Weekly Up-Date

The front of the house looking up from the front garden Taken today at 12:00
Notice the brilliant blue sky - the temp says 32 in the sun.

The weather here has changed - we now have cold clear nights resulting in a good spread of frost in the mornings but by 10:30 the sun has come up and dried everything out and brought the temperature up to 16+ and in the direct sun in is very warm according to the gage it is in the 20's however the breeze is still cool enough to make you aware it is Autumn. We have switched the central heating on and are happy to have done so, as it keeps the house at a steady temperature considering we are in and out all day.

I have now completed the majority of the barn/bunk-room insulation and putting the batons up ready to take the plasterboard which I will order Tuesday unless they are open on Monday. Monday is seen as a weekend day here in Treignac by most people but that is slowly changing as the local retailers become more competitive with the big towns.

Wendy is battling on with the garden - a never ending task by the looks of it. I have worn out the strimmer and completely destroyed the line assembly spool and line release mechanism. Only to discover that the French do not recognise JCB products and just shake there heads when we enquire about a replacement unit. JCB do have one of those 0870 numbers but I could probably buy a new strimmer for the cost of the call alone. My dad did have a go for me from the UK but we decided best to go and buy a French variant so we could easily maintain it and of course get the spares...

So of to the Carrefour and BricoDepot to get a Strimmer - there was a good selection to choose from but - like you do - I decided to strip a few down and see what the parts were like as far as durability and discovered that they all mainly used a similar type of assembly once you get down to the nuts and bolts, they do have small differences like size of nuts etc. So I decided for 24 euro's I would buy a french line assembly (I also aquired a couple of different bolts just incase). and was able to Jerry rig it to the JCB strimmer with some success and managed to get out and do some more strimming. I am not sure what the H&S implications are but the strimmer is now much improved and I attacked the garden as though playing an X-Box360 war game. - Once we have done the front we also have about 5 times more land to the rear and the side of the house to clean up and that area is even more wild with scrub, gorse, brambles and trees to contend with.

This is me (who else) Top left corner looking from the house
Notice now we have gotten rid of the jungle you can clearly see the Barn which belongs to Mark and Kay.

Tis one is taken from the bottom of the garden looking up to the house

and this one is looking accross the garden from the direction of Mark and Kay's

Whilst we were out we also came accross a TV table for 94 euros (in a priced to free up the space for a different line of products sale) an absolute bargain we had not seen anything we liked before for under 300 euros so we took it.

We have also managed some time out on the bike taking in some culture and exploring the roads. but you will have to go to the bike site to check out the pictures ;)

Rocamadour