6 Months Already!

Hello Everyone,

Apologies for the long delay but I’m not really sure where September went…….

I got back from Agadir and was put straight to work by Christine and Eric in the garden. They had been to stay for a week while I was away looking after the cats and as they said ‘doing one or two things in the garden’. As this involved 15 runs to the local tip it was a bit more than one or two things. Only problem is I’m now under pressure to keep it under control.….. But joking aside they worked extremely hard and I am very grateful to them both as I would never have got around to it. Here’s a few before and after pics.

As soon as they left it was straight back to work upstairs with Dave; finishing off fixing plasterboard, final fix electrics (mainly because the customer, me, keeps changing her mind as to where the lights are going and nothing at all to do with the fact that the builder kept moving the walls……….), insulation, clearing rubbish etc. So far from one bedroom I have filled 30 sacks of old cement and plaster that I have hacked off the walls prior to re-pointing.

The lovely re-pointed walls you saw last time now have windows fitted to the holes, frames still yet to be made (I’ll get to it soon) and the remainder of the walls have been skimmed ready to paint. Painting will have to wait as further under pressure to get bedroom two ready to be skimmed as the plaster is only here until the end of October and not back until March next year. He is an Irish lad (!) and he says he goes home (!) to Ireland each winter, as the winters here are too harsh. OMG!!!!!! What have I let myself in for if he thinks Ireland is a better option in the winter – eeekkkk.

Anyway here are the windows and plastered walls and a couple of before hacking off of cement.

A week of hacking and 30 sacks of rubble later:

Now all I need to do is repoint it all……….. but that will have to wait until I’ve finished repointing bedroom 2.

In between all this work I’ve also been working with Dave on another couple of jobs that he has; running in cables, fitting lights and sinks, – I know, as if working on my own house wasn’t enough.

But I’ve also had some fun as I’m in the middle of a run of back to back visitors too. A day after Christine and Eric left, I had a very surprise visit from Rob and Anne, my old neighbours in Surbiton. Had a surprise text saying ‘we’re La Rochelle, can we come and visit!’

Shortly after Tracy and Caroline arrived. It was great to have a few days out from the house visiting a local chateau, Cognac, Jarnac, and La Rochelle. Tracy and Caroline also got the garden bug and set to work on the back garden and spent a day hacking stuff back out there in return for a few beers – a very good deal on my part!

Here’s what they did:

Next up less than a week later the cousins arrived. What they don’t know until now is that I had just seconds before they arrived put the last screw in the bed I was making up for them to sleep in! Having planning to be this calm, clean completely in control vision of organization they arrived to me in my dirty old work clothes, dust and hair everywhere and in a bit of tizz. Have had a lovely chilled out week with them and I’m sitting here writing this as they all take a snooze – must have worn them out. We spent a day in La Rochelle, visited the Grottes (caves where people used to live), walked along the beach, and been to a couple of markets.

A few pics of days out with them and with Tracy and Caroline: