Friday

Today is Cressida’s birthday which is very exciting. Matt has to work in the morning and it’s finally time for me to start clearing up all the gardening stuff, but at 12 we’re off to go and collect her so will have to finish that off later.

It’s a bit of a trek but we’re finally off to go and see the immersive Van Gough exhibition but first we have to pick up Mark Dodd and Jonny from the airport. Their flight had been very slightly delayed but only by a matter of minutes. You only get 10mins at the drop off point so Cressida and I went in to meet them at arrivals while Matt did a quick loop. It was only then that I realised I’d never had someone meet me at the gate despite the many times I’ve been through the airport. I guess you don’t often at your home airport you just get on with your journey.

Once we’d picked up the boys we were on our way into the centre of the city to the exhibition. Parking was surprisingly easy but we’d anticipated delays so we’re the best part of an hour early. It seems however that the lady at the desk is not for moving and we have to wait for our booking at 3pm. Time for a quick birthday beer in a nearby pub.

Then back to the exhibition. It was a bit unclear as to what to expect but turns out it was just one room with an hour long reel, nicely put together showing a lot of pictures from different series that you don’t often see. I’ve never thought much of his sunflowers but I was really struck by one of the others from that series that I’d never seen before.

With the exhibition over we had to head back. On the way however I’d agreed to meet a woman to pick up a couple of vintage milk jugs. Usually from Facebook Marketplace you meet at their house, instead we met in some random intersection and we were a bit worried we’d got ourselves into something more sinister. But we got the milk jugs and I’m very happy with them.

Finally back at JC’s and Cress is finishing off the dinner that she prepared yesterday. We then tucked into a couple of bottles of fizz and some wine. Dodd got to watch the first half of the England football game there and then it was back ours for the second half. Time for me to go to bed, I have to be up early tomorrow as the pellets are being delivered.

[25 November 2022]

Saturday

Ugh! Seriously. Matt has already tried to wake me up but I wasn’t overly happy about it. Just as I’m starting to move Matt comes in with the phone, it’s the driver, he’s a bit lost. I explain where we are again and that we’ll be on the road shortly to wave at him. We could see him from the gate and they were soon at work dropping the pallets (of pellets) off by boiler shed.

Next job of course is getting them into the feeder. It’s designed that they are blown in, not hand done. I therefore need to climb into the hopper to receive the bags and move the pellets around. Thankfully we have a helper coming today, the lovely Rane. She’s incredibly cheery for this time of morning and rings the doorbell which is quite fancy.

Time to crack on. Matt has left to do some more work on the electrics while Rane brings me 15kg bags and I empty them and move them around. Just over a tonne in and I have to come out – if we fill it anymore then a) I might be drowned by pellets, b) the pellets will spill everywhere when/if I get out as we need to pull the zipper all the way to the bottom – hence I’ve been creating a mountain at the back of the hopper.

With that done it’s time to call Matt. He’s whipped up a bucket device to add more through the top of the hopper. Initially the pipe was too long but with a bit of modification it seems to be working well and we’ve got another half tonne in.

Time for a break and to get some lunch on. I made some curry the other day in preparation so just need to heat that up and get some more rice on.

The plasterboard from the Salle a Manger (dining room) needs to be moved out before New Year and since we have help Matt and I show Mark how you manoeuvre it up the stairs. Having moved the first sheet to Tonia’s room it’s time to leave it to Mark and Matt, so Rane and I are off to the garden to see what else we can do.

Job 1 – second coat on the side of the pool house. It’s so much quicker with two of you.

Job 2 – rotovating, de-stoning and raking the front lawn to even it out and prepare it for some seed. This was a huge job and took me forever to do a small patch on my own. Working together in harmony however we got through a massive amount and I couldn’t believe that we seem to have finished the area.

Meanwhile Matt and Mark have been off at the shops to get some more boards to finish the front of the pool house. We were starting to think that they’d gone for a few beers too the time it took them.

Rane unfortunately got some sad personal news so had to leave but I couldn’t be more grateful for the help that she’s given us today and how far we’ve got with her support. Thank you!

Next job was to help Matt to put the new shower tray down in Room 2 ensuite. It’s going to need a while to settle and some weight, lucky we have some more 15kg bags of wood pellets now.

By this point I can hardly feel my arms, I can’t even open a bottle of wine. Time for a rest and dinner before Matt starts packing for his trip tomorrow. He’s off to LA for the Amazon AWS conference with 50k other geeks to do his AI car racing. I think meow wants to go with him, but she’s just going to have to stay here with me and Mark.

