Yes, they had a pattern - but chose not to use it!
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Knit one purl rib!
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I was told shortly after I moved there that early one morning several years earlier, the public bowling green in the centre of town had been covered in frost!
However, I’ve encountered -10°C overnight in the Karoo, which is seriously cold, particularly when there’s no insulation and only a tin roof between you and the Milky Way. One night in a rented cottage (that I never rented again), I’d taken the mattress from the other bedroom and used it as a second duvet! The following morning, there wasn’t any frost, but rocks were frozen to the ground. Yet by noon, temps were in the low 20s
There’s a lot of places in SA where it can get really cold because of the altitude - Jo’burg’s nearly 6000 ft above sea level and in July 2007 I saw several inches of snow in the inner suburbs (Melrose. in case you’re wondering @John_Scully).
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A little bit off topic, but your story reminded me of an experience a few years ago when I went camping in the pyrenees with a girlfriend at the time. We wanted to go for a little adventure so set our sights on the pyrenees. We didn’t have any camping gear, but my mother kindly offered to lend us some ‘stuff’, which comprised of tent, folding table, camping stove, sleeping bags and an inflatable mattress. We didn’t unpack the ‘stuff’ before we left, and just bunged it in the car and set off, driving to somewhere near Font Romeu. I seem to remember it was some time in September. We arrived at the destination campsite. a glorious little place set in a stunning location surrounded by pine trees and a wonderful blue sky, and temperatures that made you feel comfortable in a t-shirt. We rocked up to our designated pitch, unfurled the tent, then looked at each other, not really knowing what to say. The tent was blue and yellow, a rather miniscule little ridge tent, with just a single layer i’e no flysheet, and it was just about long enough for us, but the width certainly didn’t accommodate the double mattress. Ummmmmm. After erecting the tent we did feel very conscious, with a couple of the neighbouring campers giving rather strange looks. Anyway, tent erected, we decided that, to get the needed mattress in, we’d only partially inflate it.
After hiking for the afternoon in glorious sun and blue sky we relaxed back at the camp, not sure what the night ahead would hold. A few glasses of wine and a good meal, we retired into the tent. My it was cosy, so much so that my girlfriend felt incredibly claustrophic and refused to have the tent opening closed.
Night time temperatures rapidly plummeted, and we endured cascading condensation falling from the inside surface of the tent. Sleeping bags were soaked, we were absolutely, and quite literally, freezing, and to make matters worse, we seemed to wallow on and off the partially inflated mattress like we were on a choppy sea.
I do like a good sleep, but that night, well, the sun came up, neither of us barely had a wink of sleep and felt frozen to the core. We decided the best plan was to get up and walk around the campsite to warm up. Nobody was awake except us, dressed like Mr and Mrs Michelin man and woman. We we eventually arrived back at ‘camp little tent’, sat at the camping table and had a coffee and basked in the early morning sun to thaw. We then saw a couple of the neighbours scraping ice off their car windscreens after they emerged from their toasty caravans! Then one of them said from afar, ‘I don’t think you do this too often do you’, to which we smiled. They must have thought wtf are these people doing.
I learned several lessons on that trip, but the most important were a)don’t be fooled by mountain weather and make sure you’re properly prepared and b)a bit like packing your own parachute, always check what you have before you set off and pack it yourself. After one night, we decided to leave the campsite, book into a nearby B&B. It wasn’t anything special but we felt we were in a palace in comparison, with a bed and warmth.
When I returned the camping ‘stuff’ to mum I regaled the experience to her and she then explained that she’d picked up the tent from Lidl in an offer. It turned out to be a kids tent and yes, it was truly Lidl! My camping experiences now, well, they couldn’t be more contrasting, thank the lord😁
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A mate in London said that ‘builder’s bum’ is ‘builder’s cleavage’ and to be polite, it’s ‘sourire de plombier’, for French builders. How true that is I don’t know, but it’s a more elegant turn of phrase.
