surprise trip

Our flight to Toulouse was cancelled because of industrial action in france and with no flights available until Monday it looked like the holiday was over. Some quick thinking and negotiation and we managed to get two nights in a 4 star hotel in Bristol and flights to Barcelona.

The hotel had sauna, steam room, jacuzzi, swimming pool and an excellent restaurant. We took Jasper and Ruby to see Bristol zoo and Clifton suspension bridge, then it was off to Barcelona.

A day and a half was just enough time to see some of Gaudi's buildings, Parc Guell, visit the medieval quarter, the old cathedral and the beach.

Then the cheap train to the border at La tour de Carol where we bumped into John and Sandrine who were heading in the opposite direction to go and stay in Barcelona. We then caught another train to Toulouse, a bus to the airport, where we collected our car before driving back to Quelebu via the supermarket. A long day.

Sun

Lovely weather her in the UK at the moment, so after Susie had done some work in the garden and I'd fettled with the car (adjusting the clutch) we all headed off to Thurlstone beach for some rockpooling, frisbee and ice-cream!

Phew!

It's been a short trip but I've got plenty of work done!

All the plasterboarding is done except for the bathroom, all the first and second fix wiring is done except for bathroom and utility room, the gas hob is working, the staircase is taking shape (though the flights are still temporary) and the entrance is tiled.

Much of the building rubbish/waste has now been disposed of, the vegetable garden dug, one hedge trimmed and two fields strimmed.

Time for a rest.

snow!

On Saturday the weather remained hot and I pressed on with mostly electrical work indoors, starting to build the new staircase and later when it was cooler strimming field 3.

Sunday and all change on the weather front, rain overnight quickly turned to sleet then snow, but the ground is too warm for it to settle. More electrical work and stair building, then two more viewings at Pont and a quick visit to see Jason and Grace.

In the evening I lit the Rayburn and cooked myself a birthday dinner of roast chicken!

Dry

Dug 2/3 of the vegetable garden this morning. Hard work as the plot is covered in nettles and the ground iron hard - it's been an incredibly dry winter, I've never seen the soil so dry at this time of year.
Spent the rest of the day progressing the kitchen. Gas hob and electric oven now working as are the kitchen lights.

Quelebu again

Back in France. Glorious weather, 33 in the sun today.

With spring approaching looking after the land is once again competing with the extension for my time. With such perfect weather I laid the hedge under the electricity line in field 4. Some blisters and scratches for my efforts.Field 1 was strimmed also. The vegetable plot might get dug over tomorrow.

Inside I stripped the cladding in the old kitchen, oiled the worktops twice, fitted the sink traps and might get some wainscotting done tonight.

All go!

Pumped

Another day, another bathroom! This time progress with my mum's en-suite.

A leaky fuel pump on the Saab has been occupying my time also. Spent a half day making and fitting new gaskets which failed to solve the problem, then the fuel line developed a hole en-route to mums and was gushing fuel. This was quickly replaced and after some investigation it seems the fitted fuel pump is from an old Ford Pinto and not the pump for the V4 engine. A new pump is still available at a very reasonable cost so will replace it later today before leaving for France.

Cornwall

A short weekend away in Cornwall staying in a lovely old Gypsy caravan.
The weather on Saturday was beautiful and we walked around the coast through the daffodil fields and exploring the old gabbro mines. A shame we had to come back so soon.
Next time we might stay in the tree house!
Back to France in a couple of days.

Ivybridge excursion

Back in blighty, building an en-suite for my mum and John.

Susie is external examining most Fridays and needs a lift to whichever school she is visiting. Today was Ivybridge and even though the examining only took 2 hours, I had time to dash off and visit Hangershell rock, Piles Hill, Three Barrows and Sharp Tor.

