We actually seem to have made some real progress this week; the electrician came back to put in light switches and sockets on the ground floor, so Nick and Kieran have been able to start insulating and plasterboarding the downstairs walls. We’ve booked the heating people to come in at the beginning of November, so it must all be done by then. The weather has been so lovely that the lads decided to work outside one day, putting in the beams to support a floor in the chaufferie (boiler room). For my part, I’ve started tiling the kitchen in the gite.

I was given an evening off yesterday as the band was part of a Celtic, Gasconne and Breton music festival in a nearby village. Not a concert, there were members of about five different bands, but it was something of of a free-for-all with anybody joining in with anything they fancied. There was an amazing array of instruments, including Pyreneen whistles (only 3 holes, so they’re played one-handed), a hammer dulcimer and, horror of horrors, Scottish bagpipes! A lot of the Breton music was to dance to and most of the people there knew how to do the traditional Breton dances, which were done, traditionally, to pound flat the earth floors in new houses; so lots of stomping about. Unusually for France, food and drink weren’t provided, but everyone took something and we shared it about. A very enjoyable evening.