How much for delivery?

St Maxime

We've just had a lovely morning out. Mostly we managed to avoid the showers and enjoy the sunshine and the countryside waking up for the year. We shouldn't be surprised that gardens and plants further south are budding forth much quicker but we are always jealous. Hedges of lilac, walls of wisteria and bright green lime trees brighten this long and cool spring.

We were remembering this time last year, we suddenly had a few sunny days and enjoyed the heat of the sun, then suddenly (as it did in the UK), the temperature soared and we had summer in April - which was lucky since we didn't have summer in August, as you will remember.

We were out looking at flooring and walling for the loft conversion. Having looked at a few DIY/builders merchants locally, we couldn't quite find what we wanted so we had to go further afield - a two hour drive to another well known French chain which did have what we want and we made a note of the order codes so that we could take a look on line once we had driven the two hours back again.

The drive really was amazing, through Quercy Blanc, past gallons and gallons of Cahors black wine in the making and on into fruit and prune country. Stunning views, no traffic and a very relaxed 4 hour round trip.

We then went on line to see what we could arrange.

We have a problem in the fact that we can't carry much in either car. The Mehari will carry more but doesn't travel very fast or very far, the 106 isn't much use for more than shopping. We hoped that we would be able to get all the wood delivered but the cost of delivery is silly money, adding around 500 Euros to the cost of the materials.

Think again.

We're now in the market for a trailer - it may cost as much as the delivery of these goods but at least we will have it forever. We considered it once before but dismissed it as not really worth the expense.

Which means I will spend next spring back and forth from the local amenity tip loading up with the free compost they supply. For this year we've bought bags of compost and 'horse smoke' (fumeur de cheval) to dig in.

If it ever dries out round here I will be digging like mad later this week.