At the end of my last blog, written 3 weeks ago(!), I said that with all of our friends and family having departed, I would be able to pick up with the projects that had been neglected over the busy summer months and get back into the habit of writing my blog.
That didn’t work out so well!
In my defence, the first week was one of the wettest we have had all year so I was unable to do anything outside at all. Thankfully, it appeared that most of the guests we had at the time were a pretty hardy bunch and made the most of things dressing appropriately for any outdoor activities!
The second week was busier with gîte preparations and changeovers as we had a number of guest departures and arrivals, and last week I managed to start focusing back on those projects.
Initially, it was some of the simple things that needed doing. There was a lot of lawn cutting and weeding to be done. While the grass and weed growth had slowed to almost nothing over the very dry summer, as soon as we had had a couple of wetter weeks it felt it had a lot of catching up to do and roared away.
One area (of many) that had become especially overgrown was at the base of Granary’s young griselinia hedge. I had mentioned in previous blogs how we have suffered from honey fungus killing the privet hedging we have around Granary’s garden and that we had underplanted with griselinia to eventually replace it.
Earlier this year I had taken the decision to cut out all of the already dead and some still dying privet which made the garden a little more exposed but also allowed more light and moisture to get to the smaller griselinia plants. It also allowed more light and moisture to the weeds in the soil!
Thankfully, having re-cleared the bed, it has evidently had the desired effect as the griselinia plants have put on strong growth (with the exception of one which chose to die!) and even some of the privet stumps have new shoots, although I suspect they won’t last long.
I have also started a job that I really should have done some time (years?) ago, which is to clear out the garage bays (again!) Having completed the garage some years ago, having created a large, useful clear space it is all too tempting to store things in there as we do other projects. Some of the things I have stored, is the wood we bought to ‘dress’ the pool house as it was always out intention to make the pool house look similar to the garage with wooden cladding and timber posts.
I had stated this work in June before the pool was complete, and had managed to build the door frame for the door into the pump room and put up one of the beams underneath the openings in the front of the building. I then had to stop as the pool builder came back to finish the pool and we began the busy summer season. I didn’t think it would be appreciated by guests if I continued to make noise and lots of dust by continuing.
Now we are quieter with guests I can pick this task up – David has also given me a deadline by which he would like the interior of the pool house to be complete.
Over the last few days I have completed the framing of the 3 openings in the pool house and it has already made a big difference to the appearance of the building.
The frame was a prerequisite for starting the plaster boarding inside the pool house, and cladding the ‘exterior’ walls that are within the pool shelter. However, I need to order the materials for both these jobs but, hopefully, I should be able to do so next week and, depending on delivery delay, make some progress in October.
In the mean time I can fabricate the corner posts which are needed before I am able to clad the exterior walls which are outside the shelter, and I should be able to start those next week which will also assist clear the garage of some of the other wood.
The clearing should be relatively straightforward (so why hasn’t it been done before David would ask!) and will involve a couple of runs to the déchetterie. I would be the first to admit that, while not a hoarder, I do hang onto things that ‘might come in handy in the future’. Some even do!
The easy bits to clear would be the large number of cardboard boxes and associated expanded polystyrene from various deliveries we’ve had over the summer; 2 old gas ovens that were in Hayloft at various times (the older being the source of spare parts for the newer, both now replaced by a different model); a refurbished sun lounger that can go on the pool terrace (before it goes back in the cleared garage for the winter!); a coffee table that we bought in the UK prior to moving to Kergudon which has never found a home but will now be pool house furniture; and some building waste from the pool build itself. Easy.
David has had a busy week and this week has seen the start of Christmas preps (this year is hurtling past so quickly) and yesterday was cake day. As previous years, David has made 6 cakes in total (it is much more efficient when the oven is on to fill it as much as possible!) in the hope that we will be full in the gîtes for Christmas – guests staying for a week over Christmas get a traditional Christmas cake in their welcome basket made to my Mum’s old recipe (which is probably itself a melange of other Christmas cake recipes!)
Despite perhaps not being the most productive 3 weeks, it has still been fairly sociable. During the period we visited Daoulas with some good friends. We go to Daoulas often as it has an excellent Sunday market and is the home of our favourite restaurant (La Faïencerie) and one of our favourite bars (Paul Arts Café), but, to our shame, we have never been to the Abbey in Daoulas which is also what the town is well known for.
Having visited a couple of weeks ago, and even then not going into the Abbey itself, we would certainly recommend exploring the historic town more than we have done in the past as it is charming – and then you can enjoy a drink at Paul Art or a meal in La Faïencerie!
Today was Saint Cadou’s Pardon (which we understand to be the equivalent of the Saint day for Saint Cadou) which the village celebrate with a Cochon Grillé in our Salle des Fêtes which is always well supported and our neighbour, Armel, supplies and cooks the pig.
At the end of my last blog (if you can remember that far back), I also said that Septembers and Octobers can be amazing here – if the weather is kind, and it looks as though it will be in the coming week which should allow me to continue with some decent project progress that I will be able to blog about next week. But I’ve said that before …
Salut.