I learned how to tile floors last summer with the intention of doing all the tiling, but am so busy teaching that I simply haven’t had the time; so Nick is tiling the bike shed floor and making a lovely job of it. It needs to be finished before our visitors land on Friday as Kieran has nobly offered to let Martin have his room. Originally, Kieran was going to sleep on the first floor above the bike shed, but it now looks as though Joel will start work on the roof next week and it could be a bit draughty sleeping under a tarpaulin. So the bike shed will just have to double up as a bedroom!

Sometimes, we get a reminder of how many words there are in French that we either don’t know, or don’t know well enough. I sent Joel a text last week asking about the colour of the roof tiles; well – I thought I did; he never replied, but turned up today, bemused and asking why I wanted to know about the colour of the pipework! I’d used tuyaux instead of tuiles; at least we could have a good laugh about it, but I did feel an idiot!