One of the first things I had to do when I moved in here was to remove stickers from windows, doors, mirrors, cupboards…… nearly every surface was liberally covered in stickers, from the parrots and palm trees on the fridge, to the orange and olive trees on the windows, to a 2 metre high poppy on a wardrobe door, to the waterfall that completely covered the spare bedroom door. That has taken hours of work so far and is proving to be very difficult to remove.

The next item on my “has to go” list was the sliding glass window and the clutter collector it sat on, between the living room and the kitchen (sadly I’ve got no “before” pictures). It stuck out by 15cm on both sides of the wall, covering a chunk of work surface and serving no useful purpose, unless you like somewhere that gathers clutter.

I can’t rely on Kieran to do all these tasks, but he recommended a friend he’s worked with before, Ludovic, who has a business doing renovations etc. The first time Ludovic came round, I’d just got to the stage in the assembly of an IKEA chest of drawers that required more strength than I possess; he was very happy to oblige, leaving just the drawers to put together, which Kieran did when next he was over.

A week later, Ludovic came back to remove the window and the clutter collector, which he replaced with a piece of oak, as well as putting me some extra shelving in the kitchen. I’d finished decorating my workshop by this point, but was struggling to reinstall two of the shelves; again Ludovic was happy to help. He looked around the room, asking if I’d done the decorating myself; well yes. What, on my own? Yes. Didn’t I ever sleep? I had to admit not as much as I’d like!

Anyway, apart from a few bits, that room is now done; I filled the built in wardrobe with fabrics and can now sew again. A woman who runs textile arts courses recommended a patchwork club in Seignosse, where she explained “at the moment they just do traditional patchwork, but I think, with the right person, there may be some interest in textile arts”. So I’ve joined and I think she might be right, I’ll wait and see.

As the weather’s warming up, it felt like time to take a few days off; there’s a swimming pool just a five minute walk from here, it’s not open all the time, but is fine. I found the proper route for the longer walk around the lake and am gradually working my way through all the paperwork involved in moving house.