When I asked Joel, our builder, what our chances were of having the crepi finished before the party, he looked doubtful. It would depend largely on the weather; it can’t be done if it’s raining, or if it’s too hot and then of course, he’d be on holiday for 2 or 3 weeks from the end of July. I had visions of a party around the scaffolding.

But he’s a good bloke and we got home from Auch to find scaffolding erected around the house; Joel arrived the following day to say the the heatwave was over, so he and his men would start the next morning. It would still be hot by the afternoon, so they’d be here at 6am.

At 6.03 the vans began to arrive, loaded with bags and bags of the stuff for the first coat, a mixer and a sprayer. By lunchtime the first coat was on the side of the house. The following day they did the base coat on the front; the chaufferie didn’t need a base coat. They decided to work Saturday that week, getting the finish coat onto the side, then Monday top coated the rest. One would spray the product onto the wall while the other three smoothed it over; it had to rest a while then, till it was the right consistency for the final rub, and it was done!

I’m sure we’ll very soon get used to it, but for the time being, we keep going outside to stand and admire our lovely house.

In the meantime, the heatwave may be over, but it hasn’t rained in weeks. We keep emptying the water storage tank that fills from the fosse, the rain butts are dry and we’ve pumped everything out of the old fosse, that now catches rainwater. The plants were looking very dry; it was time to plumb the well, there’s about a metre of water, 15m down.

We bought yet another pump and miles of pipe and pumped the water into the storage tank by the potager; we can pump the well twice a day as it takes a while to refill, but we have plenty of water now.

Joel est venu faire le crepi la semaine dernière. Lui et ses ouvriers ont bien travaillé, de 6h du matin, et nous sommes très contents avec le finisson. La maison est très jolie maintenant.