Last Monday, Danny spent a huge chunk of the day pumping out yet more rainwater (I've actually lost count of the times he's done it now but I think this was about the 4th time!). He then removed all the tarpaulins plus slabs, beams and goodness knows what other stuff that he'd used to keep the tarpaulins in place. At the end of the day, with all of that removed, we could see just how much earth had subsided into the hole and it looked like this.....
Our digger man, Phil, turned up next morning to get it all ready for John who would be starting on Wednesday. You might think we would feel happy at this point but for Danny and I (and even Phil, come to that) we'd got to this point before! Nonetheless, it was good to see it looking freshly dug and ready for action by Tuesday afternoon....
Now on Wednesday, things really did start! The first thing John organised was a delivery of cement so he could put a capping layer on the floor of the hole. This is all additional cost to us because of the delay but we understood that because of the continuing wet weather, John wanted a solid floor on which to work. (Just as well as it absolutely poured with rain on Thursday!). So, on Wednesday afternoon a huge cement lorry arrived...here it comes, backing in .....
On Thursday and Friday, John concentrated on marking out the position of the pool itself. It turns out that the hole wasn't square-on to the house and he's had to make some alterations. All I know is that by the time he left on Friday afternoon, the hole looked like this....
Hopefully, things will move on a bit next week!
So, what else has been happening chez nous? Well, for one thing, we've had Internet problems. It seems, after several telephone conversations with the technical guys at Orange France and two separate visits from engineers, each of whom repaired different cables, we will have to settle for slow Internet speeds if we want stability! In other words, they can give us a faster working Internet connection, but it'll be hit and miss when it's working! It's surprising how cut off we feel when the Internet isn't working, partly because it affects our telephone landline too. Still, there are bigger things to worry about aren't there and I'd rather have reliability than speed, I think.
We've made a bit of progress on the utility room in that Danny has changed the lighting in there. I'm very pleased with the new lights and especially with how much brighter it is in there. Unfortunately we haven't had an opportunity to move the freezer into the barn so nothing else can be done for the moment. (I intend to resume nagging about this next week!) In the meantime, what do you think of my new lights?
Danny has been spending quite a bit of time in his hobby room lately! He's currently making a replica model of his son Joe's VW Beetle and is thoroughly enjoying himself with it!
Actually, we've started calling the room Danny's "cave" because apparently it's what other guys call the rooms in which they do their models. I rather like the description!
And finally, well I just want to share these pictures with you. One of Danny's tasks...and it seems to be several times a week....is to keep the bird feeders topped up. The other day he watched them and it seems the birds have a system set up whereby a couple of them swing on the feeders, dislodging loads of sunflower seeds and then a whole group of their friends come along and feed on the ground! Just look at these....
And on the theme of nature... the farmer who rents the land around our house has moved his cows back into the field right opposite the house. It means, for one thing, that when I look out of our bedroom window when I get up each morning, I can see the cows grazing in the field and it's a wonderful start to my day. So I'm going to leave you with this picture of them in their field!
À bientôt!
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