Cooked dirt

click here for a slideshow!  (cliquer ici pour un diaporama)

(small note:  i have no idea what wordpress is trying to do with the photos but i’m irked that it’s giving you blue lines when it should give you thumbnails to click on.  so we’re trying slideshows via imageshack.  i hope it works better!)

Wahoo!  thanks to Aunty Izzy’s patronage and support, we were quite luckily able to call up Sylvain and ask him to drop by and put in the terra cotta tiles, which has been actively and passively giving me anxiety attacks (that’s a slight exaggeration, but not really, when you see the photos and read therein the delicatesse and skill involved in posing the terra cotta tiles).  So here for everyone far away is what it’s starting to look like:  Sylvain and Maxime did the office/laundry room/w.c. first, and tomorrow and Tuesday they’ll do the kitchen/living room.  We’ll pour the joints as well on Monday.  So far only the cats have walked on it, but they find it to be a delightful change from the sandy lime layer that we’ve been used to for the past six months or so… and I think, once we’re actually able to start gradually heating the coils underneath it, that I’ll join them on the floor for a nice nap in the sunshine.  Thank you Izzy for making this future nap a possibility.  Some notes:  first you have to wet the floor.  Then, put down a mixture of sand and lime, and then, make it all even and check the levels under the doors.  Then, you mark the reference line.  Then, you measure off a section and do three-tile thick rows, measuring the tiles amongst themselves as you go.  Before laying the tiles, you spread a thin layer of barbotine which is lime and water mixed together.  Then you tap the tiles into place and there’s a special sound they make when they adhere, that my ear is unable to distinguish.  Then you move down to the next row… and make cuts for the crooked bits around the edges of the room.  Then you let it dry a bit, (because the tiles soaked for 24 hours in a vat of water before they were laid), then you pour the joints.  Then you wait two weeks, then you clean them off and put on a special Josse product onto the floor (Josse are the kind people who made our terra cotta tiles, they’re located up north a bit on the coast at Plancoët).  And then you gradually bring the in-floor heating coils up to temperature.  And then you take a nap.)

[nb. je n'ai aucune idée pourquoi wordpress ne souhaite pas afficher les thumbnails, et je n'ai pas le temps d'évaluer le problème, donc j'exprime mes regrets publiquement et vous prie d'accepter mes excuses et espère que le diaporama vous apportera satisfaction.]

Grâce à la bienveillance de ma soeur nous avons pu re-inviter Sylvain Tirel et son équipe de venir poser les terres cuites.  Je suis ravie du resultat et peut-être encore plus ravie, si c’est possible, que ce sont eux qui ont fait la pose et non pas moi car il s’avère assez compliqué et pointilleuse et Sylvain, comme d’habitude, assure comme un maître car il en est un.  Les étapes:  faire tremper les terres cuites 24 heures dans un bac.  Faire un mélange de sable et chaux.  Mouiller la chape d’enrobage.  Verser le mélange chaux-sable dessus.  Niveler.  (hah).  Vérifier que les portes s’ouvreront toujours, et baser le niveau là-dessous.  Faire le trait de réference.  Etaler de la barbotine. Travaillant sur des planches, poser les terres cuites, en tapant dessus avec un maillet en caoutchouc, jusqu’au moment où ca fait le bruit que ca fait quand ca adhère.  Prendre les mésures pour vérifier que les espacements sont bons.  (Les terres cuites étant un produit naturel il existe des subtiles variations de taille).  Ensuite laisser sécher un peu, ensuite couler les joints, attendre deux semaines environ, les nettoyer, étaler le produit Josse qui va bien dessus pour les protéger, ensuite mettre la dalle en chauffe, ensuite faire une grande sieste là-dessus.)

