Monday

First thing and just as I am getting up there’s a slightly panicked shout from Matt for me to come downstairs. There’s a lady at the door, apparently asking what she wanted was a very stupid idea, of course he has no idea ‘it’s just a lady speaking French very quickly’. It’s the lady from the department who has come over to set up the radon reader.

It’s part of a local initiative to encourage local home owners to have the radon levels in their homes measured over the course of a couple of months. We know that there are raised levels in the area which is typical in a mountainous area such as this and was included in the diagnostics for the house. There’s also potentially an issue with having geothermal heating in high radon areas, so hopefully this will help us to know whether this is another option that’s not going to be possible.

Big work meeting this afternoon so few more bits and pieces to get prepped. All went well and I’m sure they enjoyed listening to me talking for over an hour.

After the meeting I decided to relax with a wander around the garden and a bit more work on the veg plots and took some photos of some of the seed heads to see if the Gardening in France group can identify them for me.

• 

• 

• 

• 

[15 February 2021]

Tuesday

Having had such a busy week last week preparing for yesterday’s meeting I decided that I would take it easy today. Matt got up early to pop down to Luchon for some expanding foam so I went down to put some bread on to bake for lunch while he was out.

Feels like it’s going to be a nice day today so I had a little go at making a start on tidying up the cloud tree. I’m not sure it’s exactly the right time to be doing it but I don’t want to lose its existing shape too much. Can you tell which ones I’ve done? (clue: they are in the fourth picutre)

• 

• 

• 

• 

Before we can seal up the sides of the chimney, we need to make sure we can run the gaines easily from above. We hadn’t yet dropped the data for room 4 or the main power feed so I ran those down while Matt checked the length in the basement to where the new board will be.

• 

• 

• 

Everything ran fine but the early sketch drawings were a bit of a mess and becoming increasingly difficult to follow so thought I’d take some time to redraw them and tidy them up a bit while sat in the garden.

• 

• 

Matt had to go back to work so I did a bit more work on preparing the beds in the veg garden. A little progress each day and hopefully we will get there in plenty of time before we need to actually start planting. I’ve got the basic measurements of the beds, but much like the house they aren’t exactly straight. Due to the size I’m also going to need some of Matt’s help with the 3D planning tool to help plan out the area properly.

• 

• 

The wind started picking up so headed back to the house to run the first of the light and power cables from the basement to the ground floor. Once they were in we could do the expanding foam around the chimney boards.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The new power and light gaines then needed quite a bit of work to get them fixed in, but with some bricks and some of the excess foam we seem to have made it work.

• 

• 

That needs to dry so time for dinner followed by pancakes! Yay, pancake day again – that crepe-d up on us quickly. And this time with the crepe pan we inherited.

• 

• 

[16 February 2021]

Wednesday

Days are difficult – I’m glad modern watches tell you what day it is. It seems like lockdown has made the whole thing a bit of a blur!

I was woken up today by a very nice delivery guy. Super friendly and rang to say he was on his way and generally polite, I hope he visits again, made a nice change from the rude guy. Initially we weren’t sure if it might finally be the kitchen but it was just the ramps so that Matt can get a better look at the ride on mower to see if he can fix it.

Some morning meetings and a fun chat with my new boss – another Matt. I mean seriously, is every guy that tells me what to do called Matt?! Thankfully they’re all really nice and to save time I can use one name to complain about anything and everything that goes wrong. Seems like a win to me.

So ‘real’ Matt took me out to show me the daffodils in the garden that are starting to bloom. I’m surprised by the centres – are they doubles, triples? What kind of narcissus are they? I also took pictures of a few other plants to put on the ‘Gardening in France’ FB page – they are brilliant at being able to identify things! [Van sion daffodil; Japanese Quince – Chaenomeles; and, a Large Tortoise Shell butterfly btw]

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Found the meower in the ‘walled garden’ again. She seems to spend most of her time hanging out (mostly napping) in there. Matt gave her some more cheese… I think he wants to make a new friend and so far seems to be better at Cat French than the regular human version. Man that thing talks a lot.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Afternoon session writing up minutes and actions with the MediCultural event on the history of St Thomas’ Hospital on in the background. There’s a wide range of interesting things going on over the next week – including my event next Tuesday: https://www.teamlondonbridge.co.uk/events/2021/2/17/life-saviours-then-and-now-medical-culture-festival

Although it is technically a bit early for hedge trimming the leylandii needed a bit off the top – Mum was very clear about keeping these in check – so Matt took off with the loppers and made a start. I only caught him at the end for the photos but seems like a good start.

• 

• 

The back cloud tree doesn’t have quite the style and finesse of the one at the front of the house. I gave it a quick trim to keep its shape but need to think about what we do with it and how we might shape it long term.

• 

• 

Back to work outside to make the most of the sun and worked through till it ran out of battery. A good excuse to stop for a while and work on the veg plot 🙂

• 

While I was busy Matt popped down to the shops. As we were about to lose the sun I went to get a little glass of wine to sit on the porch and watch the sun go down. Matt arrived back just in time to join me. I really do need to start recording the times in my garden diary – due to the mountains it’s not the same as ‘sunset’ (FYI , it happens to be 5:30 exactly).

So this little lady turned up again. She is very pretty. Seems that she has also become just brave enough to enter the house, so long as Matt responds to her when she meows at the door. Her bravery disappears as soon as you stand up and since she can’t stop talking I’m not too worried, yet, about finding her hiding under the bed how Reg would.

Into the kitchen again. Managed to get the box wired up. Ok, it’s a bit rustic at the moment but it feels like a real, tangible thing. It was quickly followed by a lot of filling and great to see the big hole now fixed up a bit. It wasn’t without its problems. The filler dried super quick but together we made it work. Lesson learnt, this stuff has to start off super wet as otherwise it will go off really quick.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Ugh – I can see why Tonia was bored of some of our decision making – we had to go through the power spreadsheet again. Ok, when there’s >170 sockets and switches I can see that this might need regular review before placing very expensive orders but heavens it is exhausting. So time for dinner, a bit more work write ups, then TV and after Matt has gone to bed, back to the blog. I’m trying to get it written up daily again, at least this week anyway.

[17 January 2021]