Day 11

Was expecting carpenters, and got them, and builders, and didn't.

We did get a concrete mixer, though! So I'm confident that they will show tomorrow. David obviously didn't hear them arrive [they pulled it into the yard by hand], or me talking to them, so his reaction on going to the car to drive to the station was "where did that come from?" on seeing a bright yellow alien.

Sadly, he has to go back to the office, leaving me to wrangle builders & plasterers. I don't think M. Alain is too keen on using the reclaimed bricks [not sure, but that's my feeling], but as we now have more than enough, tant pis.

David & I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening cleaning up the bricks we've found around the place, but I didn't think we'd got enough; we certainly don't have enough whole ones, but could use the shaped ones we've found. I had seen, though, a pile of bricks when I've been coming past the dump, so David asked the maire if we could take them. He seemed delighted that anyone would want to use them, and said they were probably made at the local brickworks [every village used to have its own, and a quarry]. He's very proud of the village and appreciates, I think, that we want to do the renovation without adding too much obviously "new".

M. Mazij and his helper have added in some more woodwork under the lambourdes, and have finished off the second big beam so that they can do the corridor work tomorrow. Their efforts don't really show up on the photos, so I'm not going to post one.

David is now on his way to Paris, and then London; it's been good having him here, and not just for his brick moving prowess!