A Gardener in France

I continue to let my public down, ignoring all requests for weekly progress reports. This will not always be the case, as readers of my other Blog will know. When we are in France we are too busy doing it to write about it and when we have come back I am too busy catching up with work to bother. Only on days like this, when I am at work on my day off and an e-mail has just arrived from another Brit moving in to the area.....

Enough excuses; "what's been happening in sunny Chabris?", I hear you ask.

Chantal spent 6 weeks over there early in the year bullying  the local craftsmen we had employed into finishing the 'Gite' part of the house in time for the letting season: we had, you see, already advertised the property with Chez Nous.

Downstairs we ripped out evrything, added a new tile-over-insulated-concrete floor, insulated internal walls and a lower ceiling. It needed new electrics and a water supply, a kitchen and stairs, all new doors and windows, before the decoration could start.

Upstairs it was much the same, with new wood floors and a bathroom. When I flew over at the end of February to bring her back, much of this was done, but with her back in England the work slowed down damatically in spite of angry faxes and telephone calls to anyone who would listen and some who would have prefered not to!

When we returned just after Easter to hang the curtains and buy the furniture we were dismayed to discover there was still plenty to do: words were had with one or two of our builders and the last job or two was finished the day before the first guests arrived: yes, we have guests!

The last thing we wanted to do was to use them as guinea-pigs but in the end that's the way it turned out. A neighbour holds the key for us and cleans up after the guests leave. When we go out again in August we will stay in the Gite ourselves to make sure it is all that we would expect. Someone has complained about a lack of TV (not something we really want to buy) and that there is no lock on the bathroom door (not something that would worry us) but you have to listen to your customers and make your own mind up.

The garden, or rather the lack of one, upsets me. It's hard to influence it from this distance but the plans are all drawn up. I would have liked to give guests a little patio so they can eat outside but time ran out for such nicities. In the end, there will be a swimming pool in the back garden, but not until we move out there.

Before we left at Easter we took a few pictures and I have a few 'before and afters' if you are interested......... .  Roll on August.

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