La belle France

Flight times have changed so rather than arriving at lunchtime, I now arrive after dark, which feels strange. Weather is beautiful and mild (29 in the sun yesterday) and the only sounds are dry leaves rustling and acorns, hazelnuts and chestnuts falling.

It's another trip with lots to achieve (are there any other?). After servicing the septic tank, it was straight on with making the last opening in the barn. It's a bit like a giant game of jack straws except with 20kg rocks! Pull out the wrong stone and there can be a seemingly unending collapse. One can't make the whole opening in one go or the whole barn might end up as a pile of rocks, so it's slow work, building in frames, propping and reinforcing as you go.

Meetings with the plasterer for Gilbert's barn conversion at La Trappe today, ErDF (electricity board) tomorrow, Jean-Christophe later in the week (a planning permission for another house) and (at last) the Notaire for the sale of the house at Pont next Wednesday. Hopefully Jeanmarc Sentenac will be able to do terrassement around the barn next weekend and next week I'm planning on casting the ground floor slab in the barn...phew!

Eastbourne

Tits at Yarner

Autumn colours from the house

A quick trip to Eastbourne on Tuesday/Wednesday. A dingy (but cheap) hotel on the seafront broke the travelling but a very nice curry in the town was a compensation.

Susie and Ruby went to the Brighton University open day, Ruby wants to do the illustration degree there, whilst I headed to Hastings for work related meetings. We met up again at the end of the day at Willow's home before the long drive back.

Off to Quélébu for more gite works today (Saturday).

Autumnal photos from a walk in North Woods

Leaves in the River Dart #1

Leaves in the River Dart #2

Foxglove

Lightning visit

A few days back in france, to meet with the ErDF (electricity board) who had to cancel and Jean-Marc Sentenac who can hopefully do some excavation around the barn, dig the services trenches and eventually put in the septic tank. He's very busy and I'll be lucky if he can do the excavation work around the barn this year...I might have to hire a digger and do it myself.

Most of my short stay (even the nights) was taken up with Architecture work in the UK, where a project I'm running has been slipping further and further into the red and despite my constant warnings heads have remained firmly in the sand. It wasn't until the contractor issued his draft final account on Friday that "the shit hit the fan". It's been an incredibly stressful time.

Still I grabbed a couple of spare hours and finished demolishing most of the barn stair, burnt the 7 big bonfires, dismantled the chicken coop and took down some fencing.

Staircase mostly gone

 wall getting bigger!

All done for this trip

Getting the window frame into the existing oak lintel in window no 2 was a bastard and then halfway through rebuilding the wall above window no 1 the heavens opened - I'd just made a barrow load of mortar so had to continue until it was all used and was soaked through. Today was finishing off, a major clear up of stones and starting the demolition of the stairs.

What to do with the mountain of stone from making the openings and the demolished stair? A wall 5 feet thick which I'll eventually top with soil and plant. There's still half the stair to demolish and a doorway to make so it'll probably be another foot higher.

The partially demolished stair, revealing the little window I carefully protected when I built the stair.

Finally the hippies who set up their caravan camp in the woods just up the road last spring, returned this afternoon with another caravan and a friend also with a caravan! My heart sank (they have been a nuisance with several marauding wild dogs which they spend most their time shouting expletives at). However, after a few hours they departed - I guess they took what they wanted from the old caravan which has broken windows and have abandoned it together with all the pots, pans, rubbish, gas bottles, etc. for someone else to deal with, usually the Mairie....which means all the inhabitants of the commune foot the bill. (This has happened several times since I've lived here). I have no problem with people living in the woods if they leave it as they find it...but I have zero tolerance for these polluters.

Back again soon to make a door opening, organise some excavations and a temporary electricity supply.

Hedges and mushrooms

Today dawned clear and I watched the rising sun bathe the mountains in light. 

In the field I also watched a couple of roe stags (a young male still red and a much older three point grey male) sparring. I filmed the exchange and a little later the young male was back again.

I spent until 2pm laying the hedge on the other side of the chemin leading to the barn. 

The next section to the barn is mostly quite dense now so I may just top it rather than lay it, which should be quicker.

After a quick lunch I headed to Oust for some shopping and on the way back stopped in for a long chat with Minsou. When she asked what I was having for tea, I replied chicken and mushrooms. She laughed when I said I hadn't picked them yet, but it only took 15 mins to collect an assortment when I got home!

Barn progress

A very long day working on the barn. Lintels finally up on the first window and internal reveals done.

Then it was onto the second window which needed the old frame taken out, the cill lowered and width slightly reduced. The old frame was built in and offered support to the walls on either side (dry stone construction, no mortar) so when it came out there was rather a lot of wall to rebuild. All done by 7.30pm.

Snow and hedgelaying

After a rain, hail and thunder storm last night, this morning dawned clear with a dusting of snow on Mont Valier...winter is coming.

In the morning more work on the inside of the new window in the barn, its slow work rebuilding the reveals and supports for the lintels, hopefully after tomorrow I will have the interior lintels placed.

The rest of the day was spent hedge laying. First section complete.

There are four huge bonfires of branches piled up and two giant stacks of spars about 3m long. What I've done is about 20% of the total that needs doing. Next I'll tackle the already thinned out section against the garage/woodstore.

Windows

A light dusting of snow overnight on Mont Rouch

Logging from yesterday almost complete

Today I busy, busy, busy. I started by building the window frame for the first window in the barn. Mortice and tenon joints and a stooled cill. Then I did a bit of thinning out of the hedges in readiness for hedge laying, starting behind the wood store where several ash trees were getting rather close to the H.T. electricity wires.

Then it was down to the barn to install the window frame. I managed to go in from the outside and get the frame in. 

Knocking through proved more difficult, as the stones weren't as well placed for the opening and there were several colapses! Eventually I got a second oak lintel in place, but tomorrow I'll need to get sand and lime and start rebuilding the wall before there are anymore!

A beautiful sunset tonight. Have lit a fire for the first time this evening.

Gite underway

Back to Quélébu and at last ready to start on the barn transformation into a gite. Autumn is coming and the leaves are just starting to turn and drop their leaves. First up, some photos for Susie of her summer planting...all doing well.

Elsewhere, there are the usual profusion of autumn crocuses and plenty of mushrooms - orange bay bolettes, chanterelles, hedgehog of the woods and horn of plenty.

Before the barn works can start I've been burning 4 out of 5 of the huge bonfires from the tree felling in August and cutting, splitting and stacking the wood. Then the ground floor of the barn was emptied of the thatch (about 120 bundles) and the sheep pens were dismantled. A trip to St Girons to collect the oak for the window and door surrounds, hassle the notaire (still haven't exchanged on Pont after 6 months!) and chase the water board (SMDEA) for a quote.

Weather is warm and sunny but with clouds building every afternoon/evening.

8 tors

A beautiful day on Sunday, so Susie and I romped around our 8 tors walk (Sheeps Tor, Down Tor, Cramber Tor, Hart Tor, Black Tor, Leeden Tor, Sharpitor, Leather Tor). Susie feeling the extra walking fitness in her legs!

 Leather tor and Sharpitor from Sheeps Tor

Vespa Velutina

We saw an unusual hornet feeding on an apple half we'd left outside the front door. A large wasp flew by and it immediately flew up, grabbed it, pinned it to the floor, stung it to death then flew off with it it's jaws. Not uncommon behaviour for a hornet but this one certainly seemed aggressive ....turns out this is Vespa Veluti the asiatic hornet which has been responsible for a spate of human deaths across France since it arrived in 2004. We got rid of the apple!

Susie's Valier adventure