Day 27

Plaquistes still missing-in-action, but we've now got a french windowsill at the front, and the lisse for the woodwork is done.

It's not 100% perfect, but David & I made a couple of decisions, and we're happy with the result. If we could have moved the stones to the front of the opening, that would have been much nicer [and pleased M. Luparello!], but I think they needed to go over the polystyrene insulation to prevent cold bridging, so we made the best compromise we could.

M. Luparello thinks the stones would have looked better if all the original tooled edges had been neatly cut off as well; but he's Italian! Not meaning to sound dismissive [he's lovely, and he's actually Sicilian, so not Italian at all], but we've seen a few Italian building restorations, and the phrase "over-restored" seems tailor-made for the way they work.

It's a matter of preference [unlike the pragmatic decision to have the slabs further back than would look best], so we have got some wonky joints between the slabs, but M. Hamid is going to use stone-coloured mortar to fill them, so they will be (visually) minimised.

I'm finding out a bit more about M. Jamel: it seems he speaks an odd mix of Berber, Arabic and Spanish, with the minutest amount of (incomprehensible) French thrown in. As already ascertained, it's not just me that doesn't understand him; none of the French do, either. M. Hamid says he doesn't even speak Berber or Arabic well enough to be understood easily, and no-one on the job speaks Spanish.

He married a cousin, so I'm guessing she can communicate with him [enough at least to have a son!], but I still feel quite sorry for him; for me, being not understood [not even as bad as being misunderstood], makes me feel very lonely, as I am very particular about choosing my words to express exactly what I mean, and am living in a culture reasonably similar to my own.

Having got lost on Sunday [hello beloved!], for a while because we forgot to take a map out with us, and deciding to try just this last way before stopping and asking someone, then seeing Bar-sur-Aube on the signposts & being mightily relieved, makes me feel for a man who got lost this morning and couldn't possibly ask his way [or understand if someone could work out where he wanted to go and gave him directions] and can't read...

Makes me thankful that my French is slowly improving.

Did I mention people are now prepared to call me on the telephone even when they know David isn't here?

Progress indeed.

ETA: It's not my estimation that M. Jamel's mix of languages is odd, it's M. Hamid who says that, and he speaks Berber, Arabic, French and English [that I know of].