Floors & Holidays

Monday morning I was woken at 7:00 by the sound of a strimmer. Thierry was up early & working on the house next door which, despite the early hour, was a welcome sound as I wanted to see him & arrange a time to start on the barn floor. By 8:15 we'd calculated what materials we needed & he rang through the order for 20 tonnes of sand and gravel, 100 bags of cement, 70 square metres of reinforcing metal & the 40 meters of plastic profile & delivery was scheduled for first thing on Wednesday morning. Thierry carried on with his gardening & I headed to VDR to see the window man as I was a bit concerned that now the floor was going to be laid with an approximate 10mm screed the measurements we'd taken may be a little out. I asked them to hold off making the two large French doors until we'd finished laying the floor. Thierry arrived early on Wednesday morning and by 8:45 he was getting a little fidgety as the delivery promised for 8:15 had still not arrived. After a phone call we were promised that the delivery was on it's way & would be with us shortly, it reminded me of all those times I'd promised moaning printers that their delivery was just around the corner when in fact we were still loading the vehicle. Looked like it was a similar story here as it was another 50 minutes before the lorry arrived. The sand was tipped, the cement lowered in to place with the help of a Hiab & it was on with laying the polythene & metal trellis. It went well and we had an early finish just before 6:00, this after Thierry's obligatory 3 hour lunch.

Thursday was VE day & a public holiday so our timings had all fallen into place for a change. I was heading down to Carcassonne to collect Barbara & John. It was a lovely day & judging by the number of cars on the road it seemed as if all of Toulouse was heading for the coast to enjoy a long weekend, Monday was Pentecost and another public holiday. With a 7:00 start on Friday we made good progress with laying the concrete and had Philip, who'd 'volunteered' to help, not had a previous appointment the floor would have been finished by the end of the day. Another 7:00 start on Saturday saw the floor finished & the first step up the side of the barn in place and by 11:00 we were able to head for Cordes for lunch & a little site seeing with John.

Being a holiday weekend there were several fêtes & events organised our nearest being a Brocante in Najac. Despite it being a nice warm sunny day there weren't that many stalls and we managed to resist splashing out and purchasing any items for the barn. Anything we bought would after all have to be packed away shortly & I'm sure there'll be plenty of opportunities to pick up a bargain or two in the future.