Bits and Bobs

End of another week, and what have we learned? Quite a bit, actually.

The roofers have been here all week, but have been taking early afternoons off as it's been getting too hot up there. 30° in the shade equals about 50° in the sun sitting on a black slate roof (the alternative being to sit on a roof frame covered with aluminium sheeting designed to reflect heat). Work is progressing amazingly: the side of the back of the house is finished, the back of the front of the house is finished, and the front of the front of the house is well underway.

ref: Tennessee Williams

While the roof at the front of the house was off we took the opportunity to put the timber and placo for the bathroom (literally a room with a bath) in through the roof. The floor will be built on a torsion box frame, and the walls will be placoplatre hydrofuge. All this was delivered on Thursday and loaded into the attic on Friday. Everything else (flooring, insulation) we hope we can get up the staircase. We tested to make sure the bath will go up the staircase (which is does) so here's hoping.

A bathroom gets delivered (in pieces)

and a day later is taken upstairs

Inside the house, we started work on running electricity lines for the salon, kitchen and dining areas. This involved drilling holes in ceilings and walls and disturbing dust that has been there since Moses was playing fullback for Jerusalem. (My only neo-World Cup reference, ever). Ceiling dust is nasty tasting stuff - you can't disturb it without it getting in your mouth, which is a bonus...

On Thursday we went to visit the hardware shops to look for tiles for the steps up to the apéro terrasse. We want boldly coloured red tiles, but all the exterior tiles we can find are either beige or grey. When we came out of Leroy Merlin (disappointed at the rest of the world's lack of imagination) we got to the car to hear a hissing sound. Amazingly, the valve in one of the tyres had sprung a leak, but this must have happened only 30 seconds or so before we reached the car: by the time we had driven 500 metres to the Speedy tyre shop the tyre was all but flat. A change of tyre, and new valve stem (and €18 later) we were on our way again. Phew.

Running wires

Next week we hope to sand the floor of the guest bedroom and paint the walls. Then we can move some furniture in there. Of course, the main result of this will be us having to start work on another room, but we are hopeful that from now on we only have to move each piece of furniture twice, rather than relocating it all from room to room every week.

Weatherwise, it's been hot and humid, well over 30° every day, and very humid. Last night we had the storm we have been promised just about every day: lots of thunder, plenty of lightning, and some rain. Then at about 4.00am this morning we had another storm with lots of thunder, but this time quite a bit of rain. Lucky that the roofers put a bache (tarpaulin) over the incomplete bits of the roof. It is supposed to continue raining all day today, which is a pity, as Barrou has its festival tonight, and Preuilly sur Claise has its €10 for Moules Frites night on the Plan d'Eau.

And finally: we don't usually mention other people's blogs if we haven't met them, but this one I do recommend. Use the translate button if necessary, the original language is Spanish.

Simon