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?
1 comment:
A little remark; Franca did not sit all week in the sun! She had to look after guests/cooking meals for them and done piles of washing and cleaning rooms. And on top had a translation job to do.... So on Friday afternoon I sat outside enjoying the sun.
PS: I think I'll do sunbathing this week ;-)
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