Sunday 15 January – Spirits of Finistere
Having stated in last week’s blog that I would aim to get an average of 400 readers for each blog I was really pleased to see that my Facebook post telling people I had posted a blog was seen by 581! Not having posted anything since the end of November, perhaps that tells me something about how often I should write the blog!!
We have also had 2 new ‘Likes’ of our FB page so are making progress towards my goal!!
This week we restarted work on the garage after the long period of inactivity while we were away and had 2½ days of effort. We managed to get a half day on Monday before the rain started but we did manage to cover some of one of the bays so that we could continue to work if it was a little damp.
Tuesday and Wednesday was focussed on getting the middle supports carved with their detailing and put up so we could manufacture a main beam across the centre. While all of the timber so far has been treated non-descript structural wood as it will eventually all be covered, the middle supports will always be visible so we have made them out of Douglas fir (as the corners of the building will be too). These have been placed on concrete basis which we have created which will eventually be rendered to look like stone, and to make them look both more interesting and older, we have carved the edges to give them some more attractive detailing.
Now these are up we will be able to put the ceiling joists across the central 2 bays (the one which is visible in the photos is only temporary) which will then allow us to make fairly rapid progress up and to the roof.
These photos are from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday – at this stage it may be difficult to see what progress we make day to day but hopefully, if you look closely, you can see!
Thursday was a complete write off. As David and I attend school in the morning we generally don’t get anything done as everything takes 2 people, but Thursday afternoon was the most appalling weather that we have experienced since we have lived in France and far too wet and windy to do anything in our small dry space!
Friday and Saturday were better but our builder wasn’t available so I turned my attention to one of our many other projects on the go! As it was too wet underfoot to continue on my wall – that will have to happen next week – I started cutting a hedge opposite our entrance on the other side of Hent Gorreker.
While not our responsibility to do, the ‘hedge’ had not been cut for many years and so the self-set hazel and sycamore trees were getting very tall and blocked out all the light year round but especially when in leaf preventing the road from drying and blocking light to our buildings and new plants. In discussion with the farmers who owned the field and hedge cutting it back wasn’t a priority for them but they were happy for me to hack it back. After two days of work I had moved along about 20 metres so there are many more days of effort required …
Today has again been wet so we took the dogs for a walk in the relative shelter of the Huelgoat forest and through the geological ‘chaos’. Huelgoat has many fascinating rock formations and water falls in the forest. We have seen most of them and walked past them all but today we visited a couple that we hadn’t visited as yet. The Grotte du Diable (Devil’s Grotto) is an amazing feature under some of the enormous boulders where the river runs through which we were amazed that we hadn’t been into before – definitely recommended – and we saw an ancient bridge which we had walked within metres of many times but had never seen.
We principally went to Huelgoat as we had been invited to a book launch. David’s PT client is very well known in the large English community in the town as she has written a number of walking guides and tourist books with stories of the history, culture and fables of the region – many of which we had bought for the gîtes before we moved here! Today she was launching her most recent publication ‘Spirit of Place in Finistère’ which explores some of the personal connections people have with the landscapes of the region. Having bought our copy we have some new bedtime reading for the coming week.
More garage progress next week – at least from Tuesday as tomorrow doesn’t look great!
Salut.