A July Up-date

Given the fact that we now have to rely upon a dial-up connexion it is very much more difficult to use the internet and therefore posting to the blog has all but ceased. For that, apologies. There are two posts just below which reflect the position as we saw it towards the end of April and in mid June in this one I hope to bring the position up-to-date as it is in early July.

Work has continued apace on the central section of the house. The bedroom and bathroom are very close to being fully formed and the services to them now need to be fully connected. We have had the electrician working over the past two weekends and all the necessary points and lights have been put in place. The hot water tank has still to be set up but this will not take too much time or effort and the shower can then be installed along with the wash basin and loo. Sliding doors for a cupboard are also on site so a fully operational bedroom and bathroom are a possibility very soon – perhaps next week!

We decided that we had had enough of the caravan’s facilities any way and have set up a bed in the main salon. It’s rather odd to be in the house with bits crumbling off the walls and birds flying around above us, but hey it’s still much more comfortable!!

At the back of the house a huge quantity of earth has been cleared away from the walls to create a very large area which will form a patio for us. We shall install land drains to assist in diverting the water away from the walls of the house and this will ensure that the drying out process is maintained permanently. Of course in digging this area out an enormous quantity of earth had to be removed and it has all been placed on our field in front of the house as the pictures above show. We have had this earth ploughed over and now the very, very tedious task of picking up and moving all of the ‘caillou’ or ‘river stones’ – that is very large pebbles – has had to start. This will take us ages but it’s essential to complete it prior to seeding the field for a lawn into which we shall also put fruit trees.

So hard work all round but definite progress. We feel certain that we shall have the ability to live comfortably in the house very shortly with all ‘facilities’ on stream. The next step is to get the big salon sorted so that we use that properly and decorate it out. Watch this space!!

The Position in Mid-June

After our efforts to get the preparations completed for the flooring we now have a concrete ground floor in the majority of the eastern end of the house and this would have dried out much more rapidly had it not been for the appalling weather we have experienced – it has rained at some point in each 24 hours for the past month and we have had some amazing storms where the amount of water coming down has overwhelmed the new guttering and it’s simply poured down the side of the house.

Jean Claude has also constructed a first floor in new wood in the centre part of the house, and most of the wall needed to form the bedroom in that part of the house has been put up. So in the centre of the house there is a clearly defined hallway, a downstairs operational loo, a cupboard with the board for the mains electricity supply and a ‘developing’ bedroom with en suite bathroom. These though still need a good deal of work for them to be in any sense complete and useable by us.

Importantly the electrician is due to come back to the house in the next few days and wire up the majority of the eastern end giving us sockets and lighting. There will also be an electric hot water tank to service the western end of the house – there will have to be a separate tank for the eastern end as the house is so big. The problem with all of this is that the electrician and the builder do not exactly get on with each other and I am something of a ‘piggy-in-the-middle’ trying to ensure that they do actually collaborate and produce what we want.

A very late April Posting - Less, but More

We returned as planned in early April bringing two cars, loads of stuff to keep us going for the next six months and our dog. We had dreaded the journey for ages as Morag, the dog, had proved herself to be a very bad traveller. But in Joanne’s car she proved to be perfectly O.K. and indeed a good companion on the very long journey – we did the drive in one day, a foolish thing to do but it got the journey out of the way swiftly.

From the progress report we had had from our builder we had hoped that there would have been a completed floor in the centre of the house with the construction of a wall allowing for the installation of a bathroom. However, when we met him it emerged that he had injured himself falling out of a tree that he was lopping and had been unable to work for three and a half weeks. So no real progress had been made from the installation of the septic tank and the six windows.

But our presence here has re-energised the project and much progress has subsequently been made, albeit as a consequence of the efforts that we have made. The floor in what will be the central hallway area has been fully dug out and hardcore pebbles put in. In the large room we have cleared away all the rubbish and again shifted pebbles into it – this is not yet complete and we have another delivery of 10 tonnes of pebbles to face moving. A telephone connexion has also finally been made – there was a problem with a blockage in the pipe under the road which took a deal of solving. We now have a landline connexion but it cannot support broadband unfortunately, so it’s dial-up only for us.

The water supply has also been brought through into the house with a new connexion to the meter. Again though there was a problem in that there was a leak on the water company’s side of the meter so they had to come out and fix that. After considerable effort by the technician sent out to deal with it, and a new meter, we were re-connected. And on Sunday we shall have electricity inside the house to provide sockets for the fridge, freezer and washing machine we have also acquired. So as Jean Claude keeps saying as we make progress – toute moderne!

Notwithstanding the humour we are beginning to be really hopeful that we can effectively move into the house in summer with a full range of facilities available to us.