Prosperity for 2012

Once the ground was cleared and level, we ordered a low grade.30 gravel. Next comes the big lorry with the ready-made cement that will pour out and all the wellington boots we can find, will have to get in and start pushing it about until we have a smooth slab.

After the carport leveling job was completed, the digger was headed to the entrance to dig out the channel for the electric gate.

Video: – Garden, house, flags and so on – but a shaky camera and wind noise! 4th July Digging at Kerivet

Here comes the gravel lorry.

Robert shouting instructions when to drop and when to move forward.

Video >>> ” Gravel Delivery ” Next job for tomorrow will be the raking…..

A few more pics of the veranda – nearly finished,

Here is a link to the short video – The Veranda

We commenced preparation for adding the Conservatory and Car-Port. We have taken on a nice chap called Philippe who has come and helped Robert prepare for the blocks to be built for the conservatory and to layout the shuttering for the car-port. The weather was terribly wet in May and early June, resulting in Robert having to work under stress to get each little phase done during the days that were forecast to be dry.

Carport underway – and just waiting for the digger to level before pouring cement

the other side of the house, Robert is underway with the conservatory. Blockwork completed, he can now get on with the rest of the body of the building.

Always on the go from early morning – don’t know how he does it!

Three panels of the roof fixed on and as we suspected, the guy at the store had given us the wrong screws. Robert’s expert eye on examination of the assembled sheets, proved that they were not fitting as he thought they should. Back to LeRoy Merlin the next morning and were given the correct screws and fixes.

Brian came and assisted with fitting the first three windows. Plastic covering the rest of the frame until the next delivery of windows.

Preparing the frame for the arrival of the next windows.

Looks nice from where I am standing.

Fitting like a glove

We received a message from Leroy Merlin that the windows were in. Robert hops in the car in the morning , is back by 10 am and windows are in by lunchtime!

Fitting in to the hair of a mm

The tiles leaning against the bottom were to catch the rain before the gutter was fixed on. Otherwise, it would pour down off the roof and lie at the foot of the wall.
The door is in. Awaiting the arrival of the last two windows.

September 8th – Saturday

The past three weeks have been pretty busy and thankfully, the weather has been perfect for outdoor work.  Material for the ceilings arrived along with batons and the rest of the cladding wood. The weather has been beautiful, so, on with the cladding!

Didn’t Robert do a fabulous job! All on his own, with his trusty ‘first mate’ to hand, run, fetch, sort etc. The area to the front, around the door and window, is where the conservatory/veranda will go.  We reckon that Robert hammered in over 800 nails on this ‘east’ side, alone. That is one heck of a lot of hammering!

Windows framed and sills fitted. 

 What a surprise when these Sunflowers came up.

The seeds got spilled into some bark mulch and they have grown in the mulch

Sedum – a great favorite of the Bees

The next job to tackle was the guest bedroom. The walls have been papered and then painted. So what is that I see on the wall?  WOW! It is another Orb! Now, I know there will be those who are sceptic about spiritual Orbs, but isn’t it peculiar that I have taken thousands of photographs over the past few years, with the same camera, and no Orbs have shown up on any of them, other than night shots of the moon! These photos have some interesting marks on them.

I will be very interested to learn what this peculiar image is. This is on a wall, same side as the window, there is nothing on the opposite wall to reflect off, and anyway, the sunshine comes from above and left of the window?

Some small orbs on this wall too!

The ceiling is white – unfortunately, showing as grey in these photos.

That brings us virtually up to date.  For the next few months we will be tidying up more ‘loose ends’,  spreading about 2o+ tons of gravel for the driveway, putting down a concrete slab for the carport and hopefully putting up the conservatory/veranda. 

August 21st – Tuesday

Now the media room contents are in the roof space………  we did a big sort out before anything went up, since then I have reduced more – the contents of several boxes will come down as we add furniture ‘downstairs’ on or in which it will reside. 

Tools etc.

