Timeline: Christmas Eve 2013,
Hampshire, England: The man flu
I got when last in the UK in November, returned the day after I got back and I
was in bed feeling only as bad as sick men can, when the door bell got me up to
croak a greeting to Sylvia from next door, who was asking if we also had
problems with our drains. Just what I need thought I, but rather than wait for
the bride to get back, I realised that she wouldn’t really be thrilled with the
prospect of looking into manholes, so at death’s door and sporting a dressing
gown and slippers, I was lifting manhole covers on the rear terrace on a dark
drizzly evening with a torch clenched between my teeth to confirm that,
blissfully unaware ten minutes before, we had a drain problem!
Now the only person I was
actually looking forward to seeing more than Santa that evening was the ‘Drain Doctor’, but his first words brought
no cheer to myself, the bride, or our two sets of neighbours. ‘You didn’t say you was on a shared sewer’
said the doc, ‘Yes I did’ said Dave, ‘I told your office it was shared with three
houses when I called you out’ he confirmed. ‘Well we don’t do shared sewers, so you should’ve called the Water
Board’ replied the doc. ‘This is
getting silly’ someone said, ’so why
don’t you just give it a try and we’ll get you a cuppa’ A clever ploy to
which he replied, ‘Have you got any mince
pies?’ We had him and the bride made the tea and gave the doc some of my
mince pies! Fortunately the great big squelchy noisy whirly sucky thing on
wheels did the trick and we could all uncross our legs and enjoy Christmas with
not having to go the pub to use the toilet.
It was very cold and frosty
every single morning with rain most of the time, but I revelled in the company
of the bride and our pussy cats and we enjoyed seeing a number of really good
friends.
Timeline: January 2014, Le Clos de la
Rose, France: By contrast, the
Loire valley and our lovely village is blessed with no frost, little rain, some
sun, blue skies and a high of 22 deg in the sun outside the door today, as Koko
the plaster’s dog sunbathes on the doormat.
This first week of work has
everyone fully energised after the holiday and we’ve made a great start to the
year. The electrician completed all first fix items between Christmas and the
New Year, so started on the upstairs second fix and has all light fittings and
the two ceiling fans in the living room and library fitted. We still need to
buy the bathroom lights and all switches, sockets, etc. The bathroom is
practically complete with just the heated towel rail and bath panel cladding to
finish.
Meanwhile the plasterboard
between the ceiling beams is complete and the plastering has begun with the
back kitchen wall and the first ceiling panels completed in a single day.
Timeline: 20 January
2014: Today was as busy as usual, but was notable for being
one of those days where things looked to advance remarkably. I spent two days
last week scraping and rubbing at the stone walls getting ready for pointing,
which was all wrapped up today with sections of internal lime rendering and
careful, yet efficient work by Kev and Dan had us all smiling as we swept up
and realised that the room was now looking rather splendid.
 |
| Finishing touches |
I’ll clear the room
tomorrow, after a little final plastering, as the tiller is coming the next day
to start the floor. I’m also looking forward to a local artisan coming to
carefully take site dimensions before starting to make the staircases and
balustrades in spider resisting chestnut, which should be ready to install in
March.
A bientôt,
LC
No comments:
Post a Comment