Well would you believe it, whilst working down on the mill I have caught the sun on the top of my head for the first time without me being on a beach!!  Now being in business for a long time I have made many friends and immediately one of them came to my thoughts -Dr Asim Shahmalak – I was just doing everyday stuff in the grounds and now I face three options, I can either wear a hat which of course will protect me from the sun but will be very hot, or I can use a lot of sun cream – looks a little silly but would be effective or I can get a hair transplant!!

Now to get a hair transplant I would need to know and trust the surgeon and this is where I have the edge – a friend of mine is the gifted hair transplant surgeon Dr Asim Shahmalak and so I could get a pretty good consultation into the possibilities that I would have regarding surgery.

Of course my family and my wife would argue that I should maintain my current slow recession and grow old gracefully so its really a bit of a conundrum.

Asim Shahmalak was responsible for people such as Dr Christian Jesson to have hair transplant surgery but look completely natural, unlike those early Graham Gooch / Burt Reynolds style hair transplants when the industry was pioneering.

Still I will consider my options and whilst I am beavering away down here in South West France I am also fairly inconspicuous which also means it would be a great place to recover from any surgery!!!

Well back to the river where I have trout waiting for the pan and whilst trying to catch them I will start with ‘option hat’ and then progress from there.

Next week I am back in the UK and a phone call to Dr Asim Shahmalak might just get him round to my way of thinking without him realising my subtle approach.

- Here we have on the left the illustrious Dr Asim Shahmalak – a surgeon from Harley Street with clinics all over the country.

Down at the mill we are now looking at blinds for the front windows, as you can see from the picture below the windows look amazing and so we want a really good product to both enhance the windows from the outside view but also to compliment the internal decoration of the rooms.

Magnificent Blinds needed for Magnificent Windows

Blinds For Windows

As the mill is 16c we decided to research different blinds products and blinds companies, we opted for a UK company called Web Blinds – their range is really good and we can get the blinds made up in the UK and then install them down here in France.

Web-Blinds are the Chosen Supplier

We will keep you posted as to the progress but our initial experience with Web Blinds has been excellent and we have every confidence that the summer will see our blinds installed.

Our intial concern was the sheer size of the windows and the fact that they are such an imposing part of the newly renovated South Elevation, the aspect will mean that the blinds will have to work hard as they will be in full sun all year round.

I will post pictures in a few weeks when they are installed.

The event I went to was a sunny affair with the amazing aromas floating around from the hog roast to the point where by 4pm we were ravenous for the pork and apple sauce. Parkers Hog Roast Hire – based in Essex did a very fine job on the day and kept everything moving on the cuisine front until people were absolutely stuffed full and content.





So we will at some point sit in the sun with some fine wine and let the hog roast cook away over the afternoon and then Parkers can feed us through the night as we watch the sun go down.

It will be a perfect inaugural event for the mill, a mixture of traditional English with some Gallic ingredients and a group of friends coming to gether just as the Mill has – in harmony.

Cannot wait to do this so mark you need to hurry on and get the Mill to that special tipping point where we can start to stay over.

We have miles of stone wall to create to border our land and streams and so I have been looking for a bricklayer of repute, luckily I found one in my area, Anthony Duff is a bricklayer in Colchester and I have had the pleasure of his bricklaying skills for my house in Weeley and now in my garden.

Anthony is one of the few college trained bricklayers who also has a wealth of commercial building experience after spending several years on large building works in London and housing developments in and around Colchester and Essex.

Whilst my main builder in France is amazing his time will be better spent on the actual mill rather than the more pedestrian aspects of walling to the perimeters. Although Anthony is a Colchester lad he will be more than willing to cross the channel to lay bricks, blocks and stone down in our French retreat.

One of the most crucial aspects will be to delineate the boundaries on some of the streams from the courtyard areas, this will help to prevent any flooding but also make the streams more child safe. Anyway there is more than enough work to go around and Anthony’s bricklaying skills will be very welcome if he makes the trip.

Anthony Duff Master Bricklayer

It has come into our thoughts a number of times that maybe when the mill is done we should consider renting it out for certain weeks in a year. Property renting in France is certainly big business and of course this region has amazing weather for 8 months of the year.

Added to that the fact that the mill when finished will have a lake and a swimming pool and the actual building is jaw droppingly good then it should make property renting a viable option but also a well paid one. There would be some pleasure in renting the property out to people in the satisfaction concept as we are very proud of the renovation, but, there is also the coveting factor whereby would we want to keep it all to ourselves.





Then there is the upkeep and further works, this could be funded by proprty renting, we have friends and neighbours in France who would help us and the income would certainly help with the expense of French builders and the tax element.

Still Plenty To Do

Renting property in France ….. should we or should we not?

At least we would not be using letting agents such as – Essex and Suffolk Lettings thats for sure, it seems that the UK letting and rental industry has so much bad publicity that using an agent would be the last thing we would do if we decided to let our French Watermill.

Either way property renting is a personal thing as well as a business concept so lets see how we feel when the watermill is finished.

After growing the business for 10 years High Position’s partners have rebranded the company after winning the largest search marketing contract in their history. With the new brand divided into verticals of service incorporating HP PPC, HP SEO and HP Design all under the umberella of The HP Group the metamorphosis from plain old High Position to a fully corporate group was always going to happen, the client acquisition was the catalyst

High Position to The HP Group

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The new branding also goes hand in hand with a move to prestigious new offices in Colchester, Essex, the catalyst for the rebrand was the latest client acquisition which is a major technology company, the PR department for High Position will not disclose the client details yet but have gone on record saying ‘ this surpasses our Sony account by some margin’.

this is indeed great news for the directors at what is now known as The HP Group and it will no doubt speed up their transition to the Moulin down here near La Rochelle. Shaun Parker stated – ‘The idea is to be able to deliver our SEO and PPC expertise from our tranquil French Watermill, whenever we needed a break, the communications connectivity allows us to work perfectly well in a wonderful setting’.

This is probably just as well considering the stress and strain in the transition from High Position to The HP Group, the office relocation the major client conquest from a pitch that lasted 4 months and the problems that a delinquent BT corporation bestowed on a simple communications transition exercise!!!

Time for a deep breath and then its onwards and upwards for The HP Group.

What mode of transport should I use now that summer is here…

All three would grace the grounds of the watermill, perhaps classic rather than modern….

This

My gorgeous Porsche 911 Turbo 'S'

Classic and Beautiful - My Kawasaki Z900

This

or This

The 'Devil' My Suzuki GSX-R 750

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For the first time in ages I have found myself looking at property with an interest to actually move house, I have always kept an interest folloing prices and trends but all of a sudden I feel itchy feet!!

Usually I will be looking at specific period houses, I spend lots of time also looking at land and property abroad especially in Ireland and France.

In Ireland there are some fabulous older properties laying in fields slowly falling apart, the Irish have not quite caught on to the prospect of renovation and usually build new homes beside the old ones, sometimes they pull them down and sometimes they are just left as stone monuments to a by gone age.

My last visit finally saw some larger period houses getting some love, of course the property explosion in Ireland (fuelled by EEC Investment) made many millionaires and also made it more attractive to build new, the current slump may well reverse that trend.

I have then next set of contracts in From the French builder working on the Watermill, quite scary I think but it must be done and I do not have the time to do the work myself. Are we on time for Christmas… I think not but then we have taken the renovation much further and on a grander scale that first envisaged.

Pictures coming up soon.