Oops!

M. Hamid finished the pointing yesterday, and I missed it!

The brick pillar looks much better; not quite as convinced with the bottom of the wall, but most of that will be hidden by the layer under the tiling and the tiles themselves. Will probably have a bit of a ponder/measure and visualise...

David is calling Jean-Marie in response to an email; saves him drafting his own email saying that I need to go back to England, and that we are planning to leave on Monday 18 October.

If I stay, I risk getting tangled up in French tax issues.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't see that as a problem: no income = no tax to pay, you'd think.

But, and it's a big BUT, if I'm here long enough to attract liability, the French authorities count that as David also being liable for French tax, regardless of whether he's even visited the country...

NOT something we want; unless you have four or more children, the tax regime here can be pretty punitive, according to what we've read.

We might not end up worse off, but it's not a discussion we want to have to start having.

And the thought of trying to find a French tax accountant (and having to pay said adviser) is enough to have me heading for the hills!

By the time I'd finished this, David has spoken to J-M who is seeing M. Torelli at his office on Friday, so that at least seems to be moving.

David emphasised again the various issues with the plumbing, and said that we are unwilling to have workmen on site unless one of us is here [because of last time's mess and breakages, and this time's errors], so basically put T+B on warning.

I don't think he mentioned that fact that any work not finished will have to wait for next spring [I really do want a break from it all, and once I go, I'm not getting back into it again till the nights start to get lighter!], but we can keep that as an ace up the sleeve, should we need to.

All the trades agreed, with the exception of M. Baty (who is not yet holding up anything), that this job was totally "do-able" in two months: start early April, finish late May.

We didn't start till early June, but even so, to have the end of September tomorrow with no end in sight is a bit much. Even allowing for August being a month off, that's still three months and counting...

I hate feeling that we're being hard-line about things, but we're actually not; we're just finally putting down a foot that ought to have been stomped a long time ago!