Women Are So Fickle!

This visit I was left thinking: "Wouldn't this make good television; what a shame Kevin isn't here!"...

But I'm getting ahead of myself AGAIN!

We will both be very glad when Phase 1 is finished: the fortnightly trips down to the house seem disproportionately disruptive.

We drive down on a Thursday, getting to the hotel (if we're lucky!) between 11.30pm and 1am on Friday.

Then we have an early (enough) start on Friday, before driving back to Calais. We're having to allow a bit of "contingency" time in case of meeting over-runs at the house, so are booked on the 10.20pm shuttle...

Nice to be able to have the occasional unhurried meal in Calais, but getting home at midnight or later on Friday (plus all the travelling) writes off most of Saturday morning!

This time, we arrived at the house about 8.10am, and M. Boyer was already there, so straight into the meeting.

It was lovely to see the rest of the beam in the kitchen, and all the joists in place for the return of the floor in the grenier.

The joint in the beam is a "tré de Jupiter" - a lightning bolt, which obviously led onto a discussion of what Jupiter was the god.

[Chief Roman god; god of the sky and thunder, if you're interested.]

Apparently the joint is very complicated; we guess it's like one of those wooden puzzles where you try to take it apart.

We'll never know how easy it is to "solve", as the bits are too heavy to try! ;-)

M. Boyer has asked for a price for forged iron 'esses' (M. Baty recommended someone who may be able to copy the one [nice] end we have for the ties), but in the meantime we have new metal ties attached to the old 'exes'.

We have decided to go with the (included in the estimate) poplar floor boards above the kitchen; these will be laid after the ceiling has been installed in the kitchen, and loose cellulose fibre insulation is put between the joists.

All the other ceilings are going to be put up and then the insulation blown between the joists.

The boards are overlapping, but not tongue-and-groove, and will be nailed in the lower piece of board as well as obvious nails in the boards themselves.

Sorry, I'm not explaining that very well! It means the boards are secured in many more places than are visible, so hopefully that will prevent them warping.

Most of the pointing on the exposed stone walls has been done; very lovely it looks!

The opening is ready for the back door; just waiting on the door...

M. Baty was due to attend the meeting to show us some grills for the windows, but he was a no show, so that will have to wait.

The stone plinths are on site, just awaiting installation...

And then the moment of drama!

Despite repeated requests, M. Huguenot (let's name & shame! But not the M. Huguenot who's our builder; he's great!) went ahead with laying the piping to & from the WC/shower room/laundry without providing the detailed drawings M. Boyer wanted.

Well, you can probably guess what that means: we had gained an extra 35cm of space when the laundry/boiler room wall was replaced with the breeze block wall, but the plumbing had been laid according to the original plan!

We've got copies of M. Boyer's (very detailed) amended plans showing the extra space in the boiler room, and everyone at the meeting was given the same plans...

M. Martry (also from Schwartz) had those plans & had asked us questions relating to the electrics... [Thank goodness M. Martry is good at his job; a couple of questions he's asked us have resulted in either less work (so less cost) or a better result.]

I never have trusted people who chew gum in a professional environment!!

Anyway, it comes up in conversation about the placing of the pipes, following by a lot of measuring; sure enough all the plumbing in the back hall is in the wrong place for the amended plans...

Part of me is p***ed off - the extra space in the laundry/boiler room would have allowed us to leave a drying rack full of damp clothes in the room (rather than having to have the rack in the hall or bedroom) - but part of me thinks: "Oh, well, more space by the back door will look better, and how stressed do I want to get?"

I'm very reluctant to have plumbing relaid in concrete, so we are just going to accept that the extra space will look better at the bottom of the stairs, and move on.

Oh, and use the experience as a bargaining tool on the upgrade M. Boyer is trying for on the VMC (extraction system)...

M. Boyer was behaving how I would have done if all my hard work making use of the "bonus" space had been wasted: ranting, raving, waving arms - a true televisual extravaganza of "Frenchness" in action.

I felt so sorry for him (coupled with irritation at M. Huguenot that our space had been compromised), but also it was so comic at times ["enter, Frenchman, striding around, waving arms & raving"] that I couldn't make eye contact with the other M. Huguenot, who seems to have a fairly dry sense of humour!

The little demon on my shoulder was supplying Kevin's commentary, which didn't help!!

There's no chance that Schwartz's M. Huguenot will be allowed to work on any subsequent phases! But that brings into focus how happy we are with all the rest of the "team".

We would happily (at this stage; don't hold me to it) have all the other firms work with us on later phases.