Yesterday, the lads fitted a new double glazed window in the bathroom; that’s all the old windows replaced now.But the best bit is that you don’t brain yourself every time you get out of the shower now, as it opens from the top.

I finished tiling the hearth with the “magic tiles” and was disappointed to realise that only one person felt sufficiently inspired to finish my story from the last blog. It is, however, an ending to be proud of and certainly caused us great amusement, so thank you, Becky. It’s not too late to write an alternative ending; so if you’re a frustrated author, please feel free to indulge your talent!

Because the eventual habitable space here will be more than 170sq m, we have to employ an architect to draw the plans for our barn conversion, so we asked one round this morning. He was very friendly and extremely chatty and came up with a few ideas we hadn’t thought of as well as explaining how to slightly, and legally, bend the rules to our advantage.

Nick and Kieran are going to have to share a Christmas present this year ;-( Yes, life is so hard and our pension so small and the euro so strong……. OK, so it’s none of the above, but we went to see said Christmas present this afternoon, with Adrian as our technical expert, to give us his opinion and he said yes. I’m not allowed to disclose what it is, but it will be delivered tomorrow, so watch this space!!!

Once upon a time there was a hard working, downtrodden assistant Transfusion Practitioner who, appalled at the thought of working for the NHS, with ever-worsening conditions, till she was 97, decided to embark on a new life. She escaped the confines of the broom cupboard she shared with her equally hard working and downtrodden boss and headed off to see the big, wide world.

After sailing across the seas, she arrived in a mythical land of mountains and valleys, vineyards and duck farms. Over the following weeks she had numerous adventures, met lots of frogs and even fell in love with a handsome prince (OK, so I made that bit up!), but as the summer drew to a close, she had to find somewhere to live. A couple of friendly, but undomesticated, wood elves said she could move in with them, on condition that she did the cleaning, the cooking, the washing and all other household tasks except lighting the fires. She agreed to this, little realising the scale of the task she was taking on.

After a number of weeks, bored and fed up with playing the role of domestic goddess (a role she had never excelled at), she found a bucket of magic, reclaimed tiles. Using these as a bargaining tool, she escaped from the kitchen, leaving the wood elves with instructions to make the dinner, and started to tile the hearth in one of the bedrooms. The tiles fitted into place easily and when the hearth was finished……..

Your turn now; please finish the story for me. There may even be a prize for the best!

NIck and Kieran have worked on the electrics in Nick’s workshop today; as a result, all the lights work and there are plug sockets everywhere. They’re beginning to put tools in their proper places, too; soon it will be fully functional!

Apart from my English class this afternoon, I’ve done very little today. I went for a Chinese massage this morning, to ease my back; it was amazing – incredibly relaxing; I’m chilled for England now 🙂

This weekend is the “Telethon” in France, which I think is a bit like a “children in need” appeal. Nick’s meant to be going for a bike ride in the morning, though he hasn’t had to get sponsorship or anything, so I don’t know how that raises funds; then we’re going to lunch at the cycle club house and will probably be parted from lots of cash there. I’ll let you know how things are done here later!

The sky we awoke to this morning!

We’ve been duped! For years we’ve been led to understand that the French don’t do Christmas like we Brits; all the commercial stuff, that is. But you wouldn’t believe that if you’d been in the supermarket today! Trees, cards, baubles, toys, santas -bah, humbug!!! I suppose it is December 1st though, so they can be forgiven:-)

On the way home, there was great excitement at the sighting of a second hand mini digger which was for sale, at the roadside. We spent an hour learning about the finer details of how it works, what shovel sizes are included, etc., before coming home to consider whether or not to invest. At 7,000euros, it seems quite pricey to me, but what do I know? Any experts out there?

For the last month, the markets and garden centres have been packed with trees and shrubs of every description (well, except Christmas trees); it’s the planting season. So today Nick and Kieran went to a local riding school and came back with a trailerful of manure. We then set to, to plant some of the things we’ve bought recently; a blackcurrant, a redcurrant and a pomegranate tree. So next year we might have home-grown pomegranates at Christmas!

The workshop is looking more like a workshop by the day now, and today Kieran was given the task of attaching the chimney to the little wood burning stove and venting it. Once that was in place he could light the fire and start to brew coffee, so he was a happy bunny.

Nick and Kieran have spent the last two days putting floorboards down on the joists above Nick’s workshop and the floor’s now finished!! The workshop is beginning to take shape; there’s still a wall to build at one end, and eventually, when we get planning permission, we’ll put windows in; but it’s nearly at a point where Nick can use it to house his tools and start making stuff. The lack of windows, now that it’s not open to the roof, does make it a bit on the dark side, so this afternoon, they installed some lighting. It feels like real progress.

I made enquiries at the Mairie about the plans we’ve been drawing up for the building work we want to do, only to discover that we have to get an architect to do them for us as the habitable area of the building will exceed 170 square metres. All that hard work wasted!

Last night was cold; when we got up this morning the first job was to light a fire, since any form of central heating is still a dream. But by lunchtime the sun had warmed things up so much that we went outside to have coffee. Doesn’t seem possible at the end of November! It made up for the last 4 or 5 days of gloom, cold and fog.

We’re exhausted! It’s been a really tough weekend!

It started at Adrian’s yesterday, with lunch. Then off to the duck farm open day, for a tour of the farm, followed by aperitifs. A quick trip back to Adrian’s to feed the dogs, then out to the salle des fêtes for dinner, courtesy of said farm. The starters were a meal in themselves; huge quantities of foie gras, rillettes and other duck produce, followed by duck confit and beans, then dessert, coffee and armagnac. Of course, we needed all that to be able to cope with the journey home, in the dark, through the fog.

