Well, as we had planned after the frenetic work of the previous week, last week has been rather more relaxed and, if I’m being honest, you’ll see we have taken our foot of the pedal a little and, as I posted my blog last Monday, I can update from Tuesday to this evening.
Our focus has had to shift to ‘Priory’ as our first guests for that gîte arrive with us in just under 3 weeks. Thankfully, we are not doing such significant renovation to the kitchen and bathroom as we are in other gîtes although there is significant refurbishing and refurnishing required throughout but we have been greatly assisted by the painting efforts of Dave’s parents 2 weeks ago.
Having said Priory is our priority, while Dave applied a coat of colour to Priory bathroom, I progressed Granary kitchen on Tuesday which now has all its units in place and the wooden worktop attached. I will post pictures of Granary in the coming weeks when we have completed Priory.
Much of the rest of the week wasn’t spent in the gîtes. Wednesday I did the very essential task of sorting out my ‘atelier’ or cave d’homme! With all the work we had done in Hayloft, and my reticence to throw anything away just in case it becomes useful in the future, the man-shed had got to the point we couldn’t get in and certainly couldn’t find any of my tools. While no progress made in Priory, we now have a man-shed which will be the envy of anyone – and will make further renovation easier as I can find my things!
Thursday was the most exciting day of the week as we went to meet our new puppy for the first time. We promised each other that when we moved to the country we would get ourselves a dog and we have chosen a Springer Spaniel. While not the most popular breed in Brittany we have found a litter just south of Rennes who were born on 30 April so were exactly 2 weeks old when we visited. Being so young they were asleep during our visit and only one of the litter had their eyes open.
We have reserved a dog which we can collect when they are 8 weeks old on 4th July – and we can’t wait. Evidently the French Kennel Club equivalent has letter ‘years’, so we had to choose a name beginning with ‘L’. When home he will be called Garratt so we have had him registered as Legarratt!
Friday was spent almost entirely in Brest – this time we actually were progressing Priory as we were buying the new furnishing essentials – hardly as exciting as reserving puppies but necessary none the less!
Some of the weekend has at least been spent working on Priory, and we have stripped the mezzanine level in preparation for cleaning, re-furnishing and maintaining (including sealing up an original viewing hole in the wall which we discovered filled with rocks and rags!)
Sunday again was a lovely warm, windless, day. Not, you will be pleased to hear, leading to a 12 hour drinking session anywhere but it did allow me to have the bonfire that we desperately needed to clear about 65 cubic metres of garden waste we had accumulated since moving here – mostly hedge cuttings from February. It took almost 6 hours of feeding the fire, and my arms look like they have been attacked by several tigers, but we now only have a couple of cubic meters of ash to deal with!
Work begins again in earnest in Priory tomorrow but we are very confident it will be complete for when our guests arrive.
À bientôt.