TV

Two year later, and the time has come to tackle the kitchen. When we first bought the house, the kitchen was rather stuffed and rather a mess... see below... and the room changed very little, except it is now our stuff we use for cooking, washing and brewing tea.

We began by removing all the units and stripping the walls. The wallpapers that covered the walls were fantastic. They span about 50 years and we have kept bits from each.

This paper has a very 50s pattern and we found it difficult to rip off... more to do with the glue than our desire to keep the paper. After the paper, came the tiles, which only came off with the aid of power tools.

Once the paper was off, the walls looked rather intresting. We thought about using the colours and textures as a feature of the new kitchen. We did not paint the wall for ages, but eventually, Alan got up the scafolding and began to paint.

We went thought a few tubs of paint that seemed to do nothing before we discovered a 60 Euro tub that did wonders. The kitchen was a no go area for days and we turned the dining room into a tempary kitchen. It actually worked out as a nice space and if we could have plumbed in water and drainage, we would have made the room the permenant space for the kitchen.

Last year we had the kitchen chimney cleaned. This year it needed to be done again, but this time we got a great guy in who cleaned and sorted out the living-room and main bedroom chimneys too. The dining-room chimmey was harder to sort out. There were some metal pipes trapped and they needed to be removed before cleaning could comence. Alan got to work using the angle-grinder. The noise was impresive, but not nearly as impressive as the firework display. The snap below gives you a sense of the display (if a little blurred).

We hear that the bar in Cruzy will close at the end of the year. This is a real shame. Apparently the rugby team, who were the key patrons of the bar, have a new place to hang out. The venue is only open to its members... the rest of the village now have to travel to neighboring villages for a drink or stay home.

We were very excited about the bar when it first re-opened but opening hours were rather hard to keep a track of. Some nights the place would be heaving, others, like valentines, would find it closed. Rumours are rife in the village as to the fate of the bar, or more importantly, the licence. Once a licence leaves a village, it is very difficult for the village to get a new one.

With all that gloom, came a ray of sunshine.

The Terminus, the restaurant en route to Quarante has just re-opended. Again the rumour mill inform us that the owneres run a popular restaurant in Capestang. We look forward to eating within the village again.

The biggest news item this month for us has to be the arrival of television to the house. The satelite intaller came with his ladder and 3 hours later, we had a dish on the roof, cabeling down the side of the house and access to 300 channels. We have lived on a diet of DVDs and radio podcasts for two years which has been nice, but we always felt a little left behind when our friends talked about X-Factor, Desperate Housewives and CSI Miami. Well now we have them all... dubed into French. Our first night was spent watching a 3 hour verson of Fame Accademy, called Star Accademy here. Lots of song were sang and many comments were made, but best of all, the results were swift and the person we thought would win, did. Now all the channels are on French but some offer English subtitles and we have 4 English speaking news channels. Well worth the 22 Euros a month.