Monday

Weather is miserable today. If the pools of water on the garden table and chairs are anything to go by the strange haze yesterday was another Sirocco.

Looks as though Meow appreciated the after lunch cheese scraps though.

Also seems that the geothermal engineer is booked for exactly the same time as my only conference calls today. I managed to move the first meeting but then they were running late so arrived 5 mins before my second meeting. It became obvious pretty immediately that Matt’s French wasn’t going to be quite up to managing this alone. Thankfully Team LB were really great and we managed to push my meeting back.

They had some really helpful advice. They don’t think that it is worth putting underfloor heating in the kitchen or on the first floor but think that the first floor needs a radiator in the hallway. They didn’t seem to be very optimistic about our clay soil. However this turned around pretty quickly as they were very enthusiastic about the little well in the garden. If I understood correctly, then it seems as though they may be able to use that to sink the posts into which could be a significant saving.

They’re now going to go away and do us a quote, so long as I first call EDF to confirm that we can get the power to the house upgraded from 240v to 380v. Apparently, without it there is no point them working up the quote as the system won’t work. Hopefully this won’t be to difficult as we are pretty close to the lines here and as I understand the incoming board is due for an upgrade.

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For now it’s back to work and try to get everything sorted ready for the panel session tomorrow evening. Dinner tonight is sausage and mash – yum! But I do so hate washing up afterwards, mash sets like bloody cement on the dishes if you leave them.

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[22 February 2021]

Tuesday

Gazing out of the window from my desk and I can’t help but be captivated by the weeping willow which is so rapidly turning green and looks so fabulous when the sun streaks through. Whenever I see one I am reminded by the one at the farm where I grew up, the old rope and plastic swing seat and climbing it with my sister. It also reminds me of an old family story about my elder sister who apparently broke her arm when my brother pushed her out of a tree. Either way, it has connections to these slightly weird etherial, youthful memories that I still savour.

As you can imagine it has been another busy day with work today. Just as Matt had started a conference call the French phone rang. It was the local builder’s merchants. Their guy was down in Luchon and wanted to pop in to the house to scope out the work we have to do. [Since we are not a registered professional we can only get the business rates if our project is of a sufficient size.]

That gave me an hour to try to get things finished off. When he arrived he was a nice, young guy, probably late 20’s early 30’s. He didn’t speak more than a few words of English so we were largely reliant on my not so beautiful French once again. Matt once again printed off the house plans for him and we gave him the contractor tour.

He’s going to go away and provide a quote for all the materials for the kitchen and basement. He’ll then come back again and review the upstairs rooms for a second time once we have a much clearer idea of what supplies we will need. Helpfully he was also talking about a number of other artisans that he knows who he will be able to provide an introduction to. Notably Eric, a chap that lives around the corner in a pretty house who is a stone mason. I was very excited when I heard the word mason and he’s promised to provide an introduction.

So I had a quick tromp around the garden to try to burn off some excess energy, the can of coke however probably didn’t help so much. Good news however, it seems as though those spring pots that I planted up seem to be coming to life.

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Soon back to work despite the improved weather. By late afternoon however I was a ball of excitement waiting for my evening event to start. It went well and I am minded to create a fan page for Dr Richard Paul, Critical Consultant at St Thomas’ Hospital – he was quite the hit with the audience and was so engaging. in fact most of the speakers were and I am incredibly grateful that they gave up their time for this.

[23 February 2021]