The building works outside and inside the house - Sheffield, United Kingdom
Sheffield, United Kingdom
Xmas 2012
We had been very busy on our return from France, Hannah was now pregnant and desperate to move house and get a puppy. She and Steve managed to do both, and so we spent Xmas with them in their new house with their new puppy Oscar. Hannah was due to give birth in March so Ann stayed in Sheffield while Andy and I went off to Kerhuel, We travelled the day before his birthday planning to have a celebratory meal in France. We arrived in France to find a little dusting of snow on the ground which was very picturesque. Andy decided to crack on and plant up his trees and to start on the pond in the wildlife garden while I started on the garden, chitting the potatoes and planting the onions, garlic and shallots. We both set about placing and filling the one ton bags on the east for our experiment in growing Purple Afghan carrots and Salsify. In due course the pond went in on a day when the hail was so heavy that the gutters and lane were full of very large lumps of icy hail. It didnt stop play, Andy was so wet after the first shower he just carried on laying the liner etc. Next day the pond was filled and we went off to get a half ton of gravillon for the path around the pond and the planned new raised beds above the lane.
The first project inside was to open up a larger entrance to the attic, taking down the old (and badly wood wormed) pine panels and door at the top of the stairs. We removed some floorboards so we could get the bed base up and start putting the furniture in place and remodelled the new access. This turned out to be a relatively easy job which we did when the weather stopped us working outside. So after a bit of good old fashioned demolition the new acces to the attic was created and bedroom furniture replaced tents. A bit more civilized and a lot more comfortable.
I planned to return to Britain by air to go to a planning day at Uni and then do the Specialist Conference the week after, we planned on returning to France with Ann after the Conference. Things seemed to be going to plan as Charlie Clover had arrived and was back home and Ann was popping around to see Hannah and Charlie pretty regularly. So in due course Andy and Jess dropped me off at the station in Carhaix, I left by train in beautiful sunshine and got to Dinard Airport in plenty of time. I enjoyed the excellence of French railways both the branch lines and the TGV they were so much better than the UKs privatised system. Unfortunately the weather in the UK was turning for the worst and the snow was falling fast. The upshot of all the snow was a diversion for the plane from East Mids to Birmingham, landing at 2245, and a night on the station at Brum for me before the trains started running to Sheffield on Saturday morning. Finally after 26 hours I got home, not a journey I care to dwell upon!! To cap it all the training day was cancelled so I could have had another week in France! Charlie like all newborns was a scrunched up monkey who was adorable if a little fractious when awake!!!
So the next couple of weeks were taken up with sorting out my stuff for Conference and popping around to see Charlie. Our senior citizens' bus passes were proving a bonus. The time for Ann and I to return to Kerhuel came around very quickly and after some visits to the dressing clinic, as the infection in my grafts was proving very stubborn, we left for Leeds Bradford Airport. By first class as Hannah had insisted that was the only way we would get a seat on the 8.41 to Leeds. One very nice train journey, bus transfer and flight later meant we met Andy on time at Dinard. A very excited little dog succeeded in leaping out of the tailgate into my arms. The trip back to Kerhuel via Brico Depot saw us arrive back with a small scaffolding tower for pointing work and various essential tools, fixtures and fittings. We arrived back to see six new raised beds set up on the south side of the garden and a pond with a gravel path bordering it. One of the raised beds was set aside for asparagus and the garlic and onions were showing strong early growth too.
So we settled back into a routine of work on the house and in the garden. One of the first tasks was to move the old green plastic greenhouse to its new location under the oak tree and prepare the area where it had been for the new poytunnel. The instructions said that two men could put it up in two days. In our case it was one man, Andy, for two days and then when the wind dropped Ann and I assisted with the folding out of the plastice cover over the frame before we were sent off so that he could finish it on his own. It went up beautifully so we went off to Gamme Verte for the marmande plants, a vine and a lemon tree. Cliff popped around with a selection of tomatos he had grown from seed so we had a well stocked polytunnel with toms, cucs, gherkins, peppers, melons, okra and aubergine. Plus some mystery seeds from Ann-Marie our French neighbour. Ann started to propogate lots of seeds and I got on with preparing the beds with some well rotted horse manure courtesy of Cliff'e three horses
The spring and summer proved very hot and very busy as we got on with more work inside, painting the entry vestibule, putting up more insulation and plasterboard and reinforcing the upstairs floor where the pervious owners had removed part of the chimney breast and had nailed up a plank of wood to hold up the floor and the remainder of the chimney breast! The more problems that presented themselves the more Andy seemed to enjoy them. Ann was busy knitting baby clothes, reading and propogating seeds. I was busy weeding and cutting grass and Andy was busy pointing and creating a new ensuite and entrance lobby in the attic with storage area/ space above.
