When we go to Sarremejean to ask for a delivery, they scratch their heads and say “Yeah, it’ll be next week at the soonest”. When I phoned the plumber to ask him to do an estimate, it took 6 calls before he even responded to my messages; I’d have given up if he hadn’t been highly recommended by the builder.

When Joel goes to Sarremejean to order stuff, it arrives within the hour and when he asked me to phone the electrician and the plumber last night, to ask them both to come round today, they appeared before lunch! It’s great having such a good bloke working for us.

The three wise men had a conflab about what’s happening, what needs to happen and when (and were here such a short time I didn’t even get a photo!). They also discussed our heating system, which we haven’t yet made a final decision on, and all three said that air/water is fine around here and that it would be a waste of money to go down the geothermic route. It was good to get some truly impartial advice. Then WHOOSH -they were gone!

The floor is now ready for the next layer of concrete, which will arrive on Friday, then Joel will start building the downstairs walls on Monday. The terracing is dug out; the old ground level was 80cm higher than the inside; but with Joel’s big digger, it was only an afternoon’s work.

In the meantime, the gardens looking – well – not quite at its best and seems to be sprouting mountains all over the place; rubble mountains, soil mountains, bonfire mountains…..

Tomorrow we can have a rest and a clear up as Joel won’t be here till the evening, by which time we have to make sure we’ve marked exactly what walls we want, where, on the plans, as Nick and I will be away on Monday.