I cannot believe that tomorrow is the end of the first quarter – where has this year gone?!
Thankfully, the spring has been considerably drier than last year and we have managed to achieve a lot more than we had 12 months ago. Last week proved one of the most productive weeks of the year as the weather has, thankfully, become very springlike.
I started the week putting the second coat on the walls of Hayloft which I’d hoped would be much quicker than the first coat. At best it was a bit quicker, certainly not ‘much’, and took me almost a day and a half again. While it has made a bit of difference to the depth of colour, not so much as to make for very different photos from last week’s blog. However, it has been done now and completed.
With the walls painted, I was able to start sanding the kitchen worktop. When we installed the kitchens we felt that solid wood worktops were the best option as, in the event of spillages or stains, they could be sanded and re-varnished.
As I hadn’t done so in the previous 10 years, there were a number of marks and stains that were becoming more obvious and needed to be sorted.
The worktop in Hayloft is not huge so I was able to sand fairly quickly – although I didn’t appreciate just how coarse a 40 grit paper could be! Unfortunately, a couple of the stains on the worktop had soaked deeply into the wood (the disadvantage of a wooden surface) so while I have sanded the top few millimetres off the top, a couple are still evident. I have only painted on 3 coats of the new varnish as yet, and it looks great, but perhaps after a couple more, the marks will be less evident.
While waiting for the varnish to dry on the worktop I began the preparation for the doors and window. The doors were looking in a particularly sorry state for the last 6 months and really needed a bit of TLC.
Evidently, the last coat of paint that had been applied (before us) had not adhered at all well to the door (I suspect it hadn’t been prepared very thoroughly) so had started to peel off in sheets. This has helped my preparation a little as scraping off the old paint was relatively easy although I still thought it a good idea to sand as well.
Next steps, starting tomorrow, is to do the same to the frame, sugar soap everything and then start to apply the paint. I would expect to have completed the living space of Hayloft next week so I can start in the bathroom – which should be quicker.
Most encouragingly, while I was doing my things, we had some movement with the pool project.
One thing that we desperately needed doing was burying the (very large) electricity cable that will provide power to the room. Our previous landscaper had buried a conduit in January 2024 but, when we tried to pull the cable through later in the year, we found that it had too many sharp bends that prevented the large, and so inflexible, cable passing through (we even managed to break a fibre glass wire we were using to try and pull the cable through attached to the back of my truck!)
We dug a new trench earlier in the week (which was more direct so shorter than the unusable trench) and this time threaded the cable through the new conduit before burying it.
Perhaps we were a bit naïve, but the pool generated more soil than we’d anticipated and much of the excess had been piled up at the end of the terrace and behind the pool house. This has now been removed creating much more useable spaces and the lawn (or what was a lawn) we have levelled in the first stage of making it a lawn again.
We couldn’t find any photos that were specifically of the surplus soil (why would we have taken any?!) but we found a couple taken earlier in the build that may give an idea of how much there was and so how much better it is now.
We were even more delighted that our tiler made an appearance yesterday to start her task of laying the slabs on the terrace which is the key next stage in progressing the project.
Our tiler spent the day jet-washing the terrace, laying a primer on the concrete and arranging some of the slabs to make laying them easier when she starts. We are hoping that will be later this week as the weather is forecast to remain dry and warm, almost hot at times.
As I mentioned in last week’s blog Garratt was suffering from a swollen paw. We were more concerned when the surface of his pads started to peel off the bottom of his paw so we took him to the vet who thought that perhaps he had suffered a burn.
If that is the case it can only have happened on the firepit when we had a BBQ last week, although, if he did, he did so without making any noise or complaint. Thankfully he hasn’t let it worry him and he continues to mend so he joined us on today’s walk in his boot.
Because Garratt was in his boot, and Dave’s back is still not great, although much better, we did another short walk on the coast north of Cléder between our 2 favourite beaches, the Plage des Amiets and Plage du Dossen.
As it was a short walk we finished a little earlier than we normally would so our favourite watering holes on our journey home weren’t yet open. However, we remembered there was a café in Forêt de Landerneau which we had walked past on a previous Sunday stroll.
As it was only a small distance beyond Landerneau itself, we thought we’d see if it was open – and we were glad we did, it was and is a little gem. Called the Café de la Gare, it is sited immediately adjacent to the station in La Forest-Landerneau and today had a crepe van in its garden serving lunch. The spring sunshine had evidently bought people out and we were lucky to get the last table in the garden. Another to add to your list.
Next week’s weather looks amazing, and perfect to continue painting Hayloft doors – and laying paving slabs. One I am responsible for so will get done, the latter we can only keep our fingers crossed …
Salut.