September soon came around and we headed off for Campbeltown to visit family and relatives and spend a week in a cottage with Hannah, Steve and Charlie. Jess and Oscar didnt hit it off at all, that was the only downside of a good holiday in a very spacious and comfortable bungalow on the side of the loch. After too short a time we headed back to Sheffield to load up the roof rack with ladders, curtain poles and some essential components for the sofa bed we had forgotten in March. Then off down the motorway to the sound of aeolian pipes, coming from the rungs of the ladders. It wasn't particularly tuneful when we got above 50 miles per hour, so we spent 5 hours trying unsuccesfully to ignore it. With time to spare and nerves on edge we stopped off in the marvellous park by the side of the Dart taking in the magnificence of the trees especially the seqouia. On the morning of the crossing we tried the cooked English breakfast on the ferry, probably for the last time, in future we will probaly opt for the fruit rather than the cooked breakfast although the scrambled eggs were acceptable.
The top priority when we got back was to do the door and window at the back and to try and get as much of the plasterboard up in the attic as we could. Ann and I were planning to return to Sheffield by air in late October, me to work and she to see Charlie. We booked our returns to France for late October and booked a cheap flight (bless you Ryanair) for Ann in November so that she would be in Sheffield when Hannah returned to work. So we concentrated on getting the door and window in at the back. We sourced some new but inexpensive oak beams for lintels and frames and Andy set his stall out to put in the back door first to be followed by creating a back door from the upcycled remains of Hannah's partially glazed old kitchen back door and a door left in the house when we moved in.
So the work started using the tools we had to hand, namely a sledge hammer, a lump hammer, gorilla bar and some power drills. It was soon obvious that we needed a bigger drill so off we went and got a marteau with a chisel bit. It proved a good buy and enabled Andy to get the opening in and framed up in good time. The door took a bit longer as marrying up the two parts was tricky, to say the least. Then the biggest challenge yet, the back window, which would mean taking down a substantial part of a three foot thick stone wall held together by 100 year old mud and perhaps some dried up lime mortar. In the end it turned out to be only dried up mud and the remains of mice nests!
We had one shaky episode toward the end of opening it up when the stones at the top of the opening started to shift and threatened to collapse. We eventually got the outside lintel in and the stones above it cemented into place. The next day saw the remainder of the wall being replaced and the large window was fitted and all was well. Now all that was left was to point the back wall and start to set out the patio and finish the doorstep to the back kitchen door.
As usual Ann and I left for the UK and Andy went on with pointing and digging out the back patio. Neither of us was surprised when Ann decided she wanted to stay in Sheffield when it was time to go back.
I returned to Kerhuel alone for Toussaint. Pierrot, our next door neighbour, who's garden bordered ours on the west arrived with a couple of his sons and their families for the holiday and started clearing brambles etc from the back of his garden. This part of his garden had some 8 years previously been the potager of Madame Le Guen who had tended it for 70 years. Peter our English neighbour who lived on the other side of Pierrot had often commented how immaculate she had kept it. After a full day of slash and burn Pierrot and his sons had cleared it. I popped over to talk to him and asked him what he was going to do, he said he was going to grass it. I went around later on with some toms and the last of the cuc. I was met by all his family who asked me if I wanted to cultivate it and plant vegetables, potatoes etc. I agreed on the spot, who wouldn't and thus gained 200 sq metres of the most wonderful soil imaginable. I created an access into it from behind our compost bins and set up a water barrel over there.
Andy spent the next two weeks or so finishing the pointing and doing the plasterboarding in the attic and I spent it digging over the garden beds and the new area next door. We popped over to Quimper for the necessary supplies for creating the shutters, the remodelled central raised beds and the new woodstore. We knew we wouldn't get them all done before returning to the UK but at least we would have the bulk materials waiting for our return in Spring 2014.
I hadn't realised just how time consuming preserving our garden produce was until Yvonne started bringing around windfalls by the bucketful and walnuts by the trayful which were added to my trays of sweet chestnuts from Peter's trees. Not to mention our abundant harvest of tomatillos, tomatoes (green and red) chard, squashes, pumpkins, courgettes and marrows. The preserving pans seemed to be boiling all day every day and I seemed to spend more time peeling and chopping than weeding. Janet our neighbour acrosss the lane had commented in the summer that Yvonne was working on an industrial scale making jam in her back kitchen during early August. I seemed to be in the chutney making industry in November alongside pickling pears and making lots of apple jelly. The end of each day did however bring a well earned rest and glass of wine by the roaring stove in the kitchen.