Last week saw us back with bright, clear, sunny days with scorching temperatures and wilting heat so much so that I amazed Dave by actually asking to have some suntan lotion applied – I am usually the worst person about asking for any sort of protection again things – and I even wore a baseball cap – absolutely not me! On the upside, it meant that I could justify some of my breaks watching Wimbledon as escapes from the heat!
As I mentioned in my last blog, I had to go back to Brest on Monday to get the remaining material that I would need for a number of tasks in the forthcoming weeks to allow me some flexibility with the tasks that I need to do. This meant that, effectively, my real work didn’t start until Tuesday when I gave the new walls behind Priory their undercoat. Having found the weathershield paint we bought for the masonry to be lighter than we hoped it has come in very handy for sealing the new render. Unfortunately, the pictures I posted on Facebook in the evening didn’t really show much difference between the bare render and the undercoated colour which was disappointing after a few hours graft!
I did mention in the post that we had a friend who was kind enough to bring out some new paint but that they were suffering from possible tonsillitis. Thankfully, he was sufficiently recovered to come to France and we visited his new pad on Thursday – which is an amazing old Breton building that has huge potential but makes our work here just look like a lick of paint!
The latter half of the week I focussed on cladding the garage which, doing the south side with the door access, was much slower than I had anticipated as I had to climb up and down ladders a lot on my, probably not HSE approved, scaffolding! However, thankfully by the end of the week I had managed to finish cladding the end completely and only need to attach the slate finish before I can move onto the north side. Still lots of ladder climbing but should be easier as there is no door or staircase to work round.
With our new, coloured, paint kindly delivered I managed to paint the stonework around Hayloft’s entrance and gave the second coat to the new Priory walls so next week I can start re-rebuilding the fence. Hopefully these pictures show a slightly greater change than the earlier ones but we said that it would be a subtle ‘off-white’.
Next week is looking likely to be a little more unsettled so, having stocked up so material, I have a few indoor tasks I can transfer to if needs be – or just watch more tennis!
Salut.