DIY in Segur

We arrived in Limoges with the specific aim of getting a phone connection. Armed with a map, marked with the location of France Telecom, we found our destination boarded up. Lucky for us the new location of France Telecom was detailed on the window. On arrival, we did our best with a little French and the staff with a little English, to identify the location of the house. Some problems arose when, according to France Telecom, 6 Jeanne d’Albret did not exist. This was strange news to us, given the house even came equipped with phone sockets… Upon further investigation that involved Karyn (our friendly France Telecom representative) calling our neighbours, friends, and the Segur tourism office, there was still no such address. It wasn’t until Karyn called the real estate agent that handled the sale, found out the names of the owners prior to those whom we bought the house from, and about a messy divorce settlement and the number of pets that once lived in the house, that the houses existence was established. Apparently we had the address wrong, and it was actually le Bourg (the centre). Karyn suggested we could “be just a little crazy” and maintain this le Bourge address if we wanted the telephone connected without France Telecom visiting… We encouraged the craziness.

Later, we were busy unpacking the house, when there was a very loud “bang” on the first floor. I heard “Oh oh oh” and then another bang that sounded as though all of the furniture had fallen over. After there was no answer from upstairs I ran up to investigate. I found Chris spread out on the floor and unconscious. Panic struck as I tried to revive him. He opened his eyes and had no memory of what had happened. He rubbed his head and it seems although he ducked going through the 5-foot high doorway into the study, he didn’t duck low enough.

Unlike our previous visits, the sun refused to shine this week in Segur. So we took it as a sign and spent three days on DIY. Activities included lifting the linoleum on the ground floor, scraping the sticky glue from the floor, removing a plaster wall, having a look in the ceiling, deconstructing an old shower found in the cellar and getting on the roof, just for a look. We found a shop selling futons and considered ourselves lucky that they agreed to deliver the futon, albeit in two weeks time. After deciding that we’d spent long enough on an air mattress with a slow leak, we hired a very large van and picked it up ourselves.

We were sorry to leave on Saturday, missing the Arnac-Pompadour annual donkey day at the racecourse, as well as the Segur le Chateau trout fishing competition.