Love & Hate

I had my so desired fringe 5 hours ago and I already hate it. I am hopeless!!

Dedicated to my cats

Cool for cats by Squeeze ;-)

New Fringe

Finally I got it! Thanks T&G Milan ;-)

Valda, from Brittany to Milan

I'm not the only one that has been traveling lately. Besides my kitties, also Valda the dog had a fair amount of troubles and travels.

Grown as a puppy in northern France, this cute furry-ball moved to Milan last autumn and now she is a full time resident of the city.

Here she his resting on the porch in Treompan (click on the pic for a short movie of her running around with her mother) and there she comes in urban style. Isn't she cute?

Night thoughts

The Ikea Spell

I really miss having a space of my own. A place you can organize in your own way, a place you can feel as yours, and most of all a place you can fill with as many Ikea items as you want!

Yes, I went to Ikea today, and I saw so many cute things that I would have wanted in my house... the only problem is I don't have a house. Uff how unfair!

Something good, everywhere

In Milan, there are a lot of very good Japanese restaurants, and I just love Japanese food! :-)

Bye bye sun, welcome fog

Here I am, back to Milan. What am I doing here? Sometimes I ask myself. I guess I'm trying to find a job, I mean at least some more collaborations, 'cos my bank account is starting to dry out and expenses are skyrocketing. Sigh

One good thing is that, after 2 years abroad (US and France) now that I'm back in Italy I can speak my own language everyday, with no "communication - anxiety" and when I go to an interview I can actually interact properly. Actually I send resumes and people call me, this is amazing, because in the US i kept on sending resumes everyday and never had an answer... So one might say that there is some good here, besides the foggy weather...

Well I must say that I really miss Brittany, the sea, the smell of fresh air in the morning, the peaceful villages... ahhhhhhh

(Pic by www.societacivile.it)

Antifouling day

Yes, another sunny day! And Yes, another working day on the "Kea da velet". Today was "antifouling day". What is it? A special paint that you put under the waterline to protect the hull from slime, weed and little animals such as barnacles who like to stick under the boat.

Before starting painting, it's very important to clean very carefully the surface you'll paint and get rid of all the plants and animals who have attacked your hull.
So armed with a hard brush we brushed the sunny half of the hull. I say "we", but this time it was Vincent to do the hard job, scrubbing all the waterline and under. A hell of a job!!! I just painted in white the other half of the hull we couldn't finish yesterday...

After all the brushing we paused and had a pic nick in the port while waiting for the water so dry. And then, time for a good hand of antifouling. First of all we covered the limit of the white part of the hull with some special tape, to avoid smearing with the red.

The problem with antifouling is that it toxic and it has a very strong smell, so we had to be fast and try to smell it the least possible. Once we had finished painting we removed pretty fast the tape beeing very carefull.

I must say that we have been pretty fast, and it wasn't easy to paint under the boat!! And look at it, isn't it perfect? Well a little fix here or there, and tadaaaa here is Kea da velet in all its beauty. At least for half of the hull!!!
Of course after that we went back on the cockpit for the 5Th layer of colouring... and there is still one more layer to go! I guess I wish it would rain tomorrow ;-P

Painting the hull

Today the weather was really nice and despite a fresh breeze, we took advantage of the sun to come back at the port and finish the job on the boat... Well at least to progress a bit more. Because this morning the tide was low, we decided to start painting the hull of the boat, and use the high tide to go on painting the cockpit.
As logic as it may seems (of course I didn't know it) before painting a boat you must get rid of all the rusty marks, made by steal nails, and of our friends the algae, who really like to stick on the waterline. As you can see, I did the hard job. While Vincent was pondering "how" to organize the job, I took care of the rusty tracks with some phosphoric acid who really erases it. Then, while he was water washing the acid I started brushing away the algae. I must say that I enjoyed it, I don't like to sit doing nothing, I like to stay active on a working site, I become immediately obsessed with time wasting. So everybody did his part of the job and finally we could start painting!
Painting is fun, you use this little furry rolls, and even after the first layer, the surface you are painting immediately becomes more beautiful, neat and clean. It was really cool. Unfortunately we couldn't finish, because the water level begun to be too high. We'll handle it tomorrow, no problem!
Then, after a little pause on the deck, we painted the 4Th layer of color on the cockpit, that after 6 layers (!!!) will be of all shiny and protected, finally!
So this was our working day, a bit tiring (mostly because of the cold weather) but really really gratifying!! :-)
Today was a cool day also because we met two very nice people, a young couple: Axel and Pascale. We met them at the annual reunion held for the new residents in the community (I'm a new one!), he is a professional jongleur and she is a web graphic. Really nice people, go on and check their website, coming soon: www.axel-lejongleur.com

Kea da Velet

A few pics of this beautiful boat and the splendid port of Portsall

Working on the boat

Before leaving this wonderful place I'm trying to enjoy it at its best. We had a couple of sunny and warm days lately, so we decided to work a little bit on Vincent's Boat, the "Kea da Velet", which means "Go look somewhere else" in Breton.


We started washing the deck. Isn't it very beautiful? And look at the colour of the water. So inviting... until you touch it and you realize that it's 12° cold! Anyway, first we cleaned the deck with sea water using a hard brush, to get rid of all the algae.



The day after we started sandpaper the upper part of the cockpit, and then we started painting it the next day. We just put the first layer, there are 4 more to do! But yesterday it has been raining and right now we are waiting for the sun to go on...

I must say that I really enjoyed working on the boat, in the open air, under the warm sun, in the middle of the sea. It put things in proper order and gives you a very different perspective from when you work on your PC in your little room, in the dark. Well I'm exaggerating a bit, but doing things with your hands, sometimes, makes you feel more real and makes you see life in a new way :-)