Back to it.

After that relaxing weekend back in the UK it was back to work on Thursday morning and as Thierry likes to start early & have a siesta in the afternoon we'd got the scaffold up by 7:30 & was mixing the first batch of concrete well before 8:00. I could just imagine what Barbara's reaction to having her beauty sleep disturbed but I shouldn't have worried as she managed to sleep through all the banging & crashing. With all the materials we'd ordered the supplier had split the delivery in two & at just after 9:00 the first load arrived. The driver was a dab hand with the Hiab and the 500 concrete blocks were lowered in to place and we were ready to make a start on building the first of the dividing walls. It's really speeding things along having Thierry's help & by 12:00 when it was time for lunch the first course of blocks were in place. I had hoped that working with Thierry would have brought my French on leaps & bounds but it's his language skills that have progressed. He's now started measuring things in English & is insisting that I correct him when his grammar isn't perfect. The thorny issue of shovels & spades raised it's head again this week & after a heated debate it was agreed that the British shovel was far superior to the French design & that as a nation we should be proud that we had made something better than the French. After all our food was still inferior & would never match that of the world leaders in haut cuisine. I did point out that the UK now boasted many world class chefs & numerous Michelin star restaurants and that we'd have to do is organise a trip to the UK for Thierry & his wife and show them the delights of the Brewers Fayre. On Friday we continued to make good progress & by close of play we'd managed to lay over 140 blocks, good going considering the number of corners & doorways we'd had to accommodate & we could now get a real perspective of how the bedrooms & en-suites are going to look.

It's been a busy week for Babs as well doing the tourism bit with her mum & aunt. There's been a couple of trips to VDR, lovely meal at one of the local hotels on Saturday night & on Sunday we made our first trip of the year to the market in St Antonin-Noble-Val. It wasn't as busy as it's been in the past so we were able to have a leisurely wander around the many stalls & have a nice relaxing coffee in the market square. I've mentioned before that there's a big UK population in and around St Antonin & it's where the estate agent we used to sell the house is based & looking in his office window & seeing how many of the properties he has for sale have been reduced in price clearly shows the impact the British housing crisis is having here.

Philip called in to give the Lightweight the once over on Wednesday & quickly diagnosed that the clutch was OK it was the lack of clutch fluid that had caused the problem. After a quick search of the internet the relevant parts were located & ordered and Philip offered to come back when the parts arrived & give me a hand fitting them. Fingers crossed we'll be up and back on the road by this time next week.