear, but if you switch to and fro you will find them.
  
• If estate agents do not respond: copy a bit of the advert text that has some defining criteria, and simply look it up with Google.

  "Located just a short drive from vibrant Montpellier and the Mediterranean Sea, this authentic Templar watermill will take you back in time.."

  You will find the same advert text, but with different estate agents. They all use the same text you know.
  
• In general: English estate agents are a lot more forthcoming with information than French ones.
  
• You can always ask the estate agent if you signing a "bon de visite" will help them tell you the location of a house. It is a statement that the estate agent has shown you the house, and a reassurement that if you buy the house he will receive the fee. 
  
• Write in French, don't assume the estate agent is or has someone who can speak another language, unless they tell you they do.
  
• Do not go and visit just with the info from the advert. 
  
• Be absolutely sure a house is still available, websites have many properties still listed that were already sold a year ago.
  
• Do look a bit above your actual budget: sometimes a house that you love is above your budget for a long while, and you won't see it. Then it sometimes has a price drop so it could fit your budget. If that happens you need to act faster, as it will get attention form a lot more prospective buyers, and might get sold quickly. Which is, after all, exactly the intention of price drops.

Following this entry will be a series of romances past, that were never to be. Coup-de-coeurs that died before flowering, some still haunting passionate dreams...

Mejillónes

While "we" are proud of our Dutch moules de Zélande, we always thought mussels in France tasted a lot better. More like the sea, more like seaweed and iodine. More... tasty. Because of the Mediterranean Sea? Well, these Spanish ones are absolutely yummie.

And, let's face it, size does matter, darlings.

Yes, this is a BIG plate. One kilo of these feeds two.

Zoomba here, Zoomba there, Zoomba nowhere to be found

Can you spot Zoomba?

Well done.

Zoomba has had a really terrific week. Chasing one cat into a telephone pole, another into a fig tree, and yet another into an orange tree. And she's really impressed the neighbour dogs with her barking. Also, running wild in artichoke fields is great fun, as is doing acrobatic stunts on the edge of the water reservoir.

We saw her attempting to jump over a fence from the very edge of the 4 meters deep empty water reservoir, and barely succeeding (path A). Had she failed she could have ended up 4 meters down. Don't be mistaken, this basin is four meters deep. I widened the opening in the fence, so I hope Zoomba will now take path B instead of A. Also, the old blinds should help her recognise the open opening.. No, closing off that opening is no use, she can reach the edge from all directions. And try to stop this dog when she has something on her mind. Dogs tend to become alike their caretakers, indeed.

There is not much traffic here, but Spanish people are not careful drivers, and Spanish dogs are not careful dogs. A possibly lethal combination that we need to counter with a) installing a fence b) a GPS Zoomba-tracker.

This was Thursday, our last day, and lunch time, also for dogs. We needed to leave around 4. But, no Zoomba.

"Hay un pequeño perro marrón?" - "no."

"Have you seen our dog?" - "No, but I'll take the car and look near the village", said our very nice neighbour.

Where can she be? Hopefully she did not run along the road back to where we saw those rabbits, yesterday? Argh!

No Panic!

One o'clock, no Zoomba. ("We'll tie you up in the house and...")

Half past One. An exhausted doggy, tongue twice as long as normal, and she's hungry.

Relief!

Better call off the search party... Where's my iPhone? God, how do you dial numbers here with Bliep? No caller id? Now what? Apparently I have to accept that call, and then there's a connection. Is that modern technology? grmbl.

Back home quickly finish the ZoombaTracker..!

Damn Damp

We needed to take measures against damp and humidity, as described in Zoomba part 9: "Home". Even if the house is in a dry climate, after a few months with windows and shutters closed, it is far too humid inside.

The first time we visited, after three months, we had no electricity: the RCD refused to operate. But, even with every group switched off, it still switched off when operating the main switch. Probably due to a damp RCD, after a few days ventilating the power came back. This time, last week, it was humid again in the house, with mould on a table and stairs...

I looked at a SolarVenti system, but deemed it too expensive, especially for the size needed for this house. And installation is too much work. Also, I wonder if it makes sense to blow "slightly" warmed up air into the house: the water vapour is not actually removed from the air. What is good is that it operates only when the sun is shining, and the outside air already is, relatively, dryer.

