Gite progress

A busy couple of days installing the kitchen and assembling furniture and the gite is coming together nicely.
We hope to be open in time for the Easter school holidays (vacances scholaire de Paques) on the 1st April. Quelebu-Grange.com will be live soon!

Glorious weather continues

The glorious sunny weather is continuing and we're making the most of it with some walks and outside work.

The three trees I felled have been chopped up and are awaiting splitting. The branches have all been chipped and a couple of trailer loads has been enough to make a floor for the polytunnel and to start mulching around some of our vegetables.

With the warm weather the sap is rising in the birches so it's time to tap it ready for some more birch syrup. 

Spring

Far too many pancakes at the Mairie, but the sun shone. In fact the sunshine has been glorious this past week with temperatures in the sun in the mid-20's. The seeds are germinating in the polytunnel, but we are in desperate need of 4 m3 of topsoil, which is proving difficult to find.

The last of the floor tiling is now complete, which is lucky as the disc cutter died a minutes later.

Upstairs is also ready for furnishings.

Whilst the adhesive on the last set of laid tiles was drying, we made the most of the sun with some tree felling (to open up the view towards Valier and for firewood) and testing the mulcher/chipper we bought last summer, making mulch for the floor of the polytunnel and the organic garden.

As usual hepatica are the first wild flowers in bloom.

No longer a building site!

Tiling underway and suddenly the gite looks much less like a building site. Perhaps completion is a tangible distance away?

Tempete

Gale force winds from 3 am until 6.30 am, which kept me up most of the night. It was a first real wind test for the polytunnel with winds of 50mph or more. Glad to report no damage. Another storm on Sunday night will be even stronger, but fortunately the wind direction is NW and the tunnel should be more sheltered but it will bring more snow.

It's finally time to tile the floor of the gite, with the plumbing now finished. Some latex levelling is required before I can start, which I'll have to get on Monday. So today I built the raised beds....just need some top-soil now!