Golf clubs (😢) and bits n’piees

Bits and Bobs

Plenty of room up here for Leprechauns or someone who wants to sort out the beams

Batons and wood

August 21st -Tuesday, 

No posts for the past three weeks, but believe me we have been busy  –  the plan was to clear out the store ‘Media room’, use up all the plasterboard that was hanging around, order what was required to finish off, get the room usable, decorate the guest bedroom, finish the laundry. At the same time, we have spent endless hours trying to find a solution to the ‘Plot Problem’.

While Robert has been preparing the media room for its makeover, I was up in the roof sorting and tidying. We’had a trip to Leroy Merlin and managed to get all that we need on one delivery which came today. 

We noticed this guy on the first side window, he was there for a few days and then moved up four windows to this one. They evidently like bramble leaves, Oak leaves amongst others, we left him some but he didn’t eat them before he went on his way. Hope he/she’s OK.  This is also the time that the male spiders come prowling for a Mrs. I watched a big guy in the bathroom, he went around all the plasterboard cracks and eventually disappeared. Turned up the next day in the guest toilet sink…… looking for water. The belief used to be that they came out of the plug hole – not true, they are looking for water. I took him up to the roof space and sent him off – happy hunting. You can recognise the male spider at this time of the year by what looks like boxing gloves on the front short legs. He was obviously a ‘heavyweight’  LOL

First, it was a bedroom

…. with all the mod-cons of a bedroom

But, for the past ten months…….

this room has been the store-room….

… the tool room and the work-room

The question is – where will Robert have a ‘corner’ once this becomes the Media Room?

This will make a wonderful media room, it is well insulated and very quiet. Good for music, reading or watching the TV with no interference from outside noise and no noise outside from within.

The guest bedroom – batons are up, ready for the ceiling, carpet coming, wallpaper – done and dusted 

Laundry – plasterboard to finish off, a few more cupboards, floor and wall, slap on some paint – tick it off the list.

Now we can get buzzing, delivery has arrived from Leroy Merlin

Corners won’t look too good on the ceiling!

Over the next month, there is a lot on the calendar, cladding to finish on the east side, guest bedroom, laundry and media room to complete, a small area of the kitchen to paint or/and wallpaper,   two lots of  ‘sleepover’ visitors coming, and a wedding to attend. My Ships clock has just run six bells  (19:00hrs) and we have downed tools for the day – off for some dinner….. more later

Thursday 2nd August

The problem ‘separating’ the land (that we want to sell), from the total plot+Hangar that we bought.

