And the walls came tumbling down

And the walls came tumbling down 

When the builders did turn up on Wednesday 16th, there were a couple of Romanian guys and the gaffer from Plisson (the local builders merchants who were doing the work). The Romanians had a great work ethic and we were in awe of their care and thoughtfulness. Also they were genuinely interested in what we were up to and made lots of suggestions. whilst they were working downstairs we were upstairs working on creating a working shower room.

More about the work downstairs first.

We wanted to have a 2ft wide wall knocked down and a very small in height door removed. This was to a - stop people from banging their heads on the stupidly small door frame
and b - to make an entrance hallway appear large and lighter.
Another wall needed to be knocked down giving us a large kitchen / living area

It's a breakthrough

 The second wall was behind where the builder is standing (above)

Please note in photo above, precarious hanging water heater. This in fact sprang a leak from pipe below and I rushed to put my finger in it (as you do). Next thing I knew our builder had rushed to hold up water heater as it was falling off the wall. Needless to say we never got it back up again leaving us without hot water downstairs.

Waiting to be levelled

The next thing to done was to level off the old stable floor. Some of which was cobbled. It was very up and down and took a huge amount of effort. Hot work!

Then a plastic membrane was added and steel grids.

They worked so hard and left after a day and a half, due to return the following day as the concrete was being delivered. However I got a call the next morning saying the concrete wasn't coming and it would be the following Monday or Tuesday. Very disappointing as we were left with no electricity to that part of the house or outside, no hot water and just 2 power points in the whole downstairs.
Monday and Tuesday came and went and as Rich had arrived we decided to leave the key for the builders and went off to la Rochelle. On Tuesday they were still hopeful it would be that day, however we returned from La Rochelle Wednesday afternoon and nothing had changed.
Thursday we went to Plisson and they assured us it would be Friday. This was reminiscent of A Year in Provence.....

We had now been without power points, cooker etc. etc. for nearly 2 weeks.
Ironically on the Wednesday evening and all day Thursday cement lorries were convoying (almost) past the house. One even stopped for a couple of minutes, taunting us. They are building some houses a bit further up the road. It seems our small order for concrete is so small that the TGV line they are building and a small group of houses take priority.

However on Friday morning about 9am they arrived.
I was joyous to say the least. 
Preparation was also done for the courtyard where chippings were going to be laid after the messy cement job had been done and we were told the cement would arrive on a lorry after lunch. 
And lo and behold....

Cement lorry outside downloading cement into bucket on digger

Digger pours cement into makeshift slide that goes into house

Builders push and rake said cement into house to make floor

Raking cement in

Finally with aid of special levelling machine and super large squeegees cement is smoothed and levelled

Spray added to stop cement cracking

They did a great job (eventually) and the lesson is that you just can't project manage anything timewise here. The lovely Romanian guys don't understand that mentality either but for the future I will be very careful about builders and their time scales.

The Courtyard (La Cour)

This being finished and needing to be left to dry for 24-48 hours the guys started on the courtyard.

As if by magic a lorry load of chippings came through the gates. The photos tell it all.

And this was how I wanted it to look when Rich arrived. Sadly it came to pass the night before he left but I'm glad he got to see it. We are so pleased to have it prettied up a bit and with the covered terrace lights that Rich helped put up things are really coming together.



Next post will be the work we did building up to Rich's arrival.

See you soon x

July and our return

Apologies for the delay in posting again. A lot of you have been thinking the worst but we extremely well and have been very busy.

After a lovely 10 days in the UK catching up with people and Phil getting a gold star from the Bristol Heart Institute we returned to La Belle France.
This time the van was loaded with white goods and stuff for the house as opposed to building materials. The exception being some double doors for our kitchen that we have been trying to get since April. The company, SMI doors did these doors at a great price. The website said next day delivery but of course that was only after they had been despatched and therein lay the problem. The site also stated 'In stock' which wasn't true and although the owner talked the talk he certainly didn't walk the walk. He was empathetic every time I called but we were continuously let down. The doors finally arrived having been let down 4 or 5 times and are safe in France.Yet to be unopened so the tale may not yet be over.

We had a good crossing in spite of schoolchildren taking over the boat and being quite badly behaved in the cinema and stopped at the Ibis that night just outside Caen. After a beer, a rest and breakfast we set off.

It was a great journey and fortunately not a hot day as there is no air con in the van.
we stopped at Le Clerc in Ruffec for shopping and were back mid afternoon and the van was empty an hour or so later. We were so pleased to be back and celebrated at L'Etoile D'Or.
We woke up the following morning and the pressure was on. Only 9 days until Rich (my son) was due to arrive and we were determined to get a shower room ready for him and the bedroom prettied up. 

We kept our heads down for the next 9 days. As expected the builders didn't turn up on 15th July. It was the Fete Nationale (Bastille Day) on 14th July and I expect there were a few sore heads on the 15th. We celebrated at un repas (basically a huge meal where most of the village show up) at the Salles de Fetes (like a Village Hall) and the tables were set up outside. We took our own plates and glasses although there was a bar as well. Our local bar/restaurant owners and a few French locals turned up just before 7pm at the house to walk with us. A real surprise so we had an aperatif here. We weren't really set up for visitors as we had disconnected the old electrics over the weekend and had moved everything from the kitchen and 'stable' into the front room. The fridge was the only thing we had plugged in so there was cold wine and beer.One of the locals knew the house from 20 years ago when he used to visit the lady who lived here. He said he found a bayonet in the barn which he now has at home. He could see the improvements we are making and seems to think they are excellent.
Anyway, we arrived at the repas and met up with Nadia and Justin and their children and met some lovely new friends - Dee and her beautiful daughter Hannah. We had a great evening. The pompiers (firemen and women) served us with Charentais melon with red Pineau de Charentes (yum yum), followed by BBQ'd pork and white beans, bread and a great chunk of brie followed by a choice of Cornettos. I had lemon, Phil had vanilla and the others had creme brulee flavoured! New flavours to me. There was a 'disco' and everyone was having a good time. As the light started to fade we bought a couple of lanterns - only 50 cents each which were brightly coloured and had a candle in them and then a procession followed from the Salles de Fetes to the Rugby ground where fireworks were going to be let off. The procession was wonderful. Some people had torches instead of lanterns. The medieval variety, not the battery operated sort. I'm sure it wouldn't have been allowed in the UK. The firework display was brilliant! Lots of oohs and aahs and a fabulous end to a great evening. We mozied (is that a real word?) on home but others returned to the Salles de Fetes for more drinking and dancing. But the builders were due early so we sensibly called it a night.

However the builders didn't show until the Wednesday, no surprise there. More news and photos in next blog entry.