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| After a long working day, we take a beer to the field, sit down and hang out with the sheep |
It seems that the last
time I posted something on our barn being renovated into further holiday
accommodation was last July; I have carried on working, just not got round to
blogging about it.
I’ve been asked, on
several occasions by well-meaning and supportive friends, “haven’t you finished
the barn yet?” The tax authorities used to send me a letter each year,
reminding me of my responsibility to tell them once it was completed (so they
can start taxing us) but they seem to have given up. The thing is, it’s mainly
just me, I’m forever venturing into unknown territory (much time-delaying research
and head-scratching) and doing things like reusing old beams
and other reclaimed material, which take longer than buying new, and we’ve got
a busy smallholding and a gite business to
run.
We’ve recently re-roofed the existing gite, reducing the cost by me working with the couvreur Jacques, so that was the best part of two weeks
taken out of the year. I had three weeks of enforced downtime following a
hernia operation and have also spent at least three weeks in our woodland
felling this year’s firewood and creating an ash under oak coppice system.
There are only 52 weeks in a year.
I find that when other
work intervenes, I lose mental engagement with the barn project until I awake
in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, staring at the bedroom ceiling with
my mind racing and black clouds of doubt threatening. I resolve to get back to
it the following day and hope sleep returns.
It’d be wrong to have you
believe this is a solitary battle because, from time to time, we get some very
generous, enthusiastic and technically adept help from friends, volunteers and,
like Andrew, volunteers who’ve become friends. So, in a sequence of short
blogs, I’ll endeavour to bring you up to date.
The building is made of two
foot (60cm) wide cob on a short stem wall of stone. The only proper way to finish this
is either a lime render on the outside or earth plaster on the inside. I’ve
worked with a few different people on a few earth plastering jobs in
France and there are as many different recipes and ideas as there are enthusiasts.
I asked Samuel to help me
on the entrance hall and the photo shows a before and during. Following blogs
will bring you completely up to date.
