Last week’s blog said that we were due to have another amazing week of weather as it was forecast to be dry and unusually warm for mid-October. And so it turned out to be.
The last sentence of the blog said that I was looking at a completely clear blue sky – it could hardly be more different today!
A change had to come at some point and was widely forecast to be overnight last night. The first indication was an amazing red sky shortly after sunrise yesterday that lit up over the Monts D’Arrée. This morning was grey, blustery and with the promised, and to some degree much-needed, rain.
However, while the weather remained good last week we managed to get a few things done and had a bit of time off while David’s Dad remained with us.
I said at the end of the blog that one task had become a bit more pressing. That is we have decided to move the heat pump which heats the pool, from the rear of the pool house to the side. Before I am able to do that, I wanted to render the end wall, as I had done the others, and I will need to create a new concrete base for it to sit on, as I did originally.
Rendering is a job I dislike – and am neither very quick nor competent at! As the area is small, I decided to use a pre-mix mortar I had bought from a DIY store rather than mix my own. Unfortunately, this brand was much grittier than the previous sacks I had used so it has not created as smooth a surface as the others. However, as we were aiming for the rustic look I am happy enough with it!
I was also able to fill the small gap I had created when I put in one of the wooden uprights to frame the entrance to the pool house. I needed to put the upright slightly further away from the wall to leave enough gap for the plasterboard and frame which I will install.
A friend has offered to assist with erecting the plasterboard and frame and, having discussed what we were going to do, I was able to order the materials.
Frustratingly, the store I used to buy the things didn’t appear to offer a delivery service, so on Friday morning I took our trailer and collected everything I hope to need. One advantage of not having to wait for it to be delivered is I now have the material here so there is no reason not to get on with things, and with the weather forecast to be bad for most of the coming week an inside job is ideal.
I did make a start on painting the render that I had done on the outside of the pool house previously, although didn’t get as far as I’d have liked. I also constructed a lid for our random box on the terrace end of the building.
The reason we have a random box, is our electrician made a mistake with his measurements before the concrete base slab was laid. I had encouraged him to lay his cables beneath the reinforcing grills so they would be buried in the concrete. Using slightly duff measurements, the cables for sockets which were intended to be inside the building, ended up on the outside when the walls were built – in the correct place!
Rather than cut these off, I decided to build a box around them as we may have a use for them in the future. Up until last week, this box didn’t have a lid but, knowing that rain was coming, I decided to make one to prevent it filling up.
The only other significant task completed while it was dry, was my biannual clearing of the talus along Hent Gorreker.
I try and keep control of the weeds growing out of the talus both because it looks better but also because as the roots expand, principally the bramble roots, they dislodge some of the slates and destabilise the wall. Having done that we have seen the re-emergence of amazing fungi on the dead stumps. While interesting and quite attractive, we think this is the dreaded honey fungus that is killing all our privet, and potentially one of our liquidambar trees.
I don’t think there is anything that can be done about it and is just part of the natural process of the old ash stumps dying and decaying. The only possible to minimise its growth would have been to not cut down the ash trees but that wasn’t an option. I believe (hope!) that the yews and hollies on that part of the wall are less susceptible to the fungus.
With David’s Dad still with us, we took a day off and visited our departmental ‘capital’, Quimper. Quimper is an attractive city with some lovely shops and architecture, and the home to the manor and cidrerie where we get the cider we give in our welcome baskets, Manoir du Kinkiz, so we stocked up.
We also found another lovely little restaurant for lunch, one that I had wanted to try for a couple of years, Le Jardin d’Été. Definitely recommended but sadly it appeared that another lovely restaurant we had eaten in before, Le Cosy, has shut down – although we are trying to establish if that is permanent or perhaps they are just on holiday as many shops are currently at the end of summer.
As the forecast for the next week is looking much more autumnal with showers, rain and occasionally wind, I hope to make some good progress on the plasterboard frame in the pool house. However, we had a French family arrive in Priory yesterday for school half-term and the pool is doing its job, as they spent much of this morning in it avoiding the rain! I suspect they won’t want me to be drilling and creating dust as they swim.
À bientôt.