Neighborhood weekend

We have really great neighbors, in case i’ve not made it clear through preceding posts in this little blog.  Here are some older pictures back when Izzy and Tiny Mo were here visiting, of two great treats:  spending a great lunchtime with Généviève, Reynaud, Renan, Estelle, Tristan, Pierre-Marie and the daims across the meadow at the Châlet, where we ate an enormous brochet caught that very same day in the small étang where the American soldiers swam after Libération and saw a great oak tree with five trunks… and then M. Honoré came by with a basket of chantrelles, the first ones of the season, and gave us some, and they were delicious, and then the following Saturday, a wonderful Official birthday party for Sandra, where we got to meet most of her family, and Jean-Luc’s too, and lots of their good friends.  The theme of the party was ‘blague de miam’ or ‘food jokes’ – there was of course nutria caught by François, and a great bright-green spread for bread made of ground green peas and mint, sweet crêpes with goat cheese and scallions, and other barbecued things and we made some chocolate peanut butter balls, hoping to present people with a bit of americana.  The next day Jean-Luc’s mama made homemade french fries and Izzy was in rapture.  The pictures are not wonderful because i was having a bit of work stress but the moments themselves, were.

Electricity!

Our house is now wired!  That is, we have now at least one working plug, and one working light switch and lots of electrical housings running across the floor upstairs, and a genuine Swedish/Swiss fusebox!  Gaël and Romain got us plugged in, just before Izzy and Tiny Mo came, and it makes things feel just a bit more like home to actually have light.

SprengerTag

(Afin de voir les images, il faut cliquer sur les toutes petites lignes bleues, les ‘fingernail clippings’, car WordPress et le mac ont visiblement des incompatibilités).  In order to see the pictures, you have to click on the little blue lines, wordpress and the mac are evidently preferring to give us fingernail clippings rather than thumbnails again).

Nous sommes allés en Suisse le weekend dernier pour la dernière épisode de Sprenger Tag, la fête rendu possible par un ailleul Suisse, Herr Sprenger, un pharmacien de Neftenbach, qui a légué à ses antecédents, une fête une fois par an pour réunir la famille.  Iris et Paul Sprenger-Trachsler étaient nos hôtes et nous y avons rétrouvé Jay Sprenger, le cousin de ma mère, l’homme qui a découvert la branche Suisse de la famille en allant frapper sur une porte à Neftenbach il y a une vingtaine d’années.  Iris et Paul nous ont gâtés avec d’excellents repas, une chouette découverte d’une école primaire récemment construite dans leur quartier, et une tasse qui fait ‘mooooo’ et devient alors le bonheur de nos jours ici au Maffay.  Le programme de Sprenger Tag était:  Zoo, Château des chevaliers de l’ordre de St Jean et de Malte, excellent déjeuner, promenade autour du Zurichsee près de Rapperswill, ensuite une promenade en bâteau avec sandwiches et gâteaux… C’était trop court, mais un si bon weekend.

Last weekend we went down to Zurich for Sprenger Tag, the yearly family reunion that is the gift to future generations of Sprengers on behalf of Herr Sprenger, a pharmacist from Neftenbach, who gave us this wonderful heritage in his will.  We were the guests of Iris and Paul Sprenger-Trachsler, who welcomed us as always with great meals (chinese fondue for Jay’s birthday dinner, a low-temperature veal roast another night, so tender, perfect breakfasts, and a toast with Champus, the Hansueli and Maya Sprenger’s Heureutihof champagne), a cool toy collection gathered throughout Jan and Anja’s childhood, and chocolates and a great mug that says Mooooo when you pick it up.  Uncle Jay was there too:  he’s the one who brought the Swiss and American branches of the family back together by knocking on a door in Neftenback about 18 years ago.  This weekend we learned that Ovomaltine is Swiss, and that walnut trees bear more fruit in years that boys are born.  (Which is true at Maffay:  Klara is born this year, and the walnut tree has about 3 walnuts on it).  We visited a very cool new primary school that has just been built in their neighborhood, and went out salsa dancing with Anja too!  The next day was Sprenger Tag: first; the zoo, with Daniela, Loris, Luca and Robin,

then, onto the bus over the hill to a knight’s castle, home of the Knights of Malta and St John, for a delightful meal and a visit of the museum of knighthood (knightery?  knightdom?) and the mission for conquest of the holy land.  Then back on the bus, over more hills down to the Zurichsee, where we walked along the lake over a wooden pathway along the shore, to Rapperswill, where we caught a boat and had an afternoon snack and great cake as we cruised back down to Meilen.  Basically you spend the day talking to great people, laughing, eating, drinking nice wine, discovering parts of Switzerland, riding on buses, and eating some more, and feeling very happy about your family origins. 

