We thought we deserved a few days’ break after last week’s exertions, so we didn’t do much on Sunday! But Monday saw us back to work. We’d found some doors on “le bon coin”, an internet selling site; so Nick and Kieran headed off to Mirande to pick them up. They’re perfect; right size, in excellent condition and complete with frame, so Nick continued to build the wall to his workshop around the frame this morning. This afternoon saw him and Kieran put the new floor down in the bathroom; the bath should be ready to collect from Pau this week, so we’re on schedule to have it finished by the time Alex, Graham and Izzy arrive for Easter.

Today has been glorious, so I made the most of the weather and got out in the garden, planting raspberry canes, weeding flowerbeds and mowing the mole hills. The grass would certainly not win prizes in a  best-kept-lawn competition, in fact I don’t think it would even be recognised as a lawn, but it’s mostly green so hey-ho!

On Saturday it was Adrian’s village annual meat-fest, the hunt lunch. It started at midday with aperitifs, followed by the meal proper. I’m learning that these events aren’t geared up for would-be vegetarians at all, anything faintly vegetable-like being hidden beneath a mound of “proper bloke food”, but there were half a dozen green beans to be found in one course and there was an (optional) salad course later on in the meal. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons there were so few women there!

The first course was served at about 1.30, amidst much noisy conversation and general bonhomie; by the time we got to dessert, you could hardly hear yourself think! The rosé was followed by red, followed by champagne, followed by armagnac, in a very convivial atmosphere. We thought we’d escaped at 7pm, but were dragged back in by a very drunk Thomas, wanting to continue practicing his English on us. Adrian denies all responsibility for teaching him the sort of gutter English he’s very proud of! Three of us got away again at 7.30pm, by running for it across the car park, but we had to rescue Nick half an hour later, when we’d loaded up the car to come home.

On our return, I found a newspaper cutting in my emails inbox; a report and photo of the walk I did in the Pyrenees last weekend with the Nogaro walking group. Aaaah, fame at last!! Though why they called us escargots, I have no idea; we weren’t that slow!

I left the boys at Adrian’s this morning; casserole in the slow cooker and soup on the stove; and headed back to Nogaro, where I had a meeting and then my English class this afternoon.

There were over 5000kg of dry materials between the mountain of sand and gravel in the courtyard and the bags of cement in the grange; then the tractor turned up, and the cement mixer, so it looked pretty businesslike. By this evening, all the raw ingredients had been used up and there’s a new, damp-proofed floor in the maisie. A good day’s work!

My day was rather less pleasing; as only one or two students ever turn up to my English lessons now, they decided that it’s unfair to ask me to continue the commitment. They assured me that it’s nothing to do with my teaching, and that because people pay so little for these lessons, this is something that happens when the weather improves after winter; but it still feels like a failure. Then, when I got home, the house was bitterly cold and I discovered that there was no wood cut for the fire! Not to be defeated, though, I sawed up 5 or 6 logs by hand (Nick and Kieran use the chain saw, but I don’t know how to work it), then split them with the axe; all of which left me plenty warm enough!

Tomorrow I’ll head back to Adrian’s as we’re going to his village hunt lunch; lots of wild boar, venison etc. It should be a good end to a hard week.

Over the last couple of days, Nick, Adrian and Kieran have continued to work like slaves on the maisie. The floor has turned out to be multi-layered; tiles over concrete, over tiles, over more concrete; it’s taken a lot of removing, using a road drill. But today it was deemed sufficiently gone to lay the new one on top. They’ve also resized the window that will be in the bedroom, to match one that Ade has laying around in his garage, and opened up another window into a doorway. This afternoon enough cement, sand and gravel were delivered to mix 3 cubic metres of concrete; tomorrow the big cement mixer will arrive, then it’ll be all go, starting on the reconstruction.

My patchwork club does a present exchange each March, anything home-made, but not food; so between shopping for and making huge quantities of food for the hungry workers, I’ve painted 3 terracotta pots to take on Monday.

I’m heading home tomorrow for my English class, but will be back here on Saturday for the Brassempouy hunters’ lunch; another meat-fest now that we’ve had time to recover from the one at Caupenne last weekend.

For anyone desperate to find out what was hiding under the mattresses, all is about to be revealed! No, not a badger, or a dog, or even an enormous, overgrown, GMO pea; but a rolled-up duvet! What an anti-climax, sorry! King Nick and Emperor Adrian were very disappointed when it wasn’t a princess.

On Sunday, I went to the Pyrenees with the Nogaro walking club. We drove to the Col de Soulor, where those of us who didn’t own “raquettes”, or snow shoes, were able to hire them; we then did a 12km walk  through staggeringly beautiful scenery. The weather wasn’t great; it rained a bit and was very cloudy, but that didn’t dampen the spirits of the 30-odd people who went.

Today we’ve been helping Emperor Adrian to start the renovations of his “maisie”, a little house on his land, which has seen better days. So the “demolitions r us” team moved in, ripping out ceilings, walls, bathroom fittings, windows; in fact, everything but the roof and outer walls. Tomorrow the new ceiling will go up, then the damp old concrete floor will be ripped out, and a new one laid over a damp proof membrane. I’ve not been idle while the works have progressed apace; I’ve been appointed catering manager and interior designer, so I’ve had great fun redesigning the inside of the building and choosing bathroom fittings and a new kitchen.