We installed this system . It is a small solar panel, and a 12V ventilator, that is supposed to be able to blow 60 m3 per hour. The idea is that it only operates when the sun is shining, and it (thus) is warmer and dryer outside. With a capacity of 60 m3 / h the air in the kitchen should, theoretically, be refreshed a few times a day. We'll know in a few months if it really worked.

I'm not a complete fan (haha!) of this system, though: the panel itself is a bit clumsily made. Just to be sure I aluminium-taped a few holes in the frame. Same for the connector box at the backside, as that is not watertight at all. Also, there is no provision for low-light conditions. If there is not enough sun to run the fan it just sits there, buzzing a bit. They could have added a bit of electronics shutting off the power to the fan when that happens. You are better off buying the components separately, too. The panel is 25 € separately, this system is 99 €.

The house has another damp problem: a humid cellar. I think that much of the dampness there is the result of condensed water vapour, as every bit of air entering the cellar by the entrance loses it's water in the cellar, which only gets wetter. The entrance is now closed off, so at least no damp air rises from there. I intend to install a metal pipe inside the cellar for ventilation, so all air entering the celler via that pipe is cooled off, and loses it's water. The water will be captured and thrown into the garden. We'll see if that will work, too!

Painting the terrace

The terrace is on top of a workshop. You can see it's a bit cracked, but nothing to worry about. Well, one thing: it's not exactly waterproof. Or better said: it's exactly not waterproof. It leaks. Like a leaking sieve with a hole.

And it does rain here. Oh yes it does. And it has, apparently. The workshop is as humid and wet as a tropical greenhouse, with droplets hanging onto the ceiling. Not good. Best not touch the electrics here (switched off).

What to do about this. Cover the terrace with a thick plastic foil? Ceramic tiles? A layer of waterproof cement? We have a week...

Well, a guy at the local warehouse had another idea: a special paint everyone here uses on terraces. The tub says "terrazas", and, "impermeabilizante", and "elastico". So it must be good.

"¿How much do we need?", we asked the Spanish shop guy. This terrace is about 60m2. 4 liters? Very good, we'll start with that.

But first the cracks need filling. A packet of 1.5 kilo cement-y stuff for exterior purposes should do the trick. A few hours later another packet was fetched. Even with added sand this terrace eats it up faster than imagined. But, after a day's hard work it's done. Paint tomorrow!

Well, painting a cemented surface with this thick paint is hard work. After a few square meters it was clear this was not the way to go. The instructions, fortunately, mentioned that you can "dilute this paint 50% with water" for the first few layers, in case you have an absorbent surface, or loose stuff. We did have an absorbent surface with loose stuff.

What is "50% dilution", actually? And no, it is not half paint half water, as we quickly found out. Off to the shop for another two tubs, one to un-dilute our now far too diluted paint, one for the final coat. Only one of our "riojo ", and one tub of "riojo teja" were left in stock. Is that red too? Should be. It was not. Riojo teja is a very yellow-red color, while our red is a red-red color. Well, alright for the undercoat.

But we'll need to do a few more coats. Quite a few more coats. Even though this paint is "elastico", it can not withstand the grit this coarse cement layer releases. While rolling-on the paint grit of a few millimeters is loosened, and stuck onto the paint. Then, when dry and you walk over it, it loosens again, damaging the new surface.

Not nice.

So, that meant crubbing the surface with gloved hands, and using our new vacuum cleaner to remove the grit... And again. And again. Three 50% diluted covers were necessary until we were reasonably satisfied.

By this time both we, and the shop, were out of 4-liter tubs of red paint.

BUT! While looking around desperately, it appeared there are 15-liter tubs too. Saved!

The result after applying the final thick "peanut butter sandwich" coat!

We now have half the 15-liter tub left, which we'll use for another coat, in May.

The label on the can specifies "1.5 liters / m2", which we dismissed as an error at first. But, it probably is right by the time we really finish.

Lighting a fire

Lighting a fire is a man's job. And he's supposed to be good at it, so the whole family can enjoy a warm fire.

We, on the other hand, are failures. We managed to burn two packets of 24 firelighter cubes in a week, while the average lighting time of a decent fire was about an hour and a half, with an extreme of two hours and a quarter.



↑ Here you can see what a burning cube looks like.

Firelighter cubes burn quite impressively, actually. They should make them bigger, like log size.

Broad beans in January

Broad beans. In January. As you do. Shelled in the sun, 20°. Life is good. If you like broad beans, that is.