It was much too short, and we didn’t want to leave but the train wouldn’t wait, so we had to go (with an ailing Gabriel pushed by Paul as we caught the s-bahn early in the morning).

Viva SprengerTag!

Chizzelin’ Iz

Just one more:  i hadn’t transferred over these pictures, which demonstrate a kick-patootie chiseling technique, evidence of a far-off woodworking gene in the Sprenger/Boyer gene pool.  Isabella picked up the chisel as though it were, uh, a violin.  Or a pair of flower shears.  She is partly responsible for the creation of Gabriel’s bed, out of solid chestnut posts and planks.  We adapted Simon’s Fancy Sawing Technique® to allow her complete liberty to flaunt her skills.

My great little sister

I love my little sister Isabella and I wish that everyone could know exactly how wonderful she is, but no one probably ever will.  But I’ll try to make her famous:  she’s chizzelin’ Iz, the washing-machine queen, and yes, that is her, pregnant and surrounded by a horde of hungry children, in a messy mobile home, but she’s wearing her shoes. 

No one is better than Izzy at holding down pieces of wood as we play around with the new circular saw, and Simon’s Fancy Sawing technique, to make Gabriel’s mezzanine bed out of the chestnut posts we brought back from the sawmill.  She deserves all the chocolate brioche from les Jardins d’orgères that she every should desire, and one of my life goals is to figure out how to make them so that she and FG cynthia will live happily ever after.

And there’s a funny little story about Aunty Izzy visiting the goats, which gave rise to the following photo:  as we were walking away from the goat barn, she said, “And so they milk the boy goats and the girl goats together?”.  I think i said something like, nah, the boys, they milk them separately and it makes them really happy, and perhaps something snide about californians coming to the country, and that’s what prompted this shot.

When are you coming back to Maffay?

To bring us Mac and Cheese?

and hang doors, and frame walls, and build mezzanine beds, and put up wood panelling?  All without breaking her nails, and maintaining a better sense of humor and logic than i could ever dream of?

Premier jour de l’école (back to school)

Tiny Mo, qui n’est pas allé, Gabriel, Dorine et Noémie, le premier jour d’école le 2 septembre 2008.

Tiny Mo comes to Maffay

We have had an amazing year.  And a most singular early september:  Tiny Mo and his mama, my little sister Isabella, came to Maffay to put order into our lives and get the house ready to move in.  And it was one of those visits like the visits we’ve had so far this year:  where you truly see the people who have come to be with you in the sort of squalid living conditions at present, and they surpass the high esteem in which you already viewed them, and their generosity and good humor changes the way the world looks.  It was the same for Grandma Sally, Carolyn and Wich, Paul and Joycie, and now, Aunty Izzy and Tiny Mo.  Those of you who “visit” by mail are equally important to helping us keep up morale.

But hearing Tiny Mo call for Cip-da-dip and run around after Gabriel, and Aunty Izzy’s chiseling and laundry management tactics have made us realize how truly blessed we are, to have been able to spend this time with them.  As always it went too fast, because we were always laughing, that kind of laughter that you can only have with someone with whom you’ve grown up and will grow older with, bouncing off each other’s lives and making dents and shining up rough spots, as they have for us.  I only hope that we can help out Tiny Mo and Aunty Izzy and little soon to be nascent Luca Paul and their papa Big Mo, someday, as they helped us out these past 10 days.  We love you, thank you, please come back soon to your home at Maffay.