They’re all looking pretty wiped out tonight; I think we’re going to watch a film (or sleep through it!)

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there lived a kindly king called King Nick, known to some of his loyal subjects as Nick the Quick, on account of his speed on a pushbike. King Nick lived in a shabby, run-down palace with his long-suffering wife, Queen Jackie and their son, Prince Kieran of Linuxburg. There had once been an army of servants at the palace; gardeners, cooks, cleaners and handymen, but King Nick had, over the years, spent so much of the royal income on bikes, that one by one, they had all been dismissed, leaving King Nick to have to do all the maintenance on the family pile and Queen Jackie to play the roles of cook, cleaner, gardener, painter and decorator and general dogsbody (some of which jobs she did better than others).

One day Princesses Alexandra and Isabelle decided that they would visit their family, so Nick the Quick and Prince Kieran started to install a new bathroom for the important visit, causing much sucking of teeth and mutterings about noggins and 600mm centres on the part of the local plumber when he saw the wall they’d put up. They ripped up the old floor, removed the piles of dead and decaying mice and drilled holes for pipes.

In the meantime, Queen Jackie started to redecorate the spare room for the princesses; she was bemused to find a large stack of mattresses with an inexplicable lump under them and asked King Nick to investigate. This proved too arduous a job for just one man, though, so he invited his good friend, the Emperor Adrian, to visit and help him.

What will the two detectives discover under the mattresses? Will it be a princess for Prince Kieran, or just a pea?………Will the bathroom be finished in time for the visit?…..

To be continued…….

I don’t know whether it was something in the water, or just the fact that it was the most glorious, sunny , warm day today, but when we went out with the cycle club this afternoon, I felt fitter that I have in ages and instead of turning back part way through the ride, I did the whole 80km. It seemed incredible to be riding in shorts and short sleeved jersey in February. I think I’ll suffer tomorrow, though, I keep getting cramp in my legs! I wish we had a bath, I could do with a good soak.

By the time we got home, Kieran had finished plasterboarding the wall to divide off the new bathroom and had finished the woodwork on the hen house! He and Nick went to put it in the chicken run, but found that it was too big to go through the gate and too heavy to lift over the fence, so they’ve had to dismantle part of the fence, which will have to be put back tomorrow. They had to visit website to learn more about fences. By the time they’d finished it was dark, so they were working by head torches.

Kieran’s claiming a day off tomorrow, when Nick and I go to Pau, for…..wait for it…..a seminar on French tax law! Sounds absolutely riveting; I hope I can stay awake! But we’ll be able to do some shopping afterwards; bath, shower tray and cubicle, tiles, etc, etc.

At last, after many months of frustration and angst, the sale of our house in Harrogate has reached completion! Too late, I suspect, for us to avoid paying a large sum to the French government in tax on the sale of a second home; they moved the goalposts on February 1st, but what a relief that it’s finally sold.

There’s a restaurant near here which specialises in venison and wild boar; it has a great reputation, so we’ll be having a trip there to celebrate the sale, before the week’s out, .

Sorry, but there aren’t any photos today; another bedroom plastered, another few blocks on the hall walls, oh, and I stirred them up at my patchwork club by arriving on my bike!

We seem to have so many projects on the go at the moment, it’s difficult to decide which to tackle first!

The lads have decided that it’s about time we returned the borrowed plasterboard lifter to Jean, our neighbour; so they’re trying to finish boarding all the ceilings.

Work has also continued on the hen house, which even boasts a proper, tiled roof! Tomorrow my job is to treat it with wood preserver, then we’ll be nearly ready to get some hens!!!

But it’s the weekend, so we’ve had some time off. Kieran went to a nearby village’s hunt dinner last night; wild boar was on the menu and he said the meal was excellent. Caupenne has one next weekend, so we’re looking forward to it.

Nick went for a ride with the cycle club this morning, only to discover that there was some sort of a get-together to mark the start of the cycling season proper, so rather than the usual 70km, today’s ride had the option of doing 110km, which, of course, he had to do.

There’s a walking section of the cycling club too, so I went out with them, doing 12km through beautiful countryside which I wouldn’t otherwise see. Next week we’re going to “faire des raquettes” in the Pyrenees; I think that’s walking with snow shoes, rather than making a hell of a noise. All good for the new, give-anything-a-go-at-least-once me! Being out of the house by 7.15 on a Sunday morning’s going to be hard, though!

It was frosty again this morning, but by lunchtime it was glorious! So warm, in fact, that I worked in T-shirt and shorts this afternoon. The locals don’t seem at all surprised at how quickly it can warm up and I suppose we’ll get used to it one day, but for now it’s a novelty and one we’re making the most of.

Nick and Kieran spent the morning building walls in the entrance hall-to-be, then started to work on the hen house after lunch. I’m told the design is “evolutionary”, which I gather means they don’t really have a plan, so I’m just hoping for the best. I don’t expect hens are too fussy.

I barrowed the contents of the first compost bin onto the soon to be veg plot, then turned the next compost bin-full into the empty one. I think I’m going to ache tomorrow. It was a bit difficult digging the compost out of the bin as it was still frozen from the cold spell we’ve had, but it broke up eventually!