The builder arrived nice and early again but we managed to
get out on a run before he arrived.
Reading back over the last week’s entry for this blog I note
with astonishment that I suggested on Saturday that we felt we could ease up a
little on the renovation work. Hah! Nice thought. I must admit that I took
yesterday off because the noise of the jackhammer knocking down the wall drove
me to the café for most of the day. I spent it profitably writing emails and
then working on my French. John meanwhile donned his noise-cancelling headphones
and proceeded to do some paid work. He had to stay on hand for the various
questions that the builder came up with.
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| Wall down, wall up |
Today, since I couldn’t do any work anywhere around the
builder, I switched focus to the bathroom. Sweltering underneath a full set of horrible
work clothes, dust-mask and ear-plugs, not to mention my glamorous pink rubber
gloves, I spent the day sanding the ceiling and walls and then doing some
plastering.
We did a major vacuum and mopping off the floors after the
builder left at the end of the day. He is pretty good about tidying up his mess
but we are trying to keep as much dust as possible from getting through into
the remainder of the living room. Everything seems to have a fine coat. We can
only just manage to unfold the sofa at the end of each day to make our bed –
all the furniture is crammed in around us. However, it is not for long and we
are thrilled with how the interior of the place is changing.
One thing worth mentioning is the amount of pot smoked here.
We would smell it at least every second day as we walk about, or simply
drifting up from the square below. This region is a little like the Golden Bay
of France – there are a fair few hippy types about.
