The French Renovation

You know me. I love to mow. With eight acres of grassland, I HAVE to mow. So, when my ride-on mower blows a gasket and billows smoke, what do I do? I hide it under a shroud of shame. Look at its pitiful wet frills. May and June are the months of furious grass growth, and it needs a strict cut at least once a week. It's been two weeks now, and I've had to resort to the push mower. I must have walked a hundred miles this week, and there's still a long patch to be tackled. The push mower doesn't like long grass or wet grass. Kevin's working on the gasket, but meanwhile, I've brought in Alain and Brigitte's big gun to show the long grass who's boss. I think they'll be happy enough with my borrowing it... Was it wrong of me to take it from their home? Bringing in the big gun turned out to be painfully literal. Kevin showed me how to start it up while we were on the edge of the gravel road. I'd managed to position myself perfectly to ensur

We've been trying to level the under-layer of the terrace for quite some time now. It was one of those jobs that, in our heads, was straightforward, but in reality turned out to be uber-perplexing. Kevin chalked me a line along the back of cottage #1 which was decreed to be the eventual level of the final terrace surface. My job was to dig the earth four inches below that line to allow for the hard-core and stone layers on top. The digging was tough going, as this area immediately behind the house is where old Mr Geneix hurled his unwanted items, such as bottles, crockery, cutlery, all randomly dispersed amongst lumps of stone.  After some careful checking with the laser-level, Kevin re-decreed that the line was instead the new pink one. This made the white line I'd originally dug down from the new desirable level. So my digging had been a waste of effort and time. Anyway, I'm not one to hold a grudge... Let me take your attention away to the construction of t

For those of you who are interested in France on a more general level, and just stumbled across my blog because it said 'French', here is a little peep at the rather marvellous vide grenier at Allassac, a pretty town just off the A20, and not far from our farm. I can promise that there will be no photos or mentions of building work. I think... This set of doors has been overlooked by the modern tarmackers. The steep climb up to the market. Despite the chilly weather (after a little heatwave) the French turn out in their hundreds for this annual event.   Mr Playmobil was so proud of his collection, and was keen to demonstrate the moving parts. Oh, come on! Two neck-feather chunks of your choice for 5 Euros! What's not to like?! We stopped at St Salvadour for a beer on the way home. I heard an almighty racket coming down the road and look what it was! No, I don't know what it was...

Shuttering is something I'd never heard of before we embarked upon this renovation adventure. Kevin managed to add this series of 'shutters' (is that what you call the planks when they're doing this particular job?) without having to drill into the substance of the existing wall through the thoughtful use of wood bits and screws. I didn't anticipate how impressed that would make me... This particular bit of wood at the end of the channel is the bit we cut out to fit a wash basin into it. We never throw bits of wood away; you just never know when they'll come in handy. I was slightly worried that the cement mixture would keep disappearing down the holes, but Kevin told me that that was the general idea, in order to make a firm fixing. Kevin dumped the mixture in, and I (under strict instruction) vigorously trowelled it all down, particularly at the edges, to prevent big bubbles of nothingness where there should be somethingness. I then flatten