Disaster has struck the building site. Every builder’s nightmare: the kettle died! The Oldies are devastated. Shocked too. I mean, the kettle was only about 15 years old and it had served them well on numerous building sites over the years. Of course, it was a bit on the dusty side, but sure that goes with the territory. And it leaked, but only a little because Her Ladyship had superglued up most of the holes. The contact point was also rather knackered, but if you shoved a thin piece of wood under the front just so, it functioned perfectly. Mostly. The light even came on occasionally when the contact was made, but otherwise you just had to listen carefully for a few moments to check that it was starting to heat up. Her Ladyship is particularly distressed because she had only just given the kettle its annual cleaning the other day. And now it’s on its way to the dump.

I just can’t understand it!

On a brighter note, progress is being made, slowly but surely. After a six year break from building work, the Oldies are beginning to get back into the swing of things. They have perfected a few techniques which have stood them well over the years. I particularly like their work table which they’ve been using since they first started. It consists of a light but very stable cupboard door (recycled from one of their first jobs) placed on top of two wooden trestles. They staple leftover wallpaper onto the door every so often. It is ideal for scribbling measurements and notes onto and whenever it gets dirty, covered in paint or glue, or if they want to eat at it (it doubles up as a dining table of course), they simply staple on a clean piece of wallpaper. Cost: about 5 euro. Perhaps they should patent it.

These past few days, the Oldies have been doing one of their favourite jobs: pointing stonework. They’ve had a few new double-glazed windows put in. That was the easy part. Now they’ve had to make good the surrounds. Using a lime based render and leaving some of the stone exposed is both good for the house and aesthetically pleasing. Well, I like it anyway.

         

The weather has been wonderful since we arrived in France so we have been able to have picnic lunches on the place outside the house every day. There’s no shortage of supplies. There’s a boulangerie directly on the square and the cheese van calls by once a week.

Warning: The next bit for is over-18s only.

Her Ladyship has shocked me yet again. You really can’t be seen dead with that one.

She’s was up in the attic room the other day, painting the mezzanine. And sweating buckets. Ok, it was 30°C in the shade, but still. What does she do? She casts a glance out the window, mutters to herself, ‘To hell with it!’, and whips off her t-shirt.

God almighty, does the woman have no shame! Here we are in the land of lacy lingerie and there she is, prancing around in an elderly, greying Dunnes Stores sports bra. I suspect that the only sport that ugly undergarment ever performed was spinning around at 1000 r.p.m. in a washing machine. About 1000 times. I nearly died with embarrassment!

Luckily, the only locals that were on the square below (all three of them) were too busy buying baguettes and kissing each other to look up and notice the appalling scene playing out above their heads.

But it was a close thing.