For the first time in a couple of months, enough has happened in the last week for me to write a blog after 7 days (you’ll note I didn’t say ‘I’d done enough …’ 😉)
The week started slowly as I had to take my car to the garage in Brest on Monday to have some minor work done. I’d hoped they would be able to take it, start the work immediately (at the time of my scheduled appointment – 10am) and be able to return the car before lunch so I could come home and crack on with things. No!
They told me that it might be ready during the day but they wouldn’t commit to being able to return it before 5pm. I therefore had to take Dave’s car home and drive back into Brest later that afternoon to collect mine, somewhat breaking the day up and meaning I couldn’t start anything meaningful.
What I was able to do was contact someone who could deal with our hornet issue. The last blog ended saying that I had found an Asian hornets’ nest in the gable end of Priory while I was giving the wisteria a trim and, having read my blog, 2 friends made the same recommendation for someone who would assist.
I left a voicemail for them and they were very rapid to reply, and equally rapid to visit and sort the issue, killing the occupants of the nest in an apparently environmentally-friendly way. They recommended that I didn’t continue the wisteria cutting for a week as there was likely to be hornets returning to the nest and others hatching that would take a few days to be killed.
I have been watching closely since he visited and have seen no evidence of hornet activity so it appears he has done a good job. I will finish the wisteria next week.
The rest of the week has mostly been on a single task other than the normal routine of turning gîtes over as guests leave and new arrive – for the end of September we are delighted we continue to welcome new guests as Finistère is an amazing place to visit in the autumn as much as the summer and last week saw amazing weather, hot and dry.
That task was tackling the hedge on our west boundary, the only one that actually borders another property. The hedge, such as it is, runs behind Grange (our garage), my workshop and either side of Hayloft, whose western end is the boundary of our property.
In our time here, I have only attacked this hedge once, many years ago, to try and make it a better shape. I have never then had the time to go back. For hedges, this is not great and, as such, it has grown far taller than we had wanted behind my workshop and was above the roof line of Hayloft on both sides.
The reason this has become the priority (other than it really needed to be done) is that in May 2023 we contracted a roofing company to come and replace Hayloft’s roof. For various reasons the work hasn’t yet been done but we are told they will be here in the second week of October and I don’t want them to have any excuse not to start, so I wanted to clear the self-set willow, sycamore, ash and oak which have been growing immediately next to the roof, and tame the hawthorn, holly and yew that we want to keep.
With our neighbour’s permission I was able to attack most of this job from their side of the hedge and cut back everything which had got out of control. It meant multiple trips to the déchetterie with the branches and, because of the huge amount of bramble and hawthorn involved, my forearms looks like I have been 10 rounds in a tiger fight but I have cleared what I need for the roofers. I hope, with our neighbour’s permission, to be able to clear the length of the hedge over the next 6 months so that boundary actually becomes a hedge rather than a bank of bramble and weed! Disappointingly some of the after pictures don’t look too different from the before pictures but it has made a big difference – honest!
Also, I didn’t take any before pictures behind my workshop but now I can use the walkway I left when I rebuilt the shed whereas before it was overgrown with bramble, holly and hawthorn and the amount of light now coming through the windows is incredible.
The other thing that advanced this week, and where thankfully the before and after pictures are very different, is the pool build. Having pushed the builders at the start of September when we had agreed they would return which we, naively, believed meant they would come back(!) we had some breeze blocks delivered on 9th September but no sign of an actual builder.
Thankfully, last Wednesday, the build team came back and have done 2 days worth of construction on the pool house so there has been some progress. We understand they will also be back tomorrow and later in the week to continue. We are told by the (much more communicative and reliable charpentier) that the wood for the roofing will be delivered on 4th October, which gives the builders a deadline to meet!
At least we feel progress is being made before we get back into the wetter and windier winter months.
On the social side, today was Saint Cadou’s annual cochon grillé which marks the Saint’s fête day. We attended with our friends who run the Drennec campsite, Belinda and Andrew, who told us that, despite them having lived in the next village of Commana far longer than we’ve been in Saint Cadou, they had never attended an event in St. Cadou’s salle des fêtes. We were glad to have invited them and broken their duck – or pig in this case!
Having had a productive week, partly as a result of some beautiful late summer weather, the forecast is for things to change to more Breton autumn from tomorrow, so further progress is very much weather dependent.
À bientôt.