Batten Down the Hatches

Don’t get excited there is nothing of any great significance to report.  That was very presumptuous of me to imagine you could possibly get excited reading my building blog!

We have continued to barrow sand and blocks to the terrace area.  The LGB managed to get the foundations done for the terrace whilst I spent the day Christmas shopping in Angouleme with Suzanne.  It was exhausting!  We had to stop for lunch and a coffee.   I expect Brendan was pretty tired too! 

     

I spent the summer complaining that it was too hot to work and now we are complaining about the rain.  Yesterday we managed to get the retaining walls built for the terrace in between running for cover from the downpours.

Marcel, the neighbour, told us there was a big storm on the way.  The mayor also turned up.  Had he arrived two minutes earlier he would have caught me in an embarassing position with my little bucket.  He asked if we were living in the caravan.  I thought, ‘Here we go.  He’s going to slam another tax on us; A Living as a Traveller Tax or a Temporarily Homeless Tax’.  I thought he then went on to say it would affect the sale ‘la vente’.  I nearly said the bloody things not built yet, I’m hardly planning on selling it. However, he had also stopped to warn us about the impending storm, and was talking about ‘le vent’ the wind.

I thought I would make a little small talk by telling him about his mother visiting us to offer us the hard-core; however he couldn’t understand me so I repeated it in English, still he couldn’t understand.  Now I am not sure what to make of that because by profession he is a translator – French to English.  He actually speaks perfect English, albeit never to us!  I’m signing up for English lessons next term. 

Had ‘la tempête’ not been mentioned we would have toddled off home in ignorant bliss.  Now we had a dilemma – did we take down the caravan awning or not. I decided to phone Mary for advice.  We decided we would collapse the awning to be on the safe side.

We visited the site today and all was still in place.  We have a ready-made swimming pool where the terrace should be, but not even a flower pot had blown over.  I can’t see that there will be much progress this side of Christmas, but who knows what Santa may bring.