After yet another night of heavy rain, Nick’s first task this morning was to start pumping the water out of the moat (aka future terrace) again. But the sun was shining, so Joel decided it would be a good day to dig out the foundations; Kieran drove our mini-digger (he’s still hankering after a chance to drive Joel’s monster digger), while Seb shovelled the edges by hand and Nick barrowed away the sodden, heavy, slimy, sticky goo which, after 3 weeks of near constant rain, currently passes for soil. Being further hampered by the fact that  a good proportion stayed stuck to the digger bucket when Kieran tipped it into the barrow and to the barrow when Nick tipped it onto the heap made progress painfully slow, but progress they did. This, in spite of the occasional torrential downpours, in spite of the mud having quicksand-type properties (they completely lost three, 3foot long, foot square oak beams at one point), and in spite of the digger nearly tipping over as the mud oozed between and around the tracks. When it came time to get the digger out of the hole, Kieran had to push it out with its own bucket simultaneously with driving it up the planks; if they’d left it there, it seemed that it would have disappeared into the mire by morning!

I’ve just had a text from a friend, checking that everything’s OK, as she hasn’t seen a blog for a while; sorry Terrie! Yes, everything’s fine; we’ve just been run off our feet.

Two of Joel’s lads arrived before 8am on Friday and worked till 6.30pm to finish all the downstairs brick-laying, ready for the hourdis this week. Joel came round mid-morning to check their work and deliver an estimate for replacing the roof; he reckons Nick and Kieran have saved us €10 000 so far, by working with him; well worth doing, then!

There’s a terrible draught comes in under the front door, so I decided to make a curtain, but as it will only be used for a couple of months this winter and probably next winter, it didn’t seem worth spending a lot on it. I found an old throw, left on the settee when we bought the house, an ultra thin bed quilt that came free with a catalogue order and  a second, similar quilt, bought for €1 in Emmaus (a charity shop), stitched them all together, remembered that I’d sold all my curtain header tape before we moved here, so sewed bits of ribbon to the top and used these to tie the curtain on to the rings on the (reclaimed) pole. Result? We’re toasty warm 🙂

By the end of last week, we were all ready for a rest; the lads had worked hard in the house and I’d taught four language classes; but the cycle club dinner on Friday night, aperos on Saturday, then dinner at friends’ on Saturday night, walking/cycling this morning, followed by lunch to which we’d invited Adrian, has meant that the last couple of days haven’t felt much like a break. Maybe we’ll watch (or fall asleep in front of) a film tonight, well, once I’ve finished my next lesson plan………..

Nick was working by 7.30 this morning, removing the rest of the rubble generated yesterday, cutting windows. But when Joel arrived with two of his employees, Nick and Kieran were no longer required, so they amused themselves by starting to replace the bit of débaras (junk room) floor that was under the chimneybreast when they removed it. They had to cut out the part tiles and cement up the floor, which, of course, caused mountains of dust. They claim to have closed at least one door, but I’m not convinced!

Once that was at a stage to be left to dry, Nick started working on tarting up the grotty cupboards in the arrière cuisine, making wooden end panels and a panel for the back of the washing machine. I’ve arranged the tiles for one wall on the work surface, but haven’t had time to stick any to the walls yet.

I taught my first paid French class this morning; it went well and everyone seemed happy with it. I dashed home, had a very hasty lunch and went to meet a woman, to arrange future lessons, as I thought. However, when we’d discussed times, dates, etc., she decided it would be a good idea for her to have her first lesson today, “if I had time”. It normally takes me 2-3 hours to plan a lesson………! So I blagged my way through it, on the basis of what I’d taught in French this morning and she was delighted with the result. Phew! By the end, my languages were getting a little mixed up; on Tuesdays I teach English mostly in English, this morning I’d done French, but mostly in English for beginners, then this afternoon was English, but mostly in French!!! Ah well, I suppose it’ll help stave off Alzheimers 😉

PS A prize for the first person to spot the beer bottle!