This morning saw us heading into Nogaro for the cycle club AGM; I’ve been to one French AGM before and hoped that the way it was run didn’t set the pattern, but unfortunately it did! Before the start, everyone was given an agenda booklet containing the details of how many rode the weekly club run every week for the last year, who rode which non-club event throughout the year, who went on the cycling holidays organised by the club, what the average attendances were for every event and, of course, the accounts. This booklet was then used as a script for the meeting, which lasted a full 2 hours (though I think I may have missed a bit when I fell asleep!) Afterwards, as a reward(?), aperitifs were served and we repaired to a local restaurant for a wonderful, four course lunch, plus the inevitable wine, coffee and gallons of armagnac.

We finished lunch just in time to pick Kieran up and go to our neighbours’, who’d invited us to dinner; roast chicken and pork, with all the traditional English trimmings and followed by chocolate pudding, cream and ice cream. I think we understand how those “foie gras” ducks feel now! We must have put on half a stone each this weekend; I think it’s bread and soup for the rest of the week till we recover:-)

The bad news is that it’s the patchwork club AGM tomorrow – oh joy!

“Can you phone round a few places to see where flooring grade chipboard is cheapest?”. It doesn’t sound like too hard a job; but I find numbers the hardest bit of the French language and understanding phone conversations in French the hardest type of communication. So it was without a great deal of enthusiasm that I set about my allotted task this morning, asking not just the price, but size, thickness, price per board and per square metre. I also had to learn, as I went along, the vocab for “tongue and grooved” as well as marine, or bathroom quality. So imagine my sense of achievement, an hour later, when I had a list of prices, sizes, thicknesses, etc., for no fewer than eight shops! It also turned out that the one closest to home was only a few centimes more expensive than the cheapest, many miles away.

So this afternoon Nick and Kieran have collected 20 sheets of flooring grade chipboard, to put on yesterday’s beams, to make a ceiling above Nick’s workshop. They have also applied for an account at the builder’s merchants, which will give us extra discount in future.

Next job; a trip to the doctor’s, to get certificates to allow us to join the cycling club.

So no photos today, folks; everything looks just as it did yesterday.

It couldn’t last forever; the glorious weather, that is. Today has been cold and foggy and pretty miserable, weather-wise. But that didn’t stop Nick and Kieran, who were on a mission today, to install the joists that will support the ceiling over Nick’s workshop. Kept going with never-ending cups of tea and chocolate cake, they managed to put all the joists in place before cold, hunger and exhaustion took over. The extra length, sticking out of the back wall of the house, still needs cutting off, but it was dark by the time they’d finished, so that will be a job for tomorrow.

Phew!!! The pit props came out of the doorway today and the house is still standing! What a relief! Nick and Kieran have completed the wall to partition Nick’s workshop from the corridor; there’s a large hole in it at the moment, which will be filled with glass bricks, to let some light through, but it’s beginning to look something like a room – well, if you have a good imagination, anyway.

This afternoon we went to the local eco-centre; a place dedicated to the promotion of eco-friendly living. It’s built of straw and other natural products and is heated by solar panels and is full of books on every aspect of living in an environmentally friendly manner.  They have advisors who will visit you and report on the best form of heating/insulation/building materials, etc, for your project, and because they’re not selling anything, the advice they give is impartial.

The high point of the trip, however, had to be a visit to the waterless loos. We approached with some degree of trepidation; after all, they are in a building several metres from the main body of the place, and were ready to turn tail at the least excuse. But we were very pleasantly surprised to find that they were immaculately clean and didn’t smell at all!  I don’t think we’ll be investing in one, though; that’s taking our “green” creds a bit far. After all, we don’t want to put off anyone who may want to visit.

To join the local cycling club, we need a certificate from the doctor (no, that’s not we need certifying!), to say that we’re fit enough to ride with them. It’s the same for any activity; even if all you want to do is go line dancing, you have to do the same! So I set off to the surgery this morning to register with a doctor (my French isn’t up to doing this sort of thing by phone). I made an appointment and the receptionist gave me a form to fill in. I failed at the first hurdle, however, by not having a social security number; so I was sent to see the CEPAM lady at the Mairie, but she couldn’t help because we haven’t got  forms S1 and our EHIC cards have been cancelled by the British authorities. We’ve sent the applications off, but they hasn’t arrived yet. When they do, I have to go back to the CEPAM lady with S1 forms, passports, birth certificates, marriage certificate, bank details, a utility bill and a wheelbarrow to carry them all in; she will then give us our “secu” numbers, and we’ll start on the tortuous process, or so I’ve heard, of getting our “cartes vitales”. Well, yes; we were warned that French bureaucracy is like nowhere else on earth.

Having spent the morning trailing round, making little progress, I felt I’d earned my afternoon off at the local patchwork and quilting club, but wasn’t quite prepared for the surprise Nick and Kieran had in store on my return. They’d bricked up the door from the kitchen while I was out, as well as building more of the walls to form Nick’s workshop and bricking up the fireplace in the blue bedroom. Of course this involved lots of cutting of breeze blocks and briquettes, so everything I’d cleaned earlier is now under a thick layer of dust again 🙁  But it’s progress; I’ll just have to adopt Quentin Crisp’s approach, that after 6 months, the dust gets no thicker. Shouldn’t be too difficult; I’ve never been much of a house-proud spouse anyway!