Oops!

I (clearly!) forgot to post about our meeting on the 12th of September.

And now we're off for our next meeting, so better late than never...!?

I'm just going to post photos randomly - apologies if that seems odd.

I know that July 18th to September 12th seems like a really long gap, but you have to remember that most of Europe shuts down for August; personally I think that's a great system, but what do I know?

So, a quick reminder: work had started just in time to finish for the August lay-off, but that meant that by the time we went for our meeting in September progress was obvious - everyone was back from holiday and into work mode.

Hurrah!

A brief word about our journey: we left the flat about 2.45pm, and got to just before the sign announcing "tolls in 300m" at 4.20pm.

Thankfully, a kind colleague of David's had phoned to say breaking news was saying there was a fire in the tunnel. By the time we got Tony's call, we were already so close we thought we'd go to the Tunnel; we didn't know what else to do.

We limped the 320-odd metres to get to a kiosk in an hour (thankfully Eurotunnel were diverting staff from their call centre to man [person?] the kiosks; how easy would that be if the call centre was in India?).

The lady gave us the option of catching the next available ferry or having a refund - if we hadn't been going for a week's holiday straight after the meeting, I think we'd have gone for the refund option.

Not having an emergency contact phone number for the project manager also influenced us a little...

Well, we got to the tunnel kiosk at 5.20pm, and got to the ferry kiosk at 10.20pm; according to the AA routefinder that journey is 10 miles & takes 21 minutes.

Not sure about that: we saw signs for Dover being over 20 miles away...?

We'd cancelled the French hotel long before getting to Dover! Most of the time we sat there, with the engine turned off. I think the highlight of the trip might have been the broken down Lamborghini - immense top speeds didn't get him there any faster ;-)

Anyway, finally got on a ferry about 12.20 am (00.20), and left England at 12.50am. The delay boarding was great - meant we got a yummy, nutritious meal of crisps and biscuits (all food shops long since shut! Thankfully we'd [uncharacteristically] stopped at the services on the way to the tunnel and had a sandwich).

We got to France about 3.30am local time, drove through the night, stopping only for a quick loo/biccie stop, and then a very quick wash/breakfast at Troyes.

We rolled up to the house at 9.00am exactly, but the brains weren't of the first order during the meeting!

The meeting:

It was lovely seeing all the builders' supplies spread over the front yard! And they'd kept them all off the garden; result!

The downside of writing about a meeting nearly 2 weeks after it happened when you have a memory like a goldfish? I suspect you can guess!

The doorway into the stable (which we are going to have blocked up - the rise in prices in France, coupled with the weakening of sterling against the euro means that part will have to wait; probably until the credit crisis eases...) is nearly finished, and the wall next to it is almost up to joist height.

All the digging out is complete for the floors, and the insulation/damp-proof membranes/reinforcing mesh in place; Schwartz were in the process of laying pipes & cables before the concrete was poured when we left.

The staircase is gone - makes getting upstairs more interesting! ;-)

The holes between inside and outside that had been blocked in the small cellar are back...

Various places look particularly naked - door frames missing, cupboard missing, fireplace missing, plaster missing in the kitchen - you can work out where this is going!

The kitchen wall is gorgeous, but sadly we will lose that to hemp-lime insulation; it would be madness to have an exposed stone exterior wall. When the heating chap was talking us out of the air-source heat exchanger (reliable down to -15°C) he said in 1986 it got down to -35°C; we want all the insulation we can get!

Minor boo-boos: we've got an air inlet pipe in the wrong place, and my niche under the sink has been blocked. Easily fixed, we hope!

Also we don't like the radiators the heating people want to use - they showed us a sample, and the grinding-off was really (REALLY) messy. If a manufacturer can't be bothered to make a neat job on a sample to be sent for approval, what kind of mess would the 'off-the-shelf' article be?

We revisited the original radiators we'd liked (just clear-coated steel), and they were as neat as we remembered: all the grinding was in the same direction, the same width and very smoothly done - no obvious gouges in the metal. So I think we're going to insist on Zehnder rather than settling for Arbonia!

We went from visiting radiators (after a quick supermarket café lunch) following the meeting to the start of our holiday. We'd planned to go to Lake Constance, but hadn't booked (until we'd had final confirmation of the meeting date, we didn't want to pay for accomodation we wouldn't use) until we tried to on the Wednesday.

On Tuesday evening, the Bodensee website showed over 200 flats as being available for the following week; on Wednesday evening it showed 24!! And we knew at least 4 of those weren't available (David had made calls during the day)!

It all seemed too much hassle; if all the accomodation was booked, there must have been something going on - and we just wanted a quiet break, so we gave up and booked a gîte in the Vosges - semi-detached (vs apartment) with fireplace, for the same price!

We were especially glad not to have to travel the extra few hundred miles after our journey to the house!

Lovely break, far too short, a bit worried about getting back into the country... [Thanks to the lovely MJM for searching Eurotunnel website for advice; we subsequently got a mail from Eurotunnel, but it was good to know earlier in our holiday that we would get home! ;-)]

It all worked out well - we came north a day early & got on the first train on Sunday morning - home before lunch.

And time for David to do his ironing!