Joel didn’t arrive till late yesterday; he’d had to sort out someone’s guttering, pulled off by the rain. The heating lady arrived half an hour late, because two roads she tried to take were flooded. The route I normally take to avoid Nogaro centre is closed, and under 1.5metres of water. We haven’t got the snow the UK is experiencing, but we’ve certainly got plenty of rain!

But Joel arrived today and set the boys on to cutting holes in the walls for windows, while he got on with building the internal walls. They are going to put in concrete lintels tomorrow, so that everything will be ready for the arrival of the hourdis later this week.

In Joel’s absence, Nick and Kieran worked on the arrière cuisine yesterday; it’s now ready to tile above the work tops; this is my job and I think it could be quite a challenge. I want an eclectic, rustic look and have bought a selection of different tiles, all 10cm square, but in quite a variety of thicknesses. I couldn’t find many patterrned ones, so I painted some of them. Naturally, I want a smooth finish, so I’ll have to take care to use the right amount of sticky for each one. Could be interesting :-/

Kieran, in his spare time, is building a device to do time lapse photos. Using just the camera for it is quite complicated, so the new gadget is supposed to be simple enough for me to use – in other words; idiot-proof!

It was too cold on Friday to pour the concrete for the window lintels, and too wet to work outside, so Joel went off to another job, leaving Nick and Kieran to cut the hole for the bathroom window. I get the impression he’s gradually realising that they’re not your average DIYers and he’s more than happy for them to work with him.

By the time Friday night arrived, both lads were pretty shattered, having worked non-stop all week, so we decided to have a lazy weekend; but the weather wasn’t conducive to going out, so the “weekend off” saw them finish work at 8.30pm on Saturday and 6.30pm on Sunday. They’ve made good progress on the arrière cuisine, which now has cupboards, a working sink and some work surface. I had my eye on a lovely, solid beech work top, but as it cost four times as much as the melamine, I was out-voted; we’ve got melamine on the grounds that it is only an arrière cuisine, a bit like a utility room. I had wanted to use the old pot sink from the current kitchen, but was disappointed there, too, as it’s badly stained and has started to chip in places; I did, however, manage to find an old-fashioned looking pot sink in one of the DIY stores, so they’ve installed that.

The rain’s been non-stop for days now, the garden is a complete mud-bath and what will be the terrace is dug out to about 50cm deep; Nick has been running the pump, to drain it, most of the weekend, but it just keeps refilling. I hope it’ll dry up soon as Joel wants us to dig the foundations for the boiler room. But we shouldn’t complain; this is one of the few areas of France that isn’t under a blanket of snow 🙂

Joel was on his own today and at first said he wouldn’t be needing any help, but he soon changed his mind! So while Kieran and I went to Aire sur l’Adour to buy a sink for the arrière cuisine, Nick was busy playing the role of builder’s mate. Not much progress on the arrière cuisine today, then….

The ground floor internal walls are nearly built now, the garage doors blocked up and Nick and Kieran were set on to cut a hole in the outer wall this afternoon for the French doors in one of the bedrooms. The man came round from Sarremejean to let us know that le hourdis will be ready next week. This is a metal structure that will be put in on top of the ground floor walls, to support the first floor. I gather they’ll take off some of the roofing tiles and a cement lorry with a long tube will pour the cement onto the first floor from above! Sounds pretty clever to me; I’ll be there with the camera.

For my part, I had a meeting today with some prospective French students – English people wanting to learn French, that is. It looks as though I’ve got two small groups; one for beginners and another for intermediates, from next week. I was also told that the maire of a local village is looking for English tuition for himself and his wife, so can I get in touch. So far, so good. 🙂

The link to today’s timelapse video;

Joel and two of his employees arrived at 8am, apologising profusely for breaking in yesterday, and with a truckful of briquettes for the walls. We finalised plans for exactly where the walls and doorways were to go and left them to get on with it. Once the walls were well underway, it was time for today’s scary moment – well scary hour or so; removing the huge oak beam that ran the whole width of the house and supported the roof.

