How many beach towels does it take to dry a floor? Read about our latest inundation and meet the culprit!
SEE YOU SOON? WINETASTING – APRIL 15th
A few times a year we open our home sweet-flooded-home to visitors. To reserve your seat for our Friday, April 15th meetup at 3 pm email me at kristin.espinasse@gmail.com
TODAY'S WORD: Bouffer
: to eat, to gobble up, to stuff oneself, to pig out on
Careful! This is a slang term. Better to use "manger" for "to eat"
FRENCH PRONUNCIATION
Listen to Jean-Marc pronounce today's word: Download MP3 or Download Wav
Bouffer. Ces putains* de souris ont bouffé le tuyau d'alimentation du lave-vaisselle!
To gobble. Those damn mice gobbled up the connecting hose to the dishwasher!
*Note: putain is an offensive word to some… one used often by the French.
A DAY IN A FRENCH LIFE
At 6 a.m. this morning, I stumbled to the kitchen for my drogue of choice. Only, by the time I reached the front room, I noticed an unusual sound. Was someone in the douche?
No, we don't have a shower in this part of our home!
Following the noise, which sounded like radio static at full blast, I caught sight of a glimmering floor…. WATER!!! As the tide flowed toward my sock-clad feet, I glanced out the window and saw a perfectly clear day. This was no natural disaster from heavy rains. What on earth?
Damn! My husband and his no-nonsense inventions! Last night while I pruned our avocado tree, Jean-Marc lugged the garden hose up to the boulder that towers over our home and created a DIY waterfall–one he forgot to turn off!!!
Slogging into the kitchen, mad as a monsoon #@$!, I followed the sound to the source–which was not at all what I expected…. It turns out all that water had come spraying out of a small tuyau beneath our kitchen sink. A mouse had eaten through the tube connected to our dishwasher!
Smart as wet socks, Jean-Marc and I took turns plugging the hole with our thumbs. Finally, lying on the floor in soaked pajamas, I waited as Jean-Marc ran naked out the kitchen door, in search of the shut-off valve (located, it seemed, in the third-floor pigeonnier (see opening photo–highest window pictured).
Finally, the water stopped (the valve was there all along, beneath the kitchen sink, inches from my soggy thumb!). We spent the next hour sweeping water out of the kitchen, past the dining room and out the front door. Maybe there is a better way to dry a house? But don't ask us, or run naked to the pigeon coop!
Happy, sundried weekend to you all!
Kristi
COMMENTS
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Keep up with our daily life over at Instagram, where you'll find this snapshot and others.
BORDEAUX AND THE DORDOGNE small group tour Sept 19-27 – culture, cuisine & wine. Click for itinerary.
PAINT PROVENCE on holiday. All inclusive art trips. Great sights, food, wine and painting skills. Click here.
SABLET HOME – for high quality vacation rentals in the heart of Provence. Click here for pictures.
FRANCE & MONACO We offer exclusive short-term holiday rental properties throughout France and Monaco. Click here.
We enjoyed a visit by Missouri chef Karen Blumensaadt and artist John Stoeckley. Karen brought the most delicious lemon tart from her book A Culinary Legacy: From Escoffier to Today.
This book is especially meaningful as Karen wrote it in our hometown of Les Arcs-sur-Argens (we moved in 2007, and the book's beautiful photos of the medieval village bring floods (oh no, floods!) of memories). Read Julie Mautner's review of A Culinary Legacy: from Escoffier to Today:
"To those of us who love French food, is there anything more compelling than a new cookbook, one filled with mouthwatering recipes and gorgeous photos? Yep, there is one with history and mystery between the covers as well. And this is that book. Fifty years ago, Karen found a dusty recipe-filled ledger in her grandparents attic and knew even then that it should become a book. A lifetime later, she has made it happen, telling the story of her immigrant grandfather's long culinary career…through his notes, dishes, mementos, photos, menus and more. With recipes old and new, this is a loving tribute to a passionate, dedicated man…and to a very special chapter in the history of French cuisine." —Julie Mautner, The Provence Post
A Culinary Legacy makes a wonderful present for a Francophile or Foodie! Jean-Marc and I loved the Tarte au Citron! Click here to order Karen's book
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Oh my goodness, it’s easy to laugh afterwards, but there is absolutely no worse way to start the morning. The mouse could at least have waited until mid-summer when the water might have been a welcome relief from hot airless nights! Hope you have a great weekend. Susan x
We suffered a flooded house while we were in Provence for three weeks! Came home to that same sound of water running. The water damaged nearly every room in our home and it took 4 months to dry it out and repair it. A horrible experience! I can sympathize with you!
Glad everything is under control. You certainly have the ability to see the humor in life. Thanks for teaching us all to do the same.
a souris family ate through our electricity to chaudiere lead… why do they do that? it took us more than a morning to figure out why we had no heating or hot water… i wouldn’t mind but i also found one alive & stuck in the chicken food bin, after i got control of the shrieking i let him out, presumably back to the yummy cables…
I hate when stuff like that happens before I’ve had my morning coffee.
Well, the upside is that you have tile floors. Be glad you don’t have carpeting!
