It was too cold on Friday to pour the concrete for the window lintels, and too wet to work outside, so Joel went off to another job, leaving Nick and Kieran to cut the hole for the bathroom window. I get the impression he’s gradually realising that they’re not your average DIYers and he’s more than happy for them to work with him.

By the time Friday night arrived, both lads were pretty shattered, having worked non-stop all week, so we decided to have a lazy weekend; but the weather wasn’t conducive to going out, so the “weekend off” saw them finish work at 8.30pm on Saturday and 6.30pm on Sunday. They’ve made good progress on the arrière cuisine, which now has cupboards, a working sink and some work surface. I had my eye on a lovely, solid beech work top, but as it cost four times as much as the melamine, I was out-voted; we’ve got melamine on the grounds that it is only an arrière cuisine, a bit like a utility room. I had wanted to use the old pot sink from the current kitchen, but was disappointed there, too, as it’s badly stained and has started to chip in places; I did, however, manage to find an old-fashioned looking pot sink in one of the DIY stores, so they’ve installed that.

The rain’s been non-stop for days now, the garden is a complete mud-bath and what will be the terrace is dug out to about 50cm deep; Nick has been running the pump, to drain it, most of the weekend, but it just keeps refilling. I hope it’ll dry up soon as Joel wants us to dig the foundations for the boiler room. But we shouldn’t complain; this is one of the few areas of France that isn’t under a blanket of snow 🙂