With the Barge Artz expo being held at La Maison in a few weeks time, it was time to get cracking making some frames to hang the paintings/photos. We had originally thought of installing rails under the cornices in which wires could be hung to hold the paintings (as we had seen in many galleries). But that would mean screwing them into the walls, and would also be relatively costly. So we adopted a method suggested by Rita’s brother Kuno, who had used temporary wooden frames in some of his exhibitions. So it was off to Weldoms to buy some 44mm x 21mm pine straps, some cuphooks, chain and s-hooks. The timber was screwed together at the corners to form a rectangular frame, and the cup hooks were screwed into the back of the top timber, to hold a length of chain and an s-hook which held the support wires on the back of the painting frame. A test frame was built to hold a painting (the heaviest we could find in the house) over the piano, as shown below, and all seemed to work well. Now to measure up the available wall space and the width of all the exhibits to see what will go where, and how many frames I need to build. The frames will be painted the same as the wall colour to help them disappear into the background.

Most of the day was spent preparing the front gates for painting. The condition of the paint, which has been on for an unknown number of years, was very poor, and would obviously need to be sanded back to the metal before being primed and painted again. The vibrating sander that I bought from Weldoms was fairly useful and did a good job of sanding back the old paint. But as I discovered later, there were many methods to remove the paint. It was so dry and brittle that in many places just hitting it with a hammer was enough the remove large flakes. A hammer and large screwdriver was good for getting paint out of corners. A wire brush disk on my cordless drill was good for getting into crevices, while a flat metal file was good for removing the rough top layer of paint on the iron rails.

Following our discussion with Dr. Raphael and Isabelle on the weekend about renting la Maison, I have been researching the internet about rental agreements in France, and discovered some interesting differences to the Australian situation. The main difference is that in France there is a major distinction between a furnished rental and an unfurnished rental (although the physical difference between the two situations is somewhat hard to define). But if it is an unfurnished rental, then this implicitly assumes that this will be a longer term rental for someone to establish a home, whereas a furnished rental is a shorter-term arrangement for someone in transition. An unfurnished rental must be for a minimum of three years, and if the landlord wishes to sell the house, then the renter must be given first right of refusal. Since we only want to rent for 2 years, but the doctor wants to provide his own furniture (to clear out his house while it is being repaired and renovated), we are caught between a rock and a hard place. We will just have to leave enough furniture for it to be classified as “furnished” (even though they may later replace our furniture with theirs) since clearly we are looking at a short-term transitionary rental, rather than a long-term home establishment. We have also been researching comparable house rents in Moissac, and asking lots of friends who know the house what a reasonable rent would be. It seems that the average rent in the Moissac area is about 5-8euro/month/m2. Since each of the floors has an area of about 120m2, that would equate to somewhere between 1200 and 2000euro per month. While the quality of la Maison is above average (brand new kitchen, and bathrooms for each of the four bedrooms), and we could possibly go for the higher amount, looking at current rentals online suggests that the lower amount is more realistic. So we will probably ask 1200euro/month (plus utilities) for a furnished rental of the bottom two floors.

This week, the 20th Festival des Voix (Festival of the Voice) has been running in Moissac, and tonight we went to our first events, both in the nearby town of La Francaise. The first performer was Lior Shoov, an Israeli singer who uses a wide variety of unconventional instruments to accompany her singing. She was one of the first artists I’ve seen who played a Hang (an instrument created by Rita’s friends Felix and Sabina in Bern) on stage (apart from many buskers who use them on the streets). She also selected a guy from the audience (at left below) to help her with one piece, where she used three lengths of plastic pipe that she gave and took from the guy. Each time she gave one to him (with a solid thwack in the hand) it made a slightly different sound to the others. By varying the order and the timing of giving him another pipe to hold (while she took one from his other hand), she was able to create a rhythm that she then sang along to. Quite an interesting concept.

After this concert finished, we wandered down to the lake and then along to the cafe on the edge of the lake. It was quite crowded when we got there, with many people having dinner, so we just joined ourselves onto the end of a table being used by Rita’s singer friends, Valerie and Suzie. We had heard that another concert was to be held there, but couldn’t see the stage where they would perform, so just hoped we would be able to see and hear them when they did. It was therefore quite a surprise 15 minutes later, when the guys at the next table (at right, above) started to sing. We soon realised that this was the next concert, performed by Vox Bigerri. For a group that has only been performing for 5 years, they were very good, and a great accompaniment to a meal and a few drinks.