A Bathtub in Our Kitchen

A Bathtub in Our Kitchen

Robert W. Martin

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Version 2.0 ©2025

Linear Road Press

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First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Linear Road Press

Robert William Martin has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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In memory of my mother,

who instilled in me a love for the written word.

Preface

Prior to writing the first book, I had no idea that a bathtub would become such a central feature. As there was very little literature in English regarding the region of Sologne, I initially intended to simply introduce readers to this area; something along the lines of A Year in Sologne. However, as the first year progressed, my perspective changed. Because the ancient farmhouse into which we had moved lacked even the most basic of amenities, the focus switched from the region itself to a more personal goal; achieving the luxury of an indoor bathroom.

However, due to other priorities (including being as self-sufficient as possible, as cheaply as possible) the construction of a bathroom took a lot longer than we thought.

Because we sold our house in the UK during a buyers’ market, we did not have pots of money to lavishly spend on upgrading our home. To save money, every improvement to the house has been done by my wife and I; although the occasional assistance from a distant neighbour was sometimes necessary!

As well as the upgrading of the building itself, the aged Father-in-law (FIL for short) was another problem with which we had to cope. He is bedridden; this was one of the reasons for us moving to France. Fortunately the property has two houses – we would not have moved to France at all if we had had to live with him in the same house! To say he is a difficult character would be an understatement. As to why he’s bedridden – it started off by being a psychological problem. He’s not that old – only 78. You see, he’s not very steady on his legs, due to an accident with a piece of earthmoving equipment. Before we came to France, he contracted a stomach bug. Because food was making him ill, he decided to stop eating. Of course this meant he became quite weak, and when he fell over in the kitchen, he found he couldn’t get up again. He spent the winter’s night on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, and was found the following morning by M&O (the chief hunter and his wife). After several weeks in hospital, he returned home – this was shortly after we moved here. Since then, his fear of falling over meant he decided to stay in bed. Of course, the more he stays in bed, the weaker he becomes. So the problem is now physical as well.

Our first experience with the legendary French bureaucracy came when we re-registered our vehicles in France. Since then, we know what to expect as far as paperwork is concerned. Although I can now read French, and carry out a conversation – albeit with horribly mangled grammar – my form-filling skills are far from satisfactory. So this added burden falls on my wife, LSS (Long-Suffering Spouse).

By the end of the first year, several stages of the renovation project had been completed. The house had gutters, which diverted rainwater into large holding tanks. We had a borehole and clean water on tap in the kitchen. A thermal store had been constructed ready to provide hot water for the household via a boiler stove. The electrical wiring had been upgraded and was now compliant with modern standards – and oh, the joy of having proper electrical sockets everywhere instead of dozens of plugs running from a single ancient fuse! And last, but not least, all windows and doors had been replaced with double-glazed units, making the house much warmer in winter.

So, would we achieve our goal of having an indoor bathroom during our second year of residency?

Technically, yes. Although as you can infer from the title of this book, we’re not quite there yet!

Cast

(In order of appearance)

LSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Long-Suffering-Spouse

FIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Father-in-Law

MIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The late Mother-in-Law

Aged Aunt . . . . . . . . . . . . FIL’s sister (These siblings have not spoken in years)

JP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cousin of LSS and favourite nephew of FIL

Neighbour J . . . . . . . . . . . Female owner of the farm next to that of FIL

Friend F . . . . . . . . . . . . Retired friend of LSS

Friend L . . . . . . . . . . . . . Non-retired friend of LSS (particularly good at DIY)

M & O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Retired couple who are in charge of the local hunt; overall Good Eggs

T & M . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Our closest full-time neighbours. It just so happens that their house is in the next county.

And introducing:

Mr. C . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A real-life Obelix!

The Diary Continues: April

Hot water is finally available on tap! We plant trees, fill the thermal store and install the boiler stove, and I construct a wood stove out of an old electric water heater.

We visited neighbour J, taking the newly-purchased trailer with us. The reason for this was that she’d offered us a couple of young plum trees which had sprouted underneath their parent. We ended up with five fairly decent young trees; and four elder saplings as well. All of these have now been planted either in the garden around the pond, or along the fence line. Actually later in the year when their leaves emerged, we discovered that the plums were actually cherries; as they have two bright red nodules at the base of each leaf. A happy mistake, as cherries are even better than plums in our opinion!

