Tuesday

Working hard in the morning but we need to crack on with the work on the walls. It’s so satisfying to see when small things line up, it really satisfies my OCD part. Matt has been finishing up the framing in Room 4 and then I’m on to trying to fill the gaps between and behind the pipes. It’s been a really time consuming part of the room for both of us.

Matt has some more conference calls so I’m cracking on with the insulation of the area he’s just finished. Once he’s done though he’s back on with the plasterboard. Feels great to finally have another room boarded and to be able to move the scaffolding back to Room 1 and crack on there.

Time to relax.

[4 October 2022]

Wednesday

Matt is busy so I decided to crack on with another job that he wouldn’t want to do and prepare the way for him. So I went up to the second floor to pull out all the old nails from the ceilings so that it’s ready for him to Xylophene. The nail holes are actually a good thing as they help the Xylophene to get deeper into the wood and protect it more.

There were a hell of a lot of nails. I’m not one for just throwing them on the floor, so I created an ingenious answer, even if I say so myself, the mask sling. It was flexible enough to go up and down the steps and meant I didn’t have to run about clearing them up afterwards.

Matt came to check on me a couple of times and brought me up a light to see better – there’s no lighting on this floor currently and it was starting to get a bit dark. With the nail tub full from working through Rooms 6 and 7 it was time for dinner.

We’re not done yet though. We need to start making our way through our Quinces and Matt has found a recipie for a lovely Spanish Membrillo that apparently goes amazingly with cheese. We’ll start with a kilo first – cored and [stripped], we have around 20kg, which reduces quickly with the wastage but there’s still a whole lot more to go. It seems to have worked well and we’re packaged it up so that we can freeze most of it but have a few pieces to test.

We also found a way to make Cat in the Box even better…

[Matt to add the Cat in the box video from his phone]

[5 October 2022]

Thursday

I’m a bit worried about my lime tree with the reducing temperatures. I think it’s best to get the pot wrapped to ensure that it isn’t affected by the cold. An old towel and sheet should be fine for now.

Busy with work in the morning. In the afternoon however we have to crack on again with the walls in Room 1. Matt is also finishing the final wiring for the electric shutters – we don’t have those yet but will be great to be able to close them all automatically in winter at a touch of a button eventually so the cabling needs to go in now.

The writing on the wall: Chantal is the queen of insulation and Matt is the king of plasterboard. I love leaving random notes for people to uncover in 50-100 years time to get a sense of the people that lived here before them – I’d love to have these sorts of clues all around the house.

It’s not finished and we’re a bit further behind than I’d hoped, but we’re moving forward and it’s starting to look like a ‘new’ house.

[6 October 2022]

Friday

A trip to Carrefour today so my idea was to get a load of cheeses, not just the usual ones we get but to start testing out what we might use for the wedding. So lunch today was your atypical cheese board and we decided that the heart shaped one was good but sadly the local cheeses lacked punch. Ok, we need to cater for people with different tastes to us but we also need to have things we like. So a one on the maybe list, one on good and one on poor.

More work work, and then up to work on Room 1. It’s always slow going and I handed up boards where I could but I also did a bit more of the second layer of insulation on Room 2. Hopefully they’re coming along.

We had to finish early to get showers and ready to go to JC’s for dinner. Apparently it’s curry night on a Friday. The food was great as always and lovely to catch up, it felt like it had been a while.

Back home and we packed up the chillies from today then off to bed. It’s been a long week and lots to do tomorrow.

[7 October 2022]

Saturday

First thing was electrics. Matt has been doing an amazing job of adding the new power points in Room 1 – it’s really starting to look like a proper room! When I got up I was greeted by ominous questions however…

Matt: ‘This beam looks load bearing and may be sat on a load of broken bricks. I need to dig deeper to find out what the issue is and how serious it is. What do you think we should do?’

Me: ‘You mean to hold up the whole of the second floor?!’

Matt: ‘Yeah’

Me: 😬 Well don’t we have some acro props that could at least hold it up?

So we went to the basement to find them. Of course none were long enough, I suggested asking Tim if he might have any but it’s not a short trip. After trying various options we worked it out. Thankfully things were better than I’d expected, the beam below goes much further than we feared and so it is sitting on something. Matt seems satisfied which is even better.

Time to crack on more. Time for a quick drink in the waning sun and Matt to cuddle with the cat before I make dinner and start prepping more of the quince’s now we’re happy with the Membrillo. Matt however continued upstairs and we now have a light again in the hallway – ok, it only works from one point but we have light.

The Membrillo is going to make a good addition to the cheese board for the wedding. We’ve given Cress a couple of kilos or more of quinces and so decided just to do all the rest of them. I couldn’t get them all done before dinner though so Matt came to help me and get them on. It’s still a long process but I think we did it better than last time. Finally we have two trays ready to cool.

And then to bed where there was some light.

[8 October 2022]

Sunday

I’ve been holding off on doing it but the sun was out so I decided to crack on with preparing the final bed for the autumn. The longer the mulch is on the better it will be integrated into the soil by the time I want to plant into it. I hope it will be nice and rich and make everything perfect for the summer.

Matt is still working upstairs but for me it is time for a quick swim. We have visitors soon so need to get my lengths in now. Matt eventually came to join me and then we were off to get ready. Rane and Rick are coming over with friends this evening. We weren’t sure if they’d have eaten or not so we were prepared to feed 6. They’d just had roast so seems there’s going to be a lot of meat for me to eat while Matt is away.

It was a lovely evening but we couldn’t be up too late as Matt leaves early tomorrow. Time to quickly wrap up all the Membrillo, then packing and bed.

[9 October 2022]