There is nothing Nick and Kieran like better than a good demolition project to get their teeth into! They’ve had a great time today!

The next job on our list is the arrière cuisine, which is like a second kitchen, on the cooler side of the house, and used for making things like jams, chutneys, fruit liquers and other sorts of preserves. It will also be useful, when the weather’s hot, to keep the heat out of the main kitchen. The electrician came last week and started the wiring; now we need to put in the insulation and plasterboard the walls before he comes back to install plugs and the like. But before any of that can happen, we need to replace the floor above both arrière cuisine and bike shed; most of the floor is OK, but there are some rotten bits, as Nick discovered when he fell partly through a little while ago! The space above will become a “family room” when the gite and chambres d’hotes business is up and running, but up to now has just been storage space. I’m keen to get on with the arrière cuisine, as once it’s finished, they will start installing a proper kitchen in the house we currently live in; at that point I can get rid of the antiquated gas cooker, with its oven that burns everything, and have a new electric oven 🙂

So while the boys were having great fun (no accounting for it!), I was assigned the task of ringing round the local suppliers to find the best price for floorboarding. I actually spent most of the morning on the phone, calling numerous companies to arrange estimates for solar water heating, photovoltaique panels and a pompe à chaleur heating system.

That done, it was time for my English class; Dominique had asked about the words to the song “Que sera sera” last week, so I printed out the lyrics and took my guitar along to class. We had great fun, ending up singing “Silent night”, at Maithée’s request and I have to take my guitar again the week before Christmas so we can get into the Christmas spirit! It sounds as though we might have quite a party!