March Madness

I borrowed the title from the Saints web-site. They used it to publicise the new Season Ticket offer. Unfortunately it has been proven to be true in more senses, as Saints have lost their Chairman, lost the plot on the pitch (blowing their promotion chances) and erected a statue of Jimmy Crankie instead of Ted Bates ( I always thought that Strachan was the Crankie look-a-like). Still it could be worse, I could be an England fan as well (DOH!) .



On the home front, we have made more progress, working round interruptions for visitors. My brother was the latest. He kindly treated me to a round of golf. We both went round in about 150, but he managed to get a par on the 18th (the b#st#rd) which is the only hole I've ever managed a par on. 150 is a lot, but the course was very wet and so my scuff shots didn't trundle as far as normal.

In the garden, the rockery is finished and has the first lot of plants in. We used some of the rubble left over from the roofing as a base, and then built it up with rocks that came from the new window openings. It was hard work, and in hindsight, it would have been easier to pile the rocks on top of the rubble heap and call that the rockery, but I think it was worth it.











Tina has now finished pulling out the brambles in all the hedges, ready for them to start growing again, and we have another heap ready to burn. Having a large garden is very nice, but it is a hell of a lot of work. Hopefully, now that we are here full time, it might be a bit easier to keep up with it.





In the house, I have got the third lot of plasterboard on the ceiling at the back, and Tina has scrubbed down the outside facing walls, ready for plaster boarding.













It's getting to the stage now where we need to sandblast the walls before we can do anything else. We got a quote over the phone from someone who wanted 700 Euros a day ( I don't think Matt Le Tiss was on that much) so now we have bought a small sandblaster on E-Bay for £50.00. Hopefully it will work OK, and if so we can undercut the other guy and still make a mint!

We're now on the look out for a diving suit to act as safety gear, as the sand gets everywhere.


a bientot

Productivity

I saw somewhere that the French have the highest productivity in Western Europe at the moment, which goes against the shoulder shrugging stereotypes. Perhaps it is because they haven't outsourced all their manufacturing to India and China, rather than the UK model of keeping all the management and getting rid of anyone who actually produces anything!

If the stats are true, then someone in France must be working very hard, 'cause we haven't done much for the past few weeks, as we have had an attack of visitors, so we were forced to down tools for a while.

One visitor, Phil, did help me start putting an extractor fan in the bathroom, and Tina's Mum did help out with planting the seeds for our vegetable patch, but otherwise that was it for a fortnight.

The fan is now in and working, but it took a full day to install it and wire up, which is a bit scary for when it comes to doing estimates for other people. I have seen figures that you should allow up to one day to install a new socket, but I had thought that that was allowing for cups of tea, reading the Sun and testing the new socket by plugging in a tele and watching the racing ( not me of course, I am a professional).

Motivation has never been my strong point, at the Banque de Cheval Noir where I used to work, they relied on threats of reprisals as a motivational tool.





However this week the weather has been good , so we have been hard at it in the garden ( ooh er ! ) . I have been out on Hank Hill, the mower, Tina has been stripping loads of brambles out of the hedge and I have been stripping the ivy of the dutch barn. The hedge is so bare now that you can see for miles and we've got a huge bonfire ready to go.




It's supposed to turn cold next week, so it'll be back to some proper building work.