Wednesday

The best, and worst, thing about people leaving is the amount of work we can get done [with the exception of Tonia who definitely adds to the delivery rate].

In the working days we’re now back to spending lunchtimes and evenings working on the house. ‘Breaks’ today were spent digging the trench deeper for the power to the new ‘pool house’. It has to be 50cm deep I understand so that you don’t accidentally cut through it. Of course it looks as though only Matt did it but I can assure you that it was a joint effort.

It’s been hard work but I think we’ve made good progress. Matt’s been measuring my digging to check and there are only a few little areas that seem to need a bit more work but I think we’re close.

What with all this work I need to get a few more emails done, make dinner and hopefully have a rest.

[23 March 2022]

Thursday

Matt has to really concentrate on his work today. I’d made a bit of progress with one of the gardens at the front of the house while the kids were here but it needs to be finished and as we come into spring it’s quite unsightly so a good lunchtime job. I know the neighbours can’t see it but I reckon the postie is relaying back that I’m not keeping it well – I’m sure she’s not, she’s actually lovely; but just in case she is.

Due to an early morning meeting today I have also decided to finish ‘early’ and get some work done to finish the other bed at the front of the house.

I think it’s better, there’s certainly a big pile of stuff that I’ve pulled out that’s now standing on the side of the drive that says so, and at least it doesn’t look as bad.

Time to head in. Looks as though we have tartiflette for dinner. Unfortunately sadly not a one man job usually so time for me to get stuck in with dinner too. It’s worth it though and will keep us fed for a couple of days without a lot more effort – just my kind of meal.

Rest and bed

[24 March 2022]

Friday

I think I shall rename today – Oppsie-day-sie!

First off I finally remembered to check the greenhouse. Apparently it can get a bit hot in there. Matt downloaded the record on the readings and it was in the high 50 degs.. whoops! May explain the state of my sunflowers… Guess it’s time to start again with those as there isn’t any coming back from that.

Unfortunately while digging the trench Matt managed to find the main water line into the house with the pickaxe. His quick thinking, reactions and actually knowing how to turn the water off meant we didn’t entirely flood the trench – I’m just so glad that wasn’t me when Matt was on a call, I’d have had no idea where to go or what to do.

It does of course all mean that Matt now needs to find time to go to the Brico to get the parts to fix it. He’s frustrated that it’s another couple of lost hours when we have things to do, but I’m looking on the bright-side (it wasn’t me, and) he is very capable of fixing it rather than turning off the water for the weekend [and next year possibly] waiting for a plumber.

Meanwhile I quickly went to my potting shed to pull the best tools for the job of bailing out the hole.

Matt has come home and managed to fix the water pipe so we can turn the water back on to the house but I think we should call it quits for the day, this is clearly not our day. Seems he’s also now hit the waste pipe when he was cutting through the concrete. Thankfully this seems to be very minor but not sure what the fix will be. In the meantime we have gaffa tape.

We will have better luck tomorrow.

[25 March 2022]

Saturday

Preparing for the pool to be installed we’ve decided to take action and clear up the front drive. Nothing too major (at least not without a cherry picker) but we have got the scaffolding out to clear the lowest hanging branches.

Of course Matt is up there for this one, I’m rarely trusted with a chainsaw and far less so off the ground. He’s doing a super job while I stay much closer to the ground. I’m nearby of course, in case there is an incident, but so long as he’s in earshot there’s not a lot of point in standing and watching with so much else to do around here.

Matt’s next task is to put yet another hole through the wall. It feels as though this place will be like swizz cheese by the time we’re finished. It needs doing though and we have to have power outside.

I however can now be a bit further away and working on clearing the left hand side of the front beds.

Of course there has to be a long break while we feed multiple cables through the gaines. It’s a surprisingly tough job and I can see why they charge so much money for them to be prefilled so you don’t have to do this – of course getting exactly what we want is also never easy so sometimes the personal touch is the right course.

Last job of the day hopefully is back in the garden, but less fun in my mind. However, I’m entirely set in the fact that the pool lines must be straight with the angles of the house. There would be nothing worse than looking out the windows everyday or back from the garden and the whole thing being on the wonk. We’ve done it 20 times but now the deadline is bearing down we really need to get this right, we can’t blame the installers for putting it where we asked or ask them to redo it. Of course this can’t be done until it’s reasonably dark so we can use the laser to get the edges of the house just right – we were talking millimetres left and right constantly but if it’s worth doing… [we can over do it?]

Time to get some dinner and relax.

[26 March 2022]

Sunday

Matt has been doing more work on the trench and making sure it will all work to the new pool room. Not sure I could have helped, even if I was up – which of course I wasn’t. Sadly however we had a long to do list so no chance of skiing today, last day of the Luchon Super-Bagneres season. Finally I was woken to help finish the trench.

No idea what this nest is but need to careful about that. Also need to make sure that the new ‘pool room’ is cleared.

The next job was to move the hosta from under the trees where the new pergola and summer kitchen will go. It’s big heavy copper thing so definitely took both of us to move it, but at least it was quick and relatively easy. I think it will get enough sun and shade, Matt is less convinced, but I think it will be happy. Time will tell.

With the trench done it’s time to put the gaines in.

You also have to lay this layer of red tape stuff about 10cm down so that when you dig in the future it warns you long before you cut into the lines themselves – I wish we’d managed to find such tape before we cracked into the waste pipe so can definitely see the sense of it.

Matt has also managed to put in the railings and first of the panels at the back of the pool room ready for the boards to go in. Meanwhile I’ve been moving plants where they’re going to run the pipes out so that they don’t get ruined by the diggers. Once I’ve found a good location and dug it over Matt came over with the rotovator to help. Turns out there’s lots of irises to be moved, as well digging up the good plants where they are going to dump all the spoil that comes out of the hole. The hollyhocks are looking a bit sad after the move but hopefully they’ll come through with a good water. I still have plenty more and I’m pretty over this however Cress seems keen to have some so I’ve left a nice big clump to drop over to them. Since we’ve dug up so many big stones in from the trench I decided that putting an edge around the end of the bay might help prevent them driving over the flowerbeds and my peonies (amongst others).

With all that done, it was finally time to head over to see our friends and drop off the irises. Woody was in particularly good mood and loved playing with Matt.

[27 March 2022]