Nick and Kieran have spent the last two days putting floorboards down on the joists above Nick’s workshop and the floor’s now finished!! The workshop is beginning to take shape; there’s still a wall to build at one end, and eventually, when we get planning permission, we’ll put windows in; but it’s nearly at a point where Nick can use it to house his tools and start making stuff. The lack of windows, now that it’s not open to the roof, does make it a bit on the dark side, so this afternoon, they installed some lighting. It feels like real progress.

I made enquiries at the Mairie about the plans we’ve been drawing up for the building work we want to do, only to discover that we have to get an architect to do them for us as the habitable area of the building will exceed 170 square metres. All that hard work wasted!

Last night was cold; when we got up this morning the first job was to light a fire, since any form of central heating is still a dream. But by lunchtime the sun had warmed things up so much that we went outside to have coffee. Doesn’t seem possible at the end of November! It made up for the last 4 or 5 days of gloom, cold and fog.