As hoped at the end of my last blog, the weather for the last 7 days has been a very welcome break to the previous 3 months of generally wet and windy conditions.
This has allowed me to complete some outside work as, while we are obviously far from complete in Priory, there is a very limited amount for me to do while Pascal, our sparky, continues to rip things apart to string miles of cabling through.
I did manage to complete the trench I’d begun last week which will eventually be used to lay the main power cable to Priory. I think Pascal had hoped to have done this on Friday while the weather remained good. However, only having hired the drill to cut through Priory’s thick slate walls on Friday morning, with the inevitable delay in being delivered by the hire company; and the fact that Pascal found it difficult to cut 2 large holes through an 80 cm thick slate and rock wall(?!) meant that he hasn’t been able to achieve this.
My outdoor work has been focussed more on cutting back the brambles and weeds on the opposite side of Hent Gorreker to our main entrance. Again, not that there isn’t enough for me to do in our own garden, the area opposite us is not tended by anyone so the weeds grown tall and block the light, and would block the view when I, eventually, cut the laurel at the end of Granary garden. We have an agreement with the farmer who owns the field, that we would control the weeds but I hadn’t cut them back for a few years. We think it was 2016 the first, and last, time I did it when the trees were even larger. This time we plan to plant a few shrubs on the bank which should, in time, assist keep the weeds under control and be more colourful and attractive than bramble!
As a couple of weeks ago, we had another day in Brest on Friday (one of the days Dave isn’t at work), buying more material for the Priory project. I can’t wait until the spending is complete but it will look AMAZING when finished.
The other major leap forward this week, albeit not one I can take any credit for, was our carpenter came back to hang the new Granary door – and it has made such a big difference both to the look of the building on the outside, and the amount of light getting to the inside. It does need another coat of paint on the outside, and our carpenter thinks he will add a sill to the bottom on the outside, but even now we are very happy with it.
As we have for many years, we marked Burns’ Night last night with a fabulous meal of haggis, neaps and tatties that David prepared. While not being Scottish in any way, it is a good excuse for having haggis, which we love, and a ‘wee dram’. However, another ‘tradition’ we have kept this year is a dry January, and we didn’t even break it last night. However, with the start of the Six Nations next weekend we will certainly be having a drink, and it’s February by then anyway so we are allowed!
While we didn’t take a photo of our Burns supper, we had some B&B guests stay last night who were the first to Instagram the Kergudon breakfast! They really enjoyed themselves and loved Hayloft – let’s hope an Instagram’d breakfast is seen far and wide!
With the rugby next weekend may not be the most productive but there will hopefully be more to share. Both our electrician and builder are back so, I hope, the re-wiring will be nearing completion and we may be in a position to start building things again and not just ripping them out or cutting holes in them! Sadly, the dry weather has already come to an end and we seem to be back to the wet, windy winter patterns. Let’s hope this one doesn’t last 3 months!
Salut.