A little while ago we had a bit of a problem with the wood burninhg stove in our little rented cottage. Every time we lit it all three rooms (one of top of each other) were filled with smoke!! Not good!!

The chimney sweep arrived, but amongst other things it was discovered that all the pieces of the flue had been fitted in upside down!!

Anyway, although we are not responsible for fixing this situation, we have re-sealed all the pieces, had the chimney cleaned, blocked up the foot square holes into each of the upstairs rooms, and (at least for the time being) all appears to be well. Thank goodness for that!!

Although I am looking out on a very little bit of snow just now, we really have had a pretty good winter here and some days have been really lovely in the sunshine and here you will see I have managed to thoroughly dig over an area which will be a garden bed in due course. Masses of weed and root to pull out, but at the end of the day fantastic soil with masses of worms!! Can't wait to get started with some planting!!

We have also now purchased the Douglas Fir poles we plan to use to hold up the roof of the terrace and the little roof over the front door.

The beam on the left is the one that Gavin made and the one of the left is the huge ancient oak truss which was holding the barn up in the beginning. And the other picture shows the metal 'shoes' we had made locally to fix the beams in place. All very successfully at the end of the day. We did have to wait much longer for the 'shoes' to be made than we thought we would, but they were eventually delivered the day before Christmas!! Which was why Gavin was keen to do at least some work on Christmas Day. He just had to go and try and see if the system he had devised would work!! And it did!!

Instead of putting hugely expensive oak beams for the start of the ground floor ceilings Gavin devised a way of taking three pine joists and putting them together, sanding and staining them instead. Now that they are in place they look just grand.

Alot of what has been done over the last few months is a little difficult to photograph and, for me, a little difficult to explain!! BUT . . . . the lintels for the tops of the ground floor window and doors have been constructed just below the roof level. The walls are about half a metre thick and so Gavin has devised and built wooden lintels like giant window boxes and filled them with concrete. A lengthy and difficult task when working alone and in the freezing cold.

But these are all in place now. At the bac k of the barn for the lounge, kitchen and master bedroom and at the front of the building for the dining room and cloakroom and master bathroom. A major acheivement.

First of all a VERY belated, but nonetheless sincere, HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone.

I have had a lot of stick from various people because our Blog Diary is so far behind!! There are those who reckon that our blog is what gives them a French/Naillat 'FIX' when they are not able to be here. And to those people I can only apologise.

However, I do have a million excuses!! Far too many to list here!!

But to name just a few - we have had a couple of spells where we did not have internet connection - there was our first Christmas and New Year in France with a little time out for socialising (although I should add here that Gavin did actually go out on to the building site and work on Christmas Day!!!) - we spent a joint ten days in the UK in January, trying to make our depleted funds (the credit crunch is hitting everyone) go as far as possible - Gavin had to return again for a few days to visit with his brother in Maidenhead - we actually had to spend time doing work or there would have been nothing to tell you about!!

So I think it is about time I put this to rights.