Day 14 - Friday 7th February 2014

The first piece of plasterboard has just gone in so a bit if a milestone has been reached. Pretty soon it will look like a real room. 

The plumber came yesterday and finished off the drain. It's beautifully concreted in but in spite of him saying leave it be for 3 days Phil was desperate to bring the van into the courtyard so he could start unloading the plasterboard. The van and my car have been parked across the road in a disused garage (as in car dealer / petrol station) and the plasterboard was just so heavy to bring across. 

So we brought my car and parkedh then the van came. It made 6 inch deep ruts and has had to be filled in, the courtyard does look like a mud bath. It WILL look different by summer.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and I got some washing done, out on the line and dry. The washing machine is old and not like one I have ever used before. It loads from the top and the drum has to be openedcseparetly. A lot of guesswork has gone into getting the right programme.

Yesterday I spent most of the day sorting through the middle room in the 2nd house. Mothballs have been falling out of every cupboard I have been in. Mothballs and dried lavender. I have set aside a room for stuff to go to the charity shop and this is filling nicely. We also have a huge pile to go to the tip  but we can only do this once the van is emptied. I expect that joy will be next week.

Phil is delighted as we had to get some more battening this morning and popped around to our local builders merchants in the village. When M. Plisson ws loading it into our van he saw our plasterboard. I admitted that we had bought elsewhere and he asked how much we paid. Phil reckoned about 7 Euros a board and when I asked him his price he said about the same. We hadn't even been able to find plasterboard here and now we have a local supplier. He seems to be keeping his prices down to get the business which could be great for us. He'll even deliver! 

We looked at gravel for the courtyard and it seems he only has 'blue' at the moment. The construction work on the new high speed train line down the road is using up all the 'white' and I think there is a shortage. Blue by the way is actually grey and the white is more honey coloured. Guess which I would like.

This afternoon has also been a wiring exercise for Phil. In France 3 pieces of cable have to go through a hose that doesn't look dissimilar to a hose at the back of your washing machine. There have to be three sets of wires going into the attic/our new bedroom. One for the lights, one for the switches and be for the immersion heater. To try and make this less ugly and difficult to cover up we bought some individual red, blue and green/yellow wiring and attempted to thread it through the hose alongside the existing three wires. Several attempts were made but it just wasn't  going to happen, so this is what we will have to box in.

This is the point we decided to have a bath and call it a day. Perhaps tomorrow we may have a light in our bathroom..... Stay tuned to find out if we do.

For most of you I hope you have a fun and relaxing weekend. For one friend in particular I hope you manage to have some great birthday celebrations. We will raise a glass to you tomorrow.

With love

Xx