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But I shouldn’t imagine the actual subject is any prettier…
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True, I agree, not a pretty sight…
While my garage and barn rooftop renovations were underway a friend who is au fait with building costs & property values, said he reckoned my other building, my old workshop + large rear garden + parking at the front, is worth 65,000 euros, and possibly more!
The builder who’s renovating my barn & garage roofs agreed and wanted to buy it for materials storage. I won’t be needing it once my garage and barn renovation is complete, so could sell it.
Will miss the large garden though, but keeping it shipshape is becoming harder as I get older, but I will still have my smaller front garden to the house.
I’ve looked at property values on the internet and yes, these old ateliers and garages are apparently in demand, difficult to find and expensive to buy.
If I sell, I will want to make as much as I can and wondered how best to go about it. My workshop is in a residential area (a house on either side), so would applying for residential planning permission be useful?
To save spending fees etc I would make the first point of call at your local mairie.They will have to decide if you can sell or transform for usage other than your own or for business purposes before it goes any higher down the chain of permissions etc. It would also be prudent to talk to the neighbours if they are in very close proximity, I for one would want to be informed if I were in their shoes, by you yourself. As for seperate buildings being worth something, we renovated our ruin of a barn behind the house and it added on €72k to the house value when I sold up, before that it was deemed worthless .
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I’ll definitely second @Shiba 's advice about the Mairie. What you can do with buildings on your land depends very much on the local plan. We have an interesting old building on our land which we would like to renovate and the Mairie was quite clear that it couldn’t possibly be residential. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t be in the future of course and we don’t particularly want it to be, but it could well help in facilitating your next steps
I’m a good neighbour and those who might be affected by the sale will be told, especially the couple who park on my workshop’s frontage, opposite their cottage. I would try to give them some sort of easement to remain, as they have nowhere else to park.
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Thanks, that is what I shall do before anything else. I need to know as much as possible before I proceed further.
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I have no doubt that you are a good neighbour but your nieghbours might think otherwise when the little used workshop becomes a builders yard and your builder wants to park his truck where your cottage nieghbours currently park their car.
Certainly if you can do without the workshop and garden and it is saleable then go for it.
However, I do have doubts on your thought of creating ab easement for parking to a third party.
You may be right and that is what I would try to prevent by getting residential planning permission, opening the possibility of converting the workshop into a house with large south facing back garden and plenty of parking at the front. But there’s a long way to go yet, and lots to think about.
Ideally, I’d like to sell my house, garage and barn and convert my workshop into a timber-built house on the existing steel frame, which is feasible, if I could afford it!
+1. When the builder owns it, and regardless of what permission it was sold with, things can then potentially be changed by the new owner next to you.
Obvs it becoming uncomfortably busy trade-accessed premises next to you would be a potential initially but things could be changed again by the new owner or any following owner later.
Looks like I was just in time to have my garage and barn re-roofed. Only finishing touches left to do.
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Not just roofing tiles but floor tiles as well in many places. I had to wait for several weeks for mine last year and the skirting ones were even longer
Well, I am pleased to say that the entrepreneur arranging/organising the renovation of the roofs and walls of both my garage and barn, has turned out to be a diamond. His final bill is less than the initial devis and I’m pleased with the work carried out. Big relief. At the bottom of his facture is written ‘Nettoyage du chantier à la fin des travaux’ - due some time next week.
And, he has offered to fix, himself, my very loose garden gate hinge, barely attached to its stone pillar, to fix the cracked/broken stone jambs where the kitchen window shutter hinges are coming away, and spray the moss he’d seen growing on the roof tiles of my house – at a petit prix no doubt - which I don’t mind - am very grateful.
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These days if anyone proposes doing some of the little jobs I leap at it! The small price is so worth not having to do it myself!!
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My garden gate hinge and the kitchen window shutter hinges I’ve been meaning to do for years, but knew in my heart of hearts they would never get done with my own hands…!
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