Courgettes
I went out into the garden this morning and found that my courgette flowers had opened.
If they continue to grow I will have at least 3 courgettes from one plant alone. I had no idea the flowers would be so pretty. Of course they need them to fruit but I hadn’t considered that flowers could be so lovely in a vegetable garden.
I performed an annual inspection of the tenant s apartment upstairs. There is a 61 yo living in the apartment who pays only half the real market value because his mother was friends with the previous owner - a long story that I have previously recounted here - she died 2 years ago and he now lives alone.
In France tenants rights are well protected by the state but legally we do have the right to an annual inspection so although no one seems to exercise that right here I decided to for various reasons which I won’t go into here. I will also visit the other apartment on the top floor later in the week.
Anyway I entered the apartment of my tenant this morning and found it very depressing. I knew that things were getting bad but now wallpaper is falling from the walls and ceiling(why do they often wallpaper the ceiling in this country?!) No maintenance has been done in this apartment for 49 years and since the passing of his mother he has let everything rundown to this sad state of affairs. Structurally the apartment is still fine, a few cracks appearing in the ceiling(possibly more hidden by the wallpaper...) but the bathroom pipes block regularly, the kitchen sink is old and filthy, the paint is peeling from the walls in the dining room, and the bathroom sink plug hole is rusting. There was mould all over his non slip bath mat. Norman Bates or Mrs Haversham would be at home here.
I will certainly get a Plummer in to replace the bathroom pipes and replace the bathroom sink, but the apartment needs an entire makeover. It really can’t be done whilst the apartment is occupied and I don’t really want to do it for this guy anyway. With his rent so low we don’t even cover the bank loan repayments. But it was depressing. He mentioned his cousin from Paris would be coming to stay over summer. She has been militant in the past about “protecting” her cousins rights with regard to his tenancy in the apartment.
I can only hope that he will decide to move out at some stage, realizing that the apartment since his mother left is now too difficult to maintain. His cheap rent deal doesn’t seem to warrant staying there any longer but he has lived there for over 40 years and seems a creature of habit... No doubt we will have some drama during his cousins visit.