Hangershell Rock with Hanger down clump in the distance across the valley

Hangershell rock

Sharp Tor

View from Sharp Tor

Latest kitchen progress

Beautiful weather continues with sunshine temperatures of 18-20 degrees although the snow stays on the ground around the house and it's very cold at night. The snow plough broke down last week and so 2 km of snowy road between us and the next hamlet Biech, is now thick ice making journeys a hazardous and slow adventure.
Removed the old kitchen, demolished the wall around it and then reinstalled it with a few extras in the new kitchen space. The temptation to progress with this rather than the electrics was too much to resist. The door Paul made was hung finished and painted and it's all looking good.
Philippe and Sophie popped in for l'apero on Wednesday evening and then Ian, Nina, John and Sandrine came for dinner to christen the new space on Thursday.

DIY

Took Paul back to the airport and after a long queue at the Ikea tills I managed to get all the extras I need for the kitchen. Three days to get as much done as possible.

Snow!

Back to France with Paul for a short skiing break and then the usual continuation of the house build. A vast quantity of snow has fallen and because the house has been empty and unheated, most of the snow has stayed on the roof! Still a good test.

An afternoon off piste at Guzet to find our ski legs, then a day of low cloud (sent doing some DIY). Next day we were off to do a little ski tour - alas thick breakable crust saw us quickly retreating. Beautiful weather so another day in and around Guzet.

Paul forgot to put on sun cream and got horribly burnt, so much so that we he had to stay indoors the next day to avoid permanent damage!

Ouch!

I discovered a stupid error with the pipework from the hot water header tank which will cost me another day of plumbing works and no doubt a lot of cursing.

Bathroom make over

Now mostly complete

After several days effort the bath/shower installation is complete and looking good.

A lovely St Valentine's day with Susie relaxing in pool, sauna and steam room before a leisurely lunch and a stroll around Dartmouth.

Bigbury

A day with Dommy, Oscar, Jasper and Buffy the dog, exploring along the coast at low tide. There are a succession of beaches/wave cut platforms, each separated by narrow rocky headlands which can crossed either through caves and blow holes or through collapsed arches.Dommy took some great photos with his DSLR, particularly of Buffy in motion.
The geology and physical geography here is all very interesting.

A link to another beach

Fishing net trapped in the rocks

Quartz veins

Ready for grouting.

Bathroom refurbishment well underway

After some more fun and games the car is now fully functional again and this time with a spare key!

Works got underway with the bathroom refurbishment. The bath was 5' 6" long, so I had to remove a full height built-in cupboard to fit the new slightly longer 1700mm bath. The usual problems - breaking the old cast iron bath to get it down the stairs with a hammer caused some ringing in my ears, all the plumbing turned out to be in old imperial sizes, and the walls around the bath were mostly tile adhesive on cardboard, and not square to the bath!

I replaced the cupboard with lower open fronted unit to hold towels (built mostly from the old removed cupboard), have plumbed in the new bath a shower tap and replastered the missing parts of the wall....just wall tiling, the shower screen and redecorating to finish the job.

Back to France soon where the snow has at last started falling - looking forward to some skiing at last!

New smile for the saab

Some minor works to the saab whilst I wait for clarification of the scope of works for the bathroom refurbishment here in Totnes from our landlady.

New wing mirror, classic chrome radiator grill and light surrounds (replacing the horrible black plastic one it had before), spare wheel and tyre, some tinkering with the tick over, new passenger door lining and lastly the ignition which turned into an epic.

The existing ignition key was just a tiny stub as the rest of the key had long since snapped off in the lock. The key frequently falls out as your driving along - most disconcerting. I managed to find a replacement lock cylinder and key in a an old scrapped saab 95 - the key was jammed in the lock making normal cyclinder extraction methods impossible. We managed to disc-cut the dashboard apart and after much cutting on the bench retrieve it in tact. Some oil and gentle persuasion and the the key was removed and the lock working smoothly. It was quite a job to remove the existing cylinder from my our saab but eventually after a few hours struggle out it came. I put the salvaged cylinder in and the key immediately jammed!! It wouldn't budge. Disc cutting was not an option this time and in the end I had to drill out the cylinder. Fortunately, I've retrieved the snapped end of the original key which was still in the lock, so I am hoping that I'll be able to put the original lock cylinder back in and make a complete key.

Very cold here in Devon but not as cold as back in the Pyrenees - thank heavens I drained the central heating. Some snow at last so looking forward to skiing again soon.