Friday

Standard work call with the Prof Sir and then off to get our blood tests. Seems as though they want to check for absolutely everything when you register with a GP here. Sadly however it still won’t allow me to donate blood in France as they have this whole CJD thing, on the plus side for our UK readers it means I can only donate to UK donors when I go home to London and I continue to do so. Anyway, it’s off up to BioMedica in Montrejeau nice and early. Then had a quick look at the lovely grape hyacinths and zinnias that are starting to come up.

After work it is time to start packing the car for a dechetterie run. I know it’s been there forever but we have to clear the space for the next load. I fear we’ll never actually catch up but it’s progress.

Back at the house and down into the garden to thin out the quince trees, which need to be pruned before spring starts properly.

While I finish and clear up Matt is off to make dinner. Can’t argue with a curry and finally to watch some rugby.

[11 March 2022]

Saturday

Matt has been busy down in the basement the power board for future pool pump room.

Next job is to start on clearing the orchard. Ready and willing we then start to crack on with the job and it’s looking so different and suddenly accessible.

We’ve tried a number of times to get hold of the people at the digger rental yard down the road to no avail. There’s never anyone around and we can’t even find the actual office. They haven’t even stopped us just generally wandering round the yard of all the machinery. So there’s nothing for it but to crack on ourselves and start to dig the trench the hard way to run the power from the house to the new ‘pool house’ (better known currently as the chicken coop). Meow is definitely interested in the large new hole..

The spade isn’t much use as you basically immediately hit a large rock and feel the reverberation go straight through you. Thankfully Matt has bought us a new pick axe (we left the last one in London). I can’t say that it made it ‘easy’ but it was definitely better than it could have been. I helped plenty though and reckon I have a good pick axe stance. Once I caught it on the overhead wire I figured it was time to pass back control.

As Matt takes the lead on that I decided that we need to start getting more space cleared in the chicken shed so that we have enough space to move out what was stored in the pool room to the main coop. Without Tonia being here that means I have to start to pull out hundreds of nails from the lath that we’ve pulled off the house. Once done it can be reused as firewood, or something else..

It’s hot, hard work so time for lunch before we get back to it.

Still more digging to get done but we’re making good progress and Meow has now decided that she is trench warfare style cat..

The rugby is on so I may have slinked back into the house unnoticed for a little while once the main work on the trench was done. Matt was less worried about it so he was out testing the ‘BBQ’. You may think this looks like an incinerator but it’s definitely a bbq, there was a sausage nearby at all times! I came out to help during the break too, apparently looking a little like a scarecrow – it’s been a tough day.

Back inside for the rest of the rugby and to let the BBQ die down. Final job was to start putting a couple of the posters in their new frames. Tonia also appears to have misplaced her phone and thankfully we have her on the ‘find my friends’. Not entirely sure what happened but I think she managed to work out that she’d left it on the train but she managed to get it back so all good.

Night all

[12 March 2022]

Sunday

Big job to do today. While we are waiting on the plumber to enable progress on the other two bathrooms, we’re going to crack on with the next one. It’s only the downstairs one that works anyway and if we’re ever going to put in some insulation and get the other first floor en-suite moving it would be helpful to know how big the room is.

So it’s time to take the wall down!

We had started by taking things down the stairs however soon realised that jettisoning was a much more efficient route. What a difference it made though, and we discovered two new wallpapers.

With the big job of the day done there’s still a few little bits to be done.

I am absolutely sick of walking all the way round the outside of the kitchen to basement when we have a door at the other end. Rather than blocking it to keep it closed, Matt is renovating the old door lock and handle. He’d done a pretty super job and spent minutes just opening and closing it.

We bought a set of pans to go in the kitchen a long time back and today we finally put them up. I’m pretty happy with the result though. The pans are a great match for the handles on the doors and the wood matches the light fixture above the island.
Dinner. Tapas tonight

That’s more than enough for one weekend. We’re exhausted so time for showers and a rest. After we were asleep before you could finish saying ‘night, night’.

[13 March 2022]

Monday

Busy day with work and getting packed for my next fleeting visit back to London.

[14 March 2022]