[26 November 2022]

Sunday

Oh my god, what fresh hell is this?! It’s 7am and Matt is insisting that I get up, I don’t want to! He’s made me some tea though and we’re soon in the car on our way to the airport. It was still dark when we left so we got quite a nice sunrise on the way up.

So I have to get up early and I still have to say goodbye. This really sucks balls. At least I have a friend at home to keep me company for another day or so.

Having dropped him off I went to B&M to pick up a couple of heaters that Matt had ordered but it turns out that they don’t open till 10am on Sunday, it was 8:50 when I arrived. After 15 minutes I decided I couldn’t sit there for another hour for it to open so we’ll have to work out something else and I headed home. Mark wasn’t up yet so I laid on the sofa and put the TV on. I’m so tired!

Mark finally up and we had some more tea and planned our day. The project for the day is the front of the pool house. It was harder to dismantle than expected. Meanwhile Matt is supping beers in the lounge and killing time.

Finally time to rebuild. Since we’ve had problems with the new boards warping from the moisture we have reused an old board at the bottom and left a reasonable gap so hopefully the same doesn’t happen with the front. Unlike the side however we have to cut every single one of the boards to get them to fit and we have to constantly adjust the lengths so that they don’t overhang the door and fit around the brackets.

The start was particularly slow but we gradually picked up the pace a bit. It was still pretty slow going though. We also had to work out how to cut around the beams and break off some of the old ladder support to put the new planks in – we’ll work that out later.

I’d forgotten that the sun is setting earlier each day and we’d already lost it behind the mountains before we started to paint. I cracked on while Mark then helped to fill in the gaps from the movement on the side. I think it’s looking pretty good even though we didn’t have enough time to do the door today – we’re going to have to cut every one of those to size too and again sure that they won’t be the same length. The other issue is going to be lining them up so that the lines run parallel, but that’s a job for another day.

Back into the house for some rest, relaxation and food as it is getting cold. Simple pizza for dinner followed by hours of TV and a huge amount of work on the blog – maybe 4 hours! Finally time for bed.

Eventually after 11 hours, Matt had finally arrived in Las Vegas and made it to his hotel room.

[27 November 2022]

Monday

Had lots of work to do in the morning however Mark managed to find a break in the rain to reattach the Tesla and external plugs on the pool house. I managed to clear the afternoon to chill out with him but unfortunately with the poor weather there’s not a lot to do and he doesn’t fancy wandering about in the rain.

Having had a walk around the house and run through the list of jobs to do. We looked at doing some of the plasterboard in Room 6 however annoyingly the edges of the ceiling have nothing to drill into so not sure what the plan is with that. We decide to install a bit more insulation but of course nothing in this house is straight and every gap is a different size. After lots of measuring and cutting we called it a day when we lost the light. It’s not finished but a bit more insulation can only be a good thing as the nights get colder.

With that job progressed we went back to the kitchen where Mark watched the football and I cleaned and made dinner. Then an evening of relaxation in front of the TV with Meow curled up on my lap.

Meanwhile in Vegas, miniature cars went round in circles and Matt and Tony appear to have been drinking.

[28 November 2022]

Tuesday

Weather is a bit rubbish but at least its not raining. I am really sick of early mornings. It seems however that SNCF has some grudge against me. I checked the train times and there’s roughly one an hour, except at 9 for no apparent reason. I have a call that I have to be on at 11 so in order to get Mark to the airport at a reasonable time I’ve had to leave at 8:45! Does this madness never end?

Being a weekday however at least I can finally pick up those heaters that I couldn’t get when I dropped Matt off. Annoyingly however it took far longer than planned as we’d ordered two and they’d only pulled one. When they pulled the second they realised that there was a price difference between online and in-store, which we knew and was why we put them back last time to order them online instead and pick them up later. I ended up late to my call and taking it in the B&M carpark, not my finest moment.

Back at home and the cat thinks the new heaters are a hit at least. Anyway I need to catch up on work after having had a guest and some relaxation for the last couple of days. I do need some supplies though, but it does look pretty sad.

So let’s head over to the action in Vegas.

It seems that after making it through the first round of racing Matt was finally knocked out of the competition in 28th place… out of 150,000 however, so not too bad.

And he was 1st in some sort of light-saber posing competition, but that didn’t come with a cash prize sadly. Averaging 30,000 steps per day, so hopefully the walking is counteracting all the food and booze.

[29 November 2022]