The French Renovation

The temperature in the pool rose to 20 degrees Celsius last week, but I won't immerse myself in its pH-balanced depths until it's 25. Unless the temperature outside the pool is 30+ degrees. But that won't be for a while yet. Our weather can't make up its mind, and I remember that, despite my bitter disappointment and disgruntlement, this is the case every April/May. It rains incessantly and green stuff grows with increased spite. So I need to stop talking about it. I'm thinking of deleting everything I've written so far, as I don't want to talk about it. But, look! What IS this?! Not good enough, France! It rained so hard last night that the swimming pool, which was previously filled to the second tile down, is now virtually overflowing! Look! We finally got round to installing windows in the previously glassless holes in our bedroom wall, but removing the stickers on both sides of the window proved to be the trickiest part! We had to reso

It was SO exciting to return to France, and the baking hot sunshine seduced us into believing that life was good! Now, during our third week back, it seems that it's been raining FOREVER! Our semi-mountainous position brings with it icy cold nights, and, of course, we still have no heating. Apart from our little friend the paraffin heater. Buildings with walls constructed from great lumps of stone, a metre thick, behave just like the semi-subterranean ice houses of old, maintaining static low temperatures all year round. This is a very useful and much appreciated trick during the summer, but in every other season, IT IS NOT FUNNY!  Anyway, despite the aching chill, we decided to erect the swimming pool!  Sue (No, that's not Sue!) and I spent a lot of time carefully levelling the ground and sand last year, so there was only a little bit of cosmetic smoothing to be done this year. The sections of plastic-grid fencing that we put down under the sand layer prevented any mole