We didn’t know that we had to have a permit to do this, discovered quite by accident and it was sent off for 23rd May by out Notaire – reply expected within TWO months!  I called into the Notaire (Trottle) and our Mairie Tuesday (24th July) as the time for a ‘reply’ from Dinan Agglomeration was passed. Trottle knew nothing, but when I went into the Mairie the Secretary made a startled face when I said that I had just come from the Notaire and that we were expecting the notice for the past month or more. She pulled out a BIG file and after ‘digging’ halfway through it, looking like she knew exactly what she was looking for,  she pulled out 3 pages stapled together, and that was ‘our reply’ dated the FIFTH of JULY!!!!!!!  We should have been sent a copy as soon as it arrived. The decision is ‘NO’. We are working our way through the problems of this plot of land!  The ‘NO’ means that we cannot transfer or sell the land but we can build a house and sell it. We made an appointment and had another chat with M. Trottle.  She told us that all building land in Plevenon is now zoned agricultural. But we have a permit to build and we understand and were told that the permit is transferable! Now they tell us we can only transfer it with the separation cert that has been denied!!!!   If ‘we’ build the house for Anja we require a Bank Guarantee. So, the next day we had a meeting at the Bank to see what the Bank Guarantee was all about. The lady in the bank didn’t know, so, she rang Trottle and had a chat.  She then advised us that we could build the house for ourselves, but if we built one and sold it on, we would have to have a Bank Guarantee to cover us and Anja (or anyone who buys it) for any eventuality. Basically, if we build it we have to live in it for 10 years … LOL The other thing she told us was that only professional builders and building companies can get a Bank Guarantee. So that idea is out! By this time Anja had left. Then after further discussion with our Architect friend, we learned that under some other regulation concerning outline planning, Anja was going to have to submit her plans before October for her house, to amend the plans that we already put in when we applied for the Building Permit last year.  The question we are trying to get the answer to at the moment is……. ‘Is there any way that Anja can build her house on our land, and when the house is completed and the Geomet has marked out the land that we are going to sell her, that she then buys the land? We would have to have a contract drawn up to cover them and us for various critical eventualities.  BUT Anja is a little ‘particular’ I might even go so far as to say she might be a little Asperger, things have to be exactly as she wants them…….. and we don’t think that it is possible to have an agreement to cover us both whereby, she builds her house on land that we own – I dunno but it seems a line shot for anyone to take on. We are tracking this down at the moment.  We are also asking ‘how it is that they can suddenly zone our land as agricultural when we already have a permit to build on it…….. because evidently, that is the reason that they are not letting us transfer it to Anja to buy.   What a schemozzle.  And of course, the other frustration is that when we try to clarify an idea or question – it usually takes a few days, or even a week or more to get the reply.  No one has heard of this situation before and no one seems to have an answer. However, we don’t need the land, it is a pain in the neck having to cut all of that grass every 4/5 days – OK its a bit of exercise, but I have other things I would rather be doing. 

Wednesday 1st August 

Not much to post but we are not sitting around and twiddling our thumbs!  Robert fixed the tiles on the kitchen walls and windowsill and I did the grouting. They look good and we are glad of our choice.

Matches the sink unit perfectly and makes a nice tile for the window ledge

After the job was finished we decided to take a drive over to St. Cast and see what was going on

We took the long route, around the coast – this is a photo of the Port de St. Geran

Our house is about one kilometre back from the bay.

Famous Fort La Latte – about a four-minute drive from our house.

A very interesting place to visit

Location for the 1958 movie ‘The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis

Don’t know who lives here, but they have a lovely view – don’t they!

July 1st to  17th, 2018

The great weather has us back to work on the outside of the house. Robert started putting up the cladding and has now succeeded in getting it within five rows of the roof.  Unfortunately. due to so many of the boards being substandard, we have run out of cladding and the next delivery is not until the first week of August. In the meantime, he will finish off around the windows and with rain in the forecast, we will continue inside, tiling the kitchen. 

What a fabulous job Robert has done here – every board ‘spirit-level’ perfect and every join in a perfect line.

Many rejected boards

Unsatisfactory faults, cracks, holes, unsanded, etc.

What a MESSSSSSSSS!

East side of the house gets sun most of the day…. resulting in one burnt back and two burnt legs…..

So, I had a brainwave and made Robert a “Sun Protector Reflector”…. using a three-layer piece of insulation. I cut up an old shirt, used only the neck and short sleeves and four-inch strip down each side. Stuck the insulation to the sides and top of back. Brilliant, but as someone remarked, “All he needed was basting, and he was ready to be roasted!”  Best intentions and all that – but didn’t last more than a few minutes in the sun.  LOL LOL LOL

The best solution was to wait for the late afternoon shade.

Last board slotting in…… till delivery on 7th August

What a difference that makes!

Mess all cleared up.

Next job will be to start the conservatory

Looks good now but when it rains that sand will be mud 

We brought some vine cuttings back from Aquitaine last January. Robert started them off in water alone for about 2 months until they started sprouting leaves, then planted them into boxes to grow. 

 They  are doing so well and now they need climbing wire, so, we have moved them from the patio to the front of the house

Maybe we will have grapes in November???   

This is the view from the kitchen window – you can see that when the plot is sold, we will still have plenty of space.

(Retaining the driveway to the left)