Pool Build - Day 6

St Clotaire

The pool is STILL filling up. The tap has been on for days which means that the water pressure indoors is quite low and it takes ages to run water for the washing up. It's tempting to leave it until after dark when we turn the tap off for the night but we have had two evenings of visitors for supper and therefore two late nights with piles of washing up - Jon has yet to admit defeat and agree to our getting a dishwasher - he says that he is our dishwasher, although in truth we share the chore.

Stephane has had a not quite so busy day. Without J-J here he has taken advantage a little and disappeared from time to time, he was late, had a long lunch with his friends next door, and vanished at 5pm. We were then surprised when a small truck with a mini digger on board appeared at 6pm and drove across the field, unloaded the digger and ended up in our garden.

I went out to see what was going on and a very nice chap came and explained that Stephane had called him to come and move the soil back into the trench across the garden. Stephane, he said, was on his way back to supervise. Sure enough, he drove his little blue van up through the field and took over.

We have been slightly miffed with Stephane today as he hasn't told us what he is doing, where he is going or anything so we're looking forward to the return of J-J tomorrow morning to find out where they are up to. J-J has had a day by the sea over in the Vendée supervising the start of another pool - a drive of about 5 - 6 hours for one day. Tomorrow morning he is supervising the start of another pool but closer by this time. The company put in around 70 - 80 pools per year, and depending on the installer they can take up to 4 weeks. J-J has installed around 300 and is now very speedy so ours is only taking 2 weeks.

The water level is finally just 5 cm below full so hopefully we can turn the tap off tomorrow and put the washing machine on at last. I think it will be running for a couple of days as I haven't managed to get a load in since last Tuesday and have all the bedding and towels to do as well.

As it has been a lovely day, although very cold, Jon took advantage of the dry and sun to make some inroads into clearing up after the tree felling session on Saturday. We have too many piles of wood in the garden, the logs for cutting into log size for the woodburner (that we haven't got yet but will have by next winter), the kindling sized pieces which we will have to find another home for - heaven knows where as we can't keep it in the garage (I'll explain in a minute) and the rubbish which is for shredding or bonfires.

In France, and particularly in more southern regions, you never store wood indoors, logs for the burner are brought into the house only when they need to go straight into the fire - the reason? Termites. If termites get into the house they are a serious problem. They can eat through your beams, rafters and floors in a matter of days and the house would fall down. It's definitely worth remembering this as we recently heard a tale of a friend of a friend who stored their kindling in the house and didn't realise that there were termites in there - oops. We would rather not spend our money on a new roof (whatever money will be left after we've done the pool, the loft and suffered from the appalling pound/euro exchange rate prevailing) so as soon as we have cleaned up the loft we will be treating all the rafters and framework to prevent woodworm, termites and the other threat to our wood - capricorn beetle.

Good news today, youngest daughter has booked her flights to come over with her husband and three boys Jack, Leo and new baby boy (he hasn't been born yet so doesn't have a name) in August for just over a week. As we are already expecting number one daughter (sadly not her husband) and grand-daughter for a week in May, and number two daughter (by 20 minutes)* and her husband in September we are really happy that we can see them all over here this summer.

We are, of course, quite confident that unlike last year there will be a summer. It seems to have been the longest winter ever but surely the sun will come out and warm us all up before long.

* For those who aren't already aware number one daughter and number two daughter are twins