Trying to keep track of what we did on every day is sometimes difficult as these blogs are usually written a few days after things actually happened. Thankfully I do recall the kind chap at the garage reminding me that Wednesday (mercredi) comes before Thursday (jeudi) so it must have been today that we got up super early to get the car to the garage at 9am. [When he initially said the day to drop it off I started recounting the days in French – obviously missing one, who needs Wednesday anyway, it’s always a bit of a dud!]

As I understand it, they are going to bleed the hydraulic system to remove any air bubbles in it which will hopefully solve the problem. Matt assures me that this is a relatively simple job, so hopefully it won’t be too long till we get it back. Or maybe the engine needs removing, we’re not totally sure.

Quick stop in at Intermarche on the way home. Saw Christian in the shop as we went in. He was the guardian of the Grey house that in Estenos that we looked at a couple of times and is quite the character, we got on famously (despite him not speaking a word of English) – his impression of Boris Johnson is quite something I can tell you. Unfortunately it was too early for my brain to fully function, so we said ‘hello’ but I couldn’t bring his name to mind and he clearly recognised me but couldn’t think why – it’s not easy with facemasks on. I do hope we bump into one another again. I’d love him to look after this place when we are in the UK, he’d be great!

Mmm.. French pastries.

Time for work, I have a 9am conference call and then lots of work to fill most of the day.

The grumpy DPD guy came again this afternoon – I have saved his number so next time I’m prepared – he’s such a d*ck! He’s always so rude and aggressive – I’m at the address, he is not – he doesn’t seem to understand that he is the one in the wrong and to deliver he also needs to be at my house. I really don’t like that guy. I’m going to have to learn how to tell him off, he wouldn’t behave like that if I was French!

Today he bought our new trestle table – god I’m old! However, my mum and her friends have always had a100 uses for these things so figured we would find uses for it. We soon did. We decided to have lunch in the garden as the trees were blocking the sun from the veranda.

The neighbours in the small house next door (which we guess may have been for a guardian or servants for this house at some point) was in today. They were taking out some trees with the assistance of what appeared to be another local, although not doing a very good job according to Matt. There was one old French guy up in the cherry picker and another on the ground. They had cut all the branches off but when taking out the main trunk (about 5m up) the falling tree whipped the chainsaw out of his hand and took it crashing to the floor. Much shouting at each other ensues. Maybe we won’t ask them to trim our trees then!

Back to work.

After work Matt is back up the scaffold and making more holes in the wall (not this again).

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Thankfully it didn’t last long and he was soon doing more forward forwards work, running the gaines for the kitchen lighting. I come in to sign off on the points and confirm that we have them all and in the right places.

I don’t think we need any wall mounted lights. We’ll have some downlights around the sink/oven end with the main kitchen/cooking lights over the island, under cabinet LEDs, main light in the relaxing area and then just add a lamp if needed.

With those in we go to discuss the family room (Rooms 3 and 4). [We’re going to need to drop the low level cabling through from 1st floor into the kitchen ceiling and down to the board in the basement.] I’m not 100% on where we might put TVs/data points in these rooms. We’re going to need to take out the skirting, which is no loss really, but I suspect that the right answer will be to put two in each room. At least that way, if (highly probable) I change my mind on the location of the furniture etc, we don’t end up running cabling around the walls, or worse have to pull it all out again. Matt seems happy with the redundancy to mitigate this and provide future flexibility.

Back downstairs we rearrange the dining room (again) to become a more functional kitchen, using the new trestle. As of next week we may have no kitchen to speak of!

That’s enough for now, time for some good cheese [Langres] and wine (we were too full for the steak hache for dinner after that).

Using Elvina’s recommendations, I sent out a load of enquiries for professional help – fingers crossed we get a response and action – and Matt dealt with the accountants and payslips.

Matt’s off to bed while I update you guys but it’s now 1:30 and I have an 8am call – bloody PS is in Italy, not sure what happened to the 9am that we agreed on last week…. Anyway, night all x

[28 January 2021]