We also took the opportunity of inspecting the elder trees we’d planted last year, and we were pleased to find that they have all survived the winter and have started sprouting new leaves. Unfortunately it will be several years before we can enjoy elderflower champagne and elderberry wine from our own trees. I suspect a lot of home-brewing will take place this year.

The thing is, we will need to make the most of the fruits and berries when they are in season; and it’s to our advantage to have a stock of different wines and beers in store for when friends come around to visit. It will save us a fortune as well, as we won’t have to buy any wine or beer. Besides, I enjoy making country wines. And beer, of course! We do have an apéritif in the evenings; but after all we are in France…

LSS did some fishing in the pond, catching 49 gudgeon in under an hour, so we had a fry-up that evening. I think she used a grand total of two earthworms as bait. There are lots of carp in the pond as well; but I’ve found that these taste a bit muddy. We’ll probably need to rescue another old bathtub from the Aged FIL’s field and fill it with rainwater. If we put any carp we catch in that water for a day or so, hopefully that will purge some of the muddy taste. I suspect I may have to rig up some sort of aeration mechanism to keep the fish happy for their final hours though.

The trailer has been used to visit the local quarry 15km away. We came back with 700kg of 8/16 gravel. I used half of it as hardcore for the floor of one of the little rooms next to the workshop; this room will be used for storage, but we need a solid floor first. The layer of compacted gravel will be covered with a lime concrete floor. Unfortunately it’s not warm enough yet to pour concrete, so the tractor-powered concrete mixer is still in the Aged FIL’s barn; we may bring it to La Darnoire once the weather warms up. Or maybe not. It doesn’t have a tilting mechanism for the drum; one has to use the levers inside the tractor cab for that. Which I suspect will be a bit of an annoyance – we may end up buying an electric one instead.

The project for providing the house with hot water is nearly finished. We chose to use a thermal store rather than an electric hot-water cylinder. The thermal store is a 500-litre galvanized steel tank which was donated to us by our neighbours T&M. It is situated on the upper floor of this two-storey farmhouse, and is connected with two 22mm copper pipes to the boiler stove in the room below. It contains three coils of 16mm copper pipe; the upper coil provides domestic hot water; the middle coil provides hot water to a radiator in the bedroom; and the lower coil will be connected to a home-made solar thermal panel on the roof, which will transfer heat from the sun into the tank.

The thermal store was filled in stages. Unfortunately when it was three-quarters full I noticed a leak where the topmost copper coil exits the cylinder, so I had to drain some of the water off again. Once the connection dried out, I temporarily resolved the leak by using some silicone sealant, as we had already returned the oxy-acetylene brazing torch which was borrowed from JP. The leak was later permanently repaired by using some JB WaterWeld – a type of epoxy – designed for marine repairs. It is unaffected by water.

In the lounge below the thermal store, I enlarged the current hole in the lounge ceiling to take the larger 139mm diameter stovepipe of the boiler stove. The old stovepipe from the previously scrapped wood-burner was 100mm in diameter. I then used lime mortar to seal around the edges of the hole. Plastering upside-down is probably one of my least favourite jobs in the entire world. Lime mortar went all over the place including up my sleeves (or I should say down my sleeves as my arms were in an upright position.)

We had to purchase another three metres of stovepipe, because the boiler stove is on one side of the room, and the stovepipe exit is in the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. The boiler stove had to be positioned where it is because the thermal store is directly above it. It looks very odd to have a great big stainless steel pipe running across the lounge just below the ceiling!

But we finally have HOT WATER on tap.

For readers accustomed to the standards of modern living, it may be difficult to comprehend just how much of a game-changing event this has been. Hot water from a tap is something which most people take for granted. But just imagine for a moment that your hot water cylinder is out of action, and the only method you have for heating water is in a saucepan on the stove. Forget about having a nice hot shower! The most you can hope for is a warm bath; which takes absolutely ages to prepare. But having hot water at the turn of a tap – ooh, such luxury! I installed a temperature probe in the top of the thermal store, at the level at which the water enters the tank from the boiler stove, and ran a wire through the ceiling to a digital temperature gauge. I didn’t even have to drill a hole through the ceiling; I just re-used an existing hole which was originally used for the cable of a television aerial. This gauge