Another little move around

We have had another little shift around in Au Bellefleur as we prepare the B&B for the Easter rush, and the ongoing building works for the next two rooms.

We now have a new cosy office with an en-suite bath/shower, as we have moved all our computer equipment into what was our old bathroom. Blogging from the shower, now that is an interesting concept, luckily the laws of physics dictate this is not a good idea, so please do not try this at home, as they say on some TV programs.

Having moved all the computers and cleared our old downstairs bedroom we are ready for the builder to knock through a doorway into the new bathroom I have been working on. I stripped a bit of the old plaster board off the wall around the window of the bedroom as it was wrecked anyway to see what sort of a damp problem we have, and it is what can only be described as potentially big. I have found another French stone wall that has basically been tanked meaning it is sealed on both sides so the moisture stays in the wall. If the whole room is like the little bit I have looked at so far then this room is going to be the biggest challenge yet to get sorted out. Hacking off all the old concreting & plastering could take weeks, gulp... I'll have to think about this...

Watch this space, more updates after Easter?..

Fresh scallops

A rare moment Franca and I were cooking together for ourselves (and not for guests) and here's the result. Not a masterchef one, but it tasted delicious. Franca cooked a fish risotto with mascarpone and fresh grated parmesan cheese. To accompany the fresh scallops I made the warm tomato based salsa with red wine vinegar, garlic, sjalots, fresh herbs, etc.

Temperatures in the Charente today

Sorry guys, don't want to make you jealous, but 'my camera never lies'.....Who remembers the song and the group? Don't google, let your brain work ;-)

From Darrren's other half :-)

Any one for tennis

Time for another update whilst sitting on the plane heading back to the UK after a very energetic weekend.

On the flight over on Friday evening I was looking forward to a sunny weekend, having watched the forecasts on Meteo (the French weather forecasters) predicting a warm and sunny weekend. Franca had been sitting in the sun all week, so I thought it would be a certainty.

I woke up on Saturday morning to grey skies and thought to my self time to get on with some work as the sun will be out later. So I headed into the bathroom I am currently working on and started stripping 1970s render from the much older stone work. Franca went off shopping with Fleur whilst I made good progress with render removal. When the ladies returned they informed me it was raining, so disappointed I went on with chipping away at the render. Fleur came in to help me and I was surprised that she actually could wield a 4lb club hammer with some skill, and with my help holding the cold chisel she hacked off quite a large area before her arm muscles finally gave in.

Instead of sitting outside with a nice cold Ricard we were sitting round the fire playing 70's music and dancing to ease our muscle aches. It was also my plan to have the last bonfire of the winter season this weekend, no chance with all that rain about.

Sunday morning could not have been more different, there was a beautiful azure blue sky and the sun felt very strong on my back even at 7:30 in the morning. So the last fire of the winter season was back on, but first I had to finish removing the rendering and cart all the debris to my newly burgeoning stock pile of hardcore which will be used later this year to create the base for our new out buildings.

With all the rubble removed I set about some first fix plumbing for the shower and bath so that I can start putting up walls for a shower and toilet. At 1:30 I stopped work inside and switched to burning the last of the winter pruning which, because of yesterdays rain, created a large amount of smoke, however after an hour or so it was all gone. We also burned all the old bamboo that grows in our garden as it was getting pretty high, it had dried out so burned in double quick time accompanied by the fire cracker sound of the bamboo splitting as it got hot.

Then it was time to play with Fleur, we had a tennis afternoon, I had bought her a real tennis racket with a short handle, and suddenly she can hit the ball very well. I had to make do with toy tennis rackets, and each time I tried to return a ball the toy rackets just disintegrated, so I'll have to get a proper racket to be able play with fleur. Franca may even join in as well, OK so I'll have to buy 2 rackets, could this be the beginning of the Sigogne tennis club?

The outdoor life is back....

Spring attempted to leap into summer this weekend, well only on Saturday really, the sun shone brilliantly all day and in the shade temperatures reached 22 degrees, amazing for February..

However Sunday brought us back to spring with a bump, it was cloudy all day and only 13 degrees, but as my wife said nice weather for working in the garden. The outdoor life is returning.

I was sorely tempted to change my plans for the weekend and start working outside however, I resisted and carried on with the first fix of the drains for our two new B&B rooms. It was one of those jobs that after 4 hours work you could not see what I had done. I needed to ensure I got the fall right and then the horrible job of joining the new pipes to the existing pipes, very smelly work. However the worst should now be over, everything is joined up and the junctions for the toilets just need to be capped off until I get round to installing the toilets. The rest of the weekend was spent hacking off the concrete rendering applied to the lovely stonework, whilst some of the rendering fell off rather obligingly there is a section which appears to have had superglue added to the mix which is taking an age to hack off and I am still going to have to go back with something stronger than a hammer and chisel to finish the job.

Meanwhile lots of work was going on in the garden Franca and Fleur were busy tidying up the garden after the ravages of winter (2 big storms and a week of snow), and it was looking rather nice once they had finished.

Now it is on to the next stage of getting some colour into the garden, we are going to start digging out a couple of beds to put flowers in. We will also have to work out where the swimming pool is to go, the biggest one yet, this one should be able to fit adults in, so once its purchased and setup it will be staying there for the summer. This is a temporary measure as we have no chance of getting a swimming pool installed until 2010.