Went to Lille on Sunday to see the train station by Santiago Calatrava Valls a Spanish neofuturistic architect, structural engineer, sculptor and painter. 




At the same time as meeting key railway requirements to position Liege at the heart of the North European high speed network, Euro Liege TGV SA wished to make the station’s aesthetics a central concern. Monumental and expressive, airy and transparent

 

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/12/02/liege-guillemins-station-by-santiago-calatrava/

An added bonus was that there was a fantastic Dali exhibition on in the station. It was the most extensive exhibition I have been to with a number of works that I had not seen before and rare footage of the man and Gala on video.

After spending 3 hours walking around the Dali exhibits - there was so much to see...I went to the Opera House to see Daniel-François-Esprit Auber version of Manon Lescaut.

http://www.operaliege.be/en 

Unfortunately, this was not as good as the Puccini version I seen a couple of weeks ago. However, the second half was better so we ended on an up note (excuse the pun).

It was a beautiful day so I went in the Lotus Elan with the top down - fabulous drive and the car surprised a couple of Audi's an RS5 and an ABT RS3 :-) 

Update up to March 2016

Well I have been busy at the house - Roy has decorated most of the rooms but still more to do - Utility, open area of loft. I still need to decide what I am going to do with this big area?



My bedroom during decoration and finished - also put up new curtains.

Martin Bird came round and fitted a water heater in the kitchen and the plumbing extensions for the dishwasher and the hose in the Utility room. So now we have hot water in the kitchen and a working dishwasher. :-)

I am gradually moving the logs from behind one of the oil tanks into the bay next to it. I am also emptying this oil tank to remove it and create another parking area in this garage. The fire wall of the oil tank will be the hardcore for the parking area and then I have some of the parquet paving stones to be laid on top of this - spare ones left over from the courtyard.

I have painted the garage doors and most of the gate in a dark BRG - I think it looks good. Also a visitor from the farm next door :-)

the second bedroom now complete - it also has new curtains. The World pictures were a bargain on facebay for £10.

the road down into Boos on a sunny day - beautiful - the eifel tower is off to the left and up the hill.


You can see Nurburg Castle from there and the whole village of Boos, my house is behind the church.

 This is the new Kamine I fitted to replace the oil one which was there when I bought the house. As a new owner I was not allowed to use it as it was too old? the old owners could have continued to use it? weird German law.

The feature staircase - every step is unique - all hand built with a feature window :-)

The sanded and sealed parquet flooring in the lounge.

the local hotel/bar/restaurant and very good it is too. It has a large beer garden and puts on a lot of events over the summer 

I replaced the old leaking cistern with a new one - me!!!! and it worked first time and doesn't leak :-)

I removed the old "lean to" greenhouse from the courtyard and I need to remove the bricks which encroach onto the courtyard parking area - they will go into the hardcore also.

In the bathroom Roy fitted a new shower screen and shower head. I built a new unit for storage and removed some of the multitude of hooks that adorned the walls.

Now for the proper update.

I decided that I was sick of Corporate life, the travel, the international conference calls at all times of the day involving multiple continents...... My wife and I had separated and both the kids had left home.

So I started to put in place my early retirement pension plan :-) This involved going to look at various properties near one of my favourite places in the World - The Nurburgring in the Eifel in Germany. :-)

I looked at quite a few places with the help of a couple of friends who already lived there - Roy and Kim Hastings (DoogzanFlo Hastings). Some were just too much of a project and therefore requiring too many repairs or remedial work before you could even move in. :-(

The estate agent - Tobias Waltermann (excellent chap who speaks very good english) came up with a property in Boos. It was a four bedroom detached house in the center of the village opposite the large church (the bells the bells - more later) It had a large double garage with a courtyard in front and as you can see gates.

It was structurally sound, the roofs are good and in good repair, the windows are all double glazed and it has a typical German coloured glass porch.

Inside on the ground floor off the entrance hall you had a large lounge on the left and a basic kitchen on the right. From the kitchen you can see the doorway into the rear hallway which takes you through to the large utility room and then through to the garage complex.

A typical traditional German kitchen with the L-shaped breakfast seating.












The kitchen came with a cooker and a wood burning Kamine. The units were all good but very dark and there was no hot water? You can also cook on the top of the Kamine.















The rear hallway to the Utility room. The doorway is low and the steps are high! Given my ability to bang my head constantly on familiar things this will need to be added to the list of things to do.



















The utility room - it really is large!











It came with some racking and a pedestal for the washing machine and freezer. The window looks out onto the courtyard.




This is the doorway through to the garages.























Chopping block for kindling "creation" a new skill I was going to have to learn :-) Bought a new axe in preparation.

This is one of the oil tanks - the house came with 3,000+ litres of oil. Another item for the todo list. Beside the tank is a large supply of brickets for the kamine in the hallway.

the mezzanine area above the 2nd garage

the supply of wood that came with the house also

The 2nd garage came with a pit and a toilet! 3 phase electricity  - some lighting - water and a very high roof.

Back in the house - there is a doorway in the hall which leads down to the two room cellar which has an original bread oven installed. In the other room there was also three lots of storage racking. Both cellars are dry and in good condition with windows for ventilation. I will add pictures later.





To the left is the lounge which has a huge front window and a small rear window - in the picture you can see the old oil fired kamine, which I am not allowed to use.

There is a fantastic hand built stairway to the first floor. Also there is a feature window made with shaped bricks of glass.

Every stair is unique in shape and dimensions a masterpiece of carpentry.

This is the first floor and you can just see the doorway to the 2nd floor. It is another masterpiece of carpentry - it is cut and configured into the shape of the stairs and the lock on the doors dates back to 1928 or earlier.

Here you see the 2nd and 3rd bedrooms. The 3rd bedroom is going to be my study with my desk and filing, There will be a fold up bed if I have a lot of people staying with me.

To the left in this picture we have the bathroom.

The tiles take a bit of getting used to - a bright turquoise sea green.

Finally got through all the Google security to open this up to update it - difficult when the recovery information required is a phone and email address you no longer have!

Well - it has been an eventful few weeks with cars. I have now bought 10 new tyres and 4 2nd hand winters with 7mm of tread on them for my trips to Germany.

I have also bought a Mondeo ST220, like my son's, as the new daily. bought for it's economy :-) well 35mpg on a cruise! Heated red leather Recaro interior, air con, Xplod Stereo - CD/DVD player, Pearlescent Panther black - apparently a £2000 option when new? Some small jobs to be done, service, oil leak from

crank shaft seal (common problem with these cars), wheel alignment and refurb, front track rods, new front disks/pads. Seems a good car and my son has given it a thorough look over and upgraded it in a number of ways already with his knowledge of the model.

Went on a trip to Germany, but while checking it for the journey discovered three tyres would not be legal in Germany as they were not stamped M&S for winter, hence the 3 new tyres. I arrived in Germany to the smell of excess fuel from under the bonnet!

Roy, who lives in Germany, gave me a hand (well what I mean is he sorted the problem while I looked on - thanks Roy) to sort the leaking injector - just not sited properly? why would it suddenly come out of position.

However, as I got to Dunkirk on the return journey I suddenly had no PAS, reservoir empty? filled it up and got all the way home before I lost PAS again. Looks like the rack is leaking! Merde! This A8 was definitely not a good decision. :-(