Monday

Pretty slow day. Matt is super busy with work. I’ve done a few bits and pieces but things just aren’t falling into place hopefully work will go better tomorrow.

Exciting delivery today though, Muma Camp bought us a wildlife camera as part of our Christmas presents. It’s going to take a while to get it set up and working in the right place but hopefully we will finally get to see the deer in the garden. We know they come in as we have seen their droppings around the garden.

• 

• 

In the evening we managed to make significant progress on the insulation. First job was cutting through the multiple roles which I can assure is less easy than you might think. With that done it was time for dinner.

• 

• 

After dinner Matt was up and down the scaffolding pushing it in while I lifted them up to him and held it as high as I could – which was not very high but made my arms ache a lot. Pretty pleased though as we now have all of it done apart from the one small strip along the side.

We still need to get the tape to finish binding them together but it’s looking pretty good if I say so myself. I do so hate having to have to do a deep clean afterwards to get up any shards lying around and yet another long shower to get it out my hair.

Time for a quick episode of Travellers before Matt’s off to bed and I do a quick bit of work on the blog before following closely behind.

[1 February 2021]

Tuesday

Beautiful day today. Temperatures hit around 17, apparently 20 if you were directly in the sun at the hottest point of the day (which lasts all of about 10mins). Lot of work to do but we made time for pancakes at lunch. No surprise, I am the best and biggest tosser!

• 

• 

• 

[Videos]

I’m sure you want to know the fillings: some weird pungent flower smelling thing (it was meant to be more citrus but tasted like vanilla), ham and cheese, lime and sugar.

• 

• 

After lunch we popped down to Intermarche to pick up a couple of bits, most importantly the Nutella so we can have that in our crepes this evening. On the way back we dropped into the garage. It seems that they’ve taken it out and about and can’t find anything wrong with it so we got the keys and went home.

As if a day of pancakes couldn’t get any better…

I got a fantastic surprise in the post today. A card (which was also a letter) from Joan, my old boss at Ryhurst. It was entirely out of the blue, I didn’t think she even knew where we lived (apparently the the blog’s contains enough information for the post to reach us). It was a super letter and so heartwarming. It has made my day, and possibly my week, Thank you! I look forward to your coming to visit, and maybe even creating a nice piece of art to be displayed in the house if we are very lucky.

In answer to some the questions asked, and which a few others of you may be thinking: we are looking at how we can preserve some of the old wallpaper – yes mum, even from the hallway; we are keeping very safe here, we don’t know anyone to hang out with anyway; walks, or for me gardening, is one of the best things you can do to relax and gives me time to daydream; virtual meetings are a little tiresome, however, being in France they are a godsend as we feel less isolated and everyone is in the same boat; we would like to get a geothermal heat pump but getting someone here to do it isn’t easy (although the area is a geothermal area with lots of natural baths).

Back to work.

We put the new plasterboard lifter together, then took it apart to add the extension piece. Then we wondered if it might reach without it, so we took it apart again, only to find that it was about 2-3cm to short. So we took it apart again and put the extension back in again.

• 

Dinner time. There’s more pulled pork still. Also, more pancakes for desert. I had nutella, followed by lime and sugar again. They were lovely.

Unfortunately since the binding tape for the tears and joins hasn’t arrived yet all we can do is prep for tomorrow. We marked up all the places for the laser and did our best to straighten up some of the rails. They don’t move very easily, hopefully they’ll be good enough where they are and we can manage to hit them when we attach it.

Time to relax and then bed.

[2 February 2021]

Wednesday

Another bright sunny day. I had a look under the cardboard and there are clear signs of the garlic starting to come through so figure that it’s probably best to take it off now and give them some light. You probably can’t see much from the picture but I assure you that they are there and making a break for freedom.

I then made a very quick start on digging over the next bit of ground. It’s going to be quite a bit of work to get all the new plots prepped ready for spring. Unfortunately as didn’t have time to do much I just lifted the top layer and have put some boards over it to start to kill off the grass and weeds.

• 

• 

• 

When I have more time I will get in there properly and start to remove the grass and weeds. For now at least this should reduce their growth. I wish I could find my damned Allotment book though. I could have sworn it was on the shelf in London, but Matt searched when he was back in December and couldn’t find it, and I still haven’t located it here either.

Had a quick wander around the garden and happy to find some snowdrops (galanthus nivalis), and the bright yellow flowers that are pretty surely weeds.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

While the weather was nice I also took the opportunity to plant up the bulbs that I got at Action the other week. They are meant to be planted in Autumn but in my (limited) experience it tends to be better just to plant them up and hope for the best rather than let them rot and forget about them. At least that is my excuse and I’m sticking with it. Since I also have limited compost I chucked some leaves into the base to help bulk it out. I don’t think any of them have particularly deep roots so they shouldn’t even notice.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Better get cracking on some more work.

After work we’re back to the kitchen to work on the ceiling. It’s great to see it coming along and to get the first two boards up. Putting the light fitting in above the seating area took the best part of an hour so unfortunately didn’t get the third one up as it’s already 10pm.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

It seems that we also had some footage from the wildlife camera from Muma Camp yesterday:

[3 February 2021]

Thursday

Very busy work day today. Managed to squeeze out an hour for lunch though which I spent starting to get my hands dirty, removing the grass and weeds. Only managed to do about 1mx.5m so not a lot but it’s all progress.

• 

• 

More work and back to the kitchen again, it’s becoming quite the routine. Since the last owners put their names on the railing under their false ceiling we thought we would do the same. Hopefully this time the ceiling won’t need replacing quite so soon and it will be uncovered for at least a decade or two, or more even.

• 

• 

• 

While we’re getting another sheet of plasterboard out I noticed that the sunset is very pretty this evening, shame it is marred by the power lines but you can’t have everything right.

• 

• 

• 

That’s two more sheets up…

• 

• 

• 

Before we can do the next one, we need to check where the hole should be for the main lighting in the kitchen area. I tried to work it out and overlay it on the plans while Matt made dinner. I should not be trusted to do maths unsupervised, I was almost 40cm off! Thankfully Matt’s beef bourguignon was far more successful.

• 

• 

[4 February 2021]