Well as upsetting as all that surely was….the pluses would be your beloved husband was there to help in the clean up and stopping the flood!..then I am imaging that the floor is tile..but carpets?…and finally now everything in it’s path is nice and clean..not the way any of us would want to start the weekend so sorry!
I hate that feeling! Yuk!! Fans lots of fans, dry house out faster. Picture carpet on the floor with the sponge pad underneath! So my dear it could always have been worse!
Dear Kristi,
What a start to the day. And as Cyndie has mentioned, before the first morning “cuppa”! Oh well, that’s one way to clean a floor…
You are really good at turning what some might consider a disaster into a charming anecdote!
How would Smokey take to a resident cat ! Household leaks are awful & they always happen at the wrong time.
Here’s to some HOT Provençal sun to help with the drying up p;s i note you didn’t photo JM déshabillé !!
Oh my … the visuals in my head … oee la la
How funny! Thank you for the morning chuckle and for sharing! Floods are awful; at least it was relatively clean water. Never good when the toilet bowl overflows!
Having read the post, I recall the same issue here – and the same cause! And our insurance didn’t cover it either! My empathy.
Oh dear. On the bright side, it makes for a somewhat comical story to share with us.
Your disasters are always made worth a chuckle due to your great sense of humor, but floods are not fun. Lucky you have tile. Mice (and rats) love the rubber that hosing is made of for some reason – we had one eat holes in the hoses in the car. Irritating, but doesn’t make for a clever story like yours.
Thank you for your comments, which I love reading! The flood this morning had so many positives, as you mentioned: clean tile floors, clean cupboard below the sink, an aired out house, further spring cleaning… But the best, was watching and appreciating my very self-reliant husband, who managed to change out the tubing! It’s taken years for me to appreciate the fact that Jean-Marc wants to fix things himself. I am so lucky to have him and I am inspired to try to figure things out myself, instead of believing we need a professional each time. There are so many things we can do ourselves, if only we will try!
Gosh, what a mess. Glad it worked out in the end!
Oh, Kristin! Today’s story brought back our own flood memories, all too similar! That unforgettable moment of realizing that sound of water is not normal and trying in vain to stop the water by plugging it… I’m glad you’re on the other side of it now, and I hope that the mice don’t do it again! I hope you got a nice cup of coffee when it was all over. 🙂 bon week-end!
Sorry for the laugh at your expense. I learned the hard, wet way to get metal clad hoses. (Mine was the washing machine.)
Our dear Kristi,
Your words have wrapped us in smiles and given us inspiration to find the humor in our own not-so-funy-at-the-time situations.
Thank you!
Thank you most of all,though, for your wonderful words about appreciating your husband, and his desire/ability to fix whatever needs to be fixed at the time.
My wonderful hubby is just the same.
And if I don’t exactly feel like gushing the gratitude I should at those no-so-funny-at-the-time events,I am going to go and do so right now,plus interest for all the instances I’ve been negligent (translation:pissed off!)(excuse the languae!No other description fits!)
How blessed we are!
Love
Natalia
XO
That happened to my Volvo station wagon this winter, while it was parked in our garage, Susan. Mice not only ate holes in an important hose, they turned the maps in our jockey box, and the hub of our spare tire, into nests. I hate to set traps, but apparently that is the only way to keep them from this vehicle. (They have no interest in the other car in the garage.)
PS..Jean-Marc is a man for all seasons! He certainly had our admiration…
Ah…well….good you didn’t hear the running water while you slept. Might have been more laundry.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, SORRY ABOUT THE DISASTER, BUT I WAS SOOOOOOOOOOO HOPING FOR A PICTURE OF MR HANDSOME IN THE BUFF. NOTHING RACY, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. OH WELL, I WILL KEEP READING AND HOPING. I LOVE YOUR WORDS AND YOUR PHOTOS. SUCH FUN FOR MY DULL LIFE. YOUR BESTEST FRIEND. JOY WOOD
Salut Kristi,
(I read your Bonjour text . . . donc, à partir de ce jour, ce n’est pas Kristin)
Water problems can be a pain! I had a similar problem earlier this week in a bathroom. The leak got worse after I tried to fix it. Luckily, the shutoff was near. I finally had to call a handyman to come and bail me out . . . pun intended.
À bientôt
Our plombier said the mouse that did the same thing as yours did it because there are food particles in the outgoing line. Zut or merde alors?
We have a wood floor and it went back down to normal after about 2 weeks.
Well, mama says she is glad you didn’t get electrocuted in the water. I hope the dishwasher wasn’t still running! But I’ll bet old JM ran when he went to the coop and back. Nice you don’t have close neighbors, right? Or maybe they are thinking about moving closer…
Interesting! Thanks for the info. Ill be scraping our plates even more now!
Oh, boy! I think there is an automatic safety shut off for that. Last time this happened I had the same fear.
Could you give the recipe for Karen’s lemon tart, s’il vous plait?
We both share bad water karma this weekend!.I woke to a shhhishing sound too.
Could not figure out what is was,but finally narrowed it down to the frig.The water line was broken and had been for a few days.I roll up the sea grass rug,move table and chairs,and pullled out the refrigerator to find the broken line.Wonder if it was a souris too?!
Now i have a dozen cupped cherry wood planks.Wish I had stone tiles like you!