I'm back in France now, and work has re-started!!!

I didn't want to post about it until it had actually happened, as I was having trouble believing the project would ever get going again.

But it has, and I'm so grateful.

We have the "niche" above the loo [designed to make it look as though this was intended, rather than just another of the errors Jean-Marie created for us], and the wall between the bathroom and the dressing room. This is pretty cunning: it looks like a wall, but is in fact half wall, half temporary-wall that can be taken down later!

The reason for this was that we want to get the radiator installed, so need a wall [the solidly-fixed part], but want to leave our options open so that if the budget eventually stretches to my sauna we can remove the only-fixed-at-the-top-and-sides bit and slot the sauna in there (making the dressing room smaller, but I'll be brave if it comes to that!).

We are going to end up with an odd-looking half-tiled half-not-tiled wall, but that we can live with!

What is much more important is that we are getting the bath/basins/shower and rest of the tiling done at this stage; if "Plan A" had come off, we would have waited a couple of years before doing that, it has only been the absence of the loo that made us (well, David, really) think about doing more work now.

Needless to say it hasn't all been plain sailing, but the fact that we've had any sailing at all feels like massive progress.

We've got a light switch for the dressing room in the middle of the bathroom wall, but that will be fixed when M. Antoni comes on Monday, and our tiler looks like blowing us out about the tiling...

We're keeping EVERYTHING crossed that he's just letting off some steam, and will come next week otherwise that puts the plumbing back again. Given that this work has been planned for months, I don't think asking the tiler to come when he said he would is an unreasonable request!

Also, we'd scheduled work around M. Torelli [plumber] and M. Waeber [tiler] and hoped that the plaquiste, builder & electrician would fit in around them. Which they have.

We've also got a minor (and according to M. Luparello, eminently fixable) problem with the window embrasure: the tiles will crack if the plasterboard isn't moved a fraction of an inch. David's in contact with M. Mekki to arrange for M. Kadir to come back and do that so it doesn't start impeding M. Waeber...

Overall, it feels as though we are moving forward.

[Obviously we don't yet have water to the bathroom - but we have another "nourisse" connected up (just not to the existing one!) - and there is a delay on the radiators/shower screens, and the basins haven't arrived yet, but it all still feels quite hopeful.

Helped, no doubt, by the fantastic weather we've been having!]