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We went to the house again for the bi-weekly Friday meeting, and a sleepover!

It's really good to see work progressing on reassembling the house: for a long time it seemed as though all that was happening was undoing Dominique's work, and taking the rest of the house (where he hadn't done anything) back to square one as well.

Taking off/out doors & doorframes, cupboards, stairs & raking out all the joints where we were going to have exposed stone walls, pulling down the redundant chimney, ripping out the floor/joists - it's been quite a while where all progress has seemed to be of the "gutting" variety...

And now we are getting to see "putting back together" progress!

The stone plinths are now in place under the oak uprights in the kitchen; all wrapped in cling film so they don't suffer during the process of applying the hemp-lime insulation.

Apparently the lime gets everywhere, and sticks like glue!

The workmen are in the process of covering the woodwork as well.

I'm a bit concerned that not all the wiring is in place before the builder starts the insulation; I don't want a beautifully finished wall then to need channelling out to add wiring later.

David is trying to speak with the Project Managers to ask them to check all the wiring is in place before work starts on applying the hemp-lime mix.

I'm getting better at letting T+B do the worrying, but then something happens (without any comment from M. Boyer) that makes me worry again!

The wall in the back hall where all the switches for the lights in the back hall and entrance hall (and a power socket) has been pointed, without the wiring in place for any of the electrics.

And the wall to the left of the chimney is pointed, again missing wiring for a wall light...

I'm not so concerned about that: it's a shame to rake out brand new pointing, but it's possible, and it won't leave any obvious "making good", unlike having the insulation channelled & filled.

We intend to leave this finish bare; it looks nice enough that I don't want to paint it!

The niche in the bedroom that we found on our last visit has been unblocked, and pointed around to be left exposed; that looks great.

And I'm sure we'll find something to display there!

A lot of lightweight block work has appeared: the piping for the VMC has been encased in the bedroom; the small cellar has "disappeared" from the bedroom; the chimney breast has been completed, enclosing the hood.

M. Smail showed us the "clapet" - something we really needed- it closes the flue when the fireplace is not in use.

Having really enjoyed the fire at the Bouzenards' gîte, we coveted an open fire of our own, but there's no way we wanted all that cold air dropping down the chimney when there's not a fire lit.

Now we'll have the best of both worlds!

M. Smail was in the process of rebuilding the flue to the bread oven (everyone assumes we will use it for making pizzas - we probably will!), and by the time we left, that was finished.

We'd had lunch (see below) with M. & Mme. Huguenot and had left our car at the house & travelled to Verpillers with M. Boyer.

We needed to collect our car, and had a couple of things that M. Boyer wanted to check, so we went back into the house...

I'd assumed that the workmen would be waiting for us to leave so they could go home early on Friday, but I was obviously wrong!

Between us leaving at midday, and returning to collect the cars the flue to the bread oven was finished, the pipe for the cooker extractor hood had been put through the wall and the space in the stair well had been concreted in the newly enlarged opening.

The carpentry is running late, so we are now looking for a completion date sometime late in January...

Good job we never believed that the 15th of December would see work finished - we might have been rearranging our Christmas plans now!!

If we get to spend Valentine's Day there, great, but otherwise I'll just be happy whenever it's finished!

We had a fantastic lunch chez Huguenots; sadly I wasn't expecting to eat a whole day's food in one setting, so had had breakfast!

Big mistake!

Wonderful hospitality, lovely food, and David said the wine was brilliant.

About five hours later they wheeled us out the door!

The only downside to that was feeling unable to do justice to the meal that Mme. Boyer had toiled over...

Both ladies had made much-appreciated efforts on the vegetarian food front...

Thankfully David made a good showing for the Brits in the meat-eating stakes.

Although even he chose the vegetarian options on Saturday, so perhaps it is possible to have too much of a good thing?

;-)

I loved the bedroom where we stayed chez Boyers: it confirms for me that I'm doing exactly the right thing in planning to wallpaper my doors in the back hall...

Eventually, we hope to afford the planned (nice) doors, but in the meantime wallpaper in panels will feel suitably "French"!