Despite what I said back in early September about the splitting of our water & electricity supply we've had a response from the water company. I said back then that the state owned water & electric companies don't like anything slightly unusual but I've since found out that the water company is now privately owned & action things far speedier & charge a lot more than they used to. We called into see M. Coletti, the local architect, with the documents we'd received & he was good enough to help us complete the numerous forms all in duplicate. Back in a previous life I had sold a product called 'Idem' and it was only today when M. Coletti was completing the forms for us that I found out that it meant 'same as' or 'ditto' in French. I suppose all my old colleagues already knew this & I was the only un-educated one out there. M. Coletti also mentioned that he was still waiting for a response from EDF to an application he'd made for a new electricity supply back in June! It was a glorious day and as we needed to call into Najac to pick up the obligatory baguette for lunch we couldn't resist popping in for a coffee. Since the end of the holiday season the centre of the village has been very quiet but today we were struggling to get parked. The local farmers were in town & had brought their apple harvest for crushing into juice. A press had been set up connected to a bottling machine and juice was being produced & bottled in the village square. The fresh juice was delicious and judging by how much people were buying they were stocking up for the next 12 months. Being very adventurous we bought 2 bottles.
We're nearly there with the roof & it should be finished by Monday 22nd, 4 weeks to the day since M. Huguenot finally turned up. For the last few days one of his men has been tidying up and, apart from the mess the Manitou has made to the drive & the road, things are looking much better. He's very chatty & on several occasions it's been difficult to get on with things. He speaks English, Spanish, French and his native African language & says English is his favourite one as it's so easy to learn. We had planned to use a local discount DIY store to buy the windows for the 4 lucarnes but now that the openings are finished the sizes don't quite correspond to the stock sizes available. M. Huguenot said the carpenter he used would be able to manufacture windows to fit & arranged for him to call in a measure up. He called round on Friday afternoon and said that he could make the windows in about 15 days & would drop a devis in over the weekend. He wanted to know where in the UK we were from as he'd visited Blackpool & Fleetwood on an exchange visit when he was at school & that they'd had a day trip to The Lake District and it was very beautiful.
We've spent most of the week fitting the insulation & batons in the roof space to attach the plasterboards to and it was also time to use the metalwork again that we'd formed the downstairs WC out of. We had very few crossed words considering the difficulties we had locating the joists under the insulation and it really is time I invested in a cordless drill that doesn't need to be put on charge after every three screws. By Friday we only had a couple more levels of batons to fit & with Matthew visiting us next week there's a distinct chance that he will be press-ganged into giving a little help getting some plasterboards up the stairs & in place.
Saturday it was off to Rodez to collect Matthew from the airport in time to return to Najac for the Rugby World Cup Final. Surprisingly there were not quite so many people in the bar this week but despite the result a good night was had. The last time we visited the market at St Antonin-Noble-Val it was wh
en Rebecca was with us in August & it was that busy you'd couldn't move. This Sunday it was so much quieter and it was very relaxing being able to wander un-hurried around the stalls and select some really tasty wild boar & walnut saucisse. Took the Lightweight on a little off-road adventure on Sunday and snapped this shot from the bottom of the field. Next week we'll see what it looks like without the Manitou & hopefully the same beautiful blue sky.
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