Pit props were put in place to support the two other big beams that rest on the main one, which, in their turn, support the uprights, which hold the roof up. Nick and Kieran helped build scaffolding towers so Joel could use a chain saw to cut out a section of the beam at a time; being about a foot square in cross section, even short lengths were extremely heavy. Gradually, they moved along the length of the beam, removing it a metre at a time, then took away the upright supports from both ends. The house is still standing! Phew!  🙂

Kieran’s built a device to allow us to do time lapse photography; I hope you enjoy the video clip which you can watch in either 50 seconds, or more slowly, in 5 minutes. Watch especially the beam that shows at the top edge of the picture, or doesn’t, by the end.

When they weren’t working with Joel, Nick and Kieran did the plumbing in the arrière cuisine. No leaks, so we’ll buy a sink tomorrow and they’ll start assembling the kitchen units

Short version

Longer version

We left Kieran here to look after the animals while Nick and I had a lovely few days with my brother and his family in London. So imagine what a shock it was to find that, while Kieran was driving to the airport to pick us up today, someone had cut through the chain securing the garage doors and calmly let themselves in.

They’ve propped loads of scaffolding up in one corner, put a heap of planks against the wall and  drawn lines all over the new floor, where the walls are going. So not your average burglar, but if he’d said, we’d have left Joel a key!

Joel and his employee, Sebastien, arrived at 8 this morning and the first lorry, containing 6 cubic metres of concrete, at 8.30. Nick, Kieran and Sebastien barrowed the concrete to the back of the floor, then the lorry driver tipped the rest of it into the front part. He then went to get a second load, to make it up to the 8 cubic metres required. The video’s rather grainy because it’s quite dark in the “house-to-be” at the moment, but you can get the general idea. I don’t seriously expect anyone to watch the whole of both videos though; they’re hardly the most riveting!

By 10.30, it was all done and levelled; Joel and Sebastien went on to another job and we sat and drank celebratory coffee in the sunshine.

Nick and Kieran then started work on the arrière cuisine, insulating the walls, plasterboarding them and building the cupboards by the time evening arrived. They’re cheap cupboards, with horrible white melamine doors, but Nick intends to build decent, replacement doors in the near future; the carcasses are OK, so the room will be functional without too much effort.

Some days you work your socks off, and for no apparent result; today wasn’t like that; it was great to see the progress made!

When we go to Sarremejean to ask for a delivery, they scratch their heads and say “Yeah, it’ll be next week at the soonest”. When I phoned the plumber to ask him to do an estimate, it took 6 calls before he even responded to my messages; I’d have given up if he hadn’t been highly recommended by the builder.

When Joel goes to Sarremejean to order stuff, it arrives within the hour and when he asked me to phone the electrician and the plumber last night, to ask them both to come round today, they appeared before lunch! It’s great having such a good bloke working for us.

The three wise men had a conflab about what’s happening, what needs to happen and when (and were here such a short time I didn’t even get a photo!). They also discussed our heating system, which we haven’t yet made a final decision on, and all three said that air/water is fine around here and that it would be a waste of money to go down the geothermic route. It was good to get some truly impartial advice. Then WHOOSH -they were gone!

The floor is now ready for the next layer of concrete, which will arrive on Friday, then Joel will start building the downstairs walls on Monday. The terracing is dug out; the old ground level was 80cm higher than the inside; but with Joel’s big digger, it was only an afternoon’s work.

In the meantime, the gardens looking – well – not quite at its best and seems to be sprouting mountains all over the place; rubble mountains, soil mountains, bonfire mountains…..

Tomorrow we can have a rest and a clear up as Joel won’t be here till the evening, by which time we have to make sure we’ve marked exactly what walls we want, where, on the plans, as Nick and I will be away on Monday.