I could hardly recognise it - this is the orchard.

The well has been found again.

The little house has a back garden again. When we were there two weeks ago it was up to my middle.

The gardener has been (Alain). He is strimming everything back to it's roots so that it is manageable.

Where the kitchen ends and the rest of the house begins. They will start the other end after this, but with plasterboard and rails rather than in brick. We need the brick so that the walls can be plastered.

More kitchen wall. This is where the Aga will be.

The kitchen has been insulated and the interior walls are going up.

The tiles are still there - I have jut organised insurance for them.

The shutters are still not on. The door man is waiting for the specially made hinges that will be put into the stone.

The partition walls going up over the insulation. There is an old stone sink embedded in the wall which Didier and I want to keep as a feature.

WOW. The builders have insulated the outer walls.

The windows and doors are fantastic. Didier finally agreed with me that they should be left as natural wood and not be painted as tradition dictates.

The partition walls are going up from this Wednesday. The shutters should go on tomorrow (Monday). They better had! I am worried about all of those tiles sitting in there.

A VERY stressfull weekend. Thanks must go to the helpers, who were drafted in at the last minute.

I suppose it was good that I was there when the tiles arrived, although it would have been much easier to observe from afar. We are missing all of the sealant and grout that was supposed to come with the tiles. This is a task for tomorrow...

Me after unloading 7 tonnes of tilse. Tired, hot and sweaty...

The 15x15 tiles with the 5x5. This is the pattern that we will have throughout the barn. Didier rubbed his chin and said that they may take 4 weeks to lay rather than the 3 he had estimated. He really liked them though....

These are the 5x5 tiles for the main floors throughout the barn

The tiles all look to be present and correct. These are the panels of 5x5 tiles for the shower cubicles.

insulation

The materials for the partition walls had turned up on Friday, before I arrived. The builders are starting on them on Monday. They are putting insulation and internall walls up on both walls in this room as the outside walls are not thick enough.

That's the lot. All 435 boxes in the barn. Didier (the architect) turned up 20 minutes after we finished unloading. He said we should open a shop! (Thanks for the help Didier)

Half way there (200 boxes). A well earned beer and pastry for the helpers.

Many car loads later...

We managed to get about 20 boxes of tiles into each car load. This is the first load.

Beverley came through!!! Her lodger Jeff is building a house nearby and his joiner was over this weekend. They turned up at 11am with two cars and we decided to shuttle the tiles up from where the arctic was parked (abandoned) in the lane. The drivers of the truck were great! They helped us unload the 435 boxes (20 kilos each) into the boots of the cars, which were driven up to the barn and unloaded by hand.

Well..... I went down on Friday to France to be met with 3 voicemails from the man that sold us the tiles! PLEASE CALL ME, the tiles are in Bergerac. We were supposed to get at least a weeks notice so that we could organise men to unload the truck and perhaps a forklift. 7 tonnes of tiles would take a lot of unloading, especially if I was the only one unloading them. Lucy was coming down on Satruday afternoon. Anyway. I couldn't get hold of anyone we know in France to come and unload the lorry (which was an extremely large arctic lorry) on Friday night. After many phone calls between the Moroccans driving the truck and Noureddine (who sold us the tiles) I managed to find the lorry (which was parked out somewhere on the outskirts of Bergerac) the drivers agreed to sleep one more night in the truck. I agreed to meet them at 10am the next morning, where they had parked the lorry. After leading them through the town, they wouldn't drive the lorry up our lane. This is as close as they would go (after 20 minutes of tire spin).........

The tile saga continues......


After phoning Habibi Interiors every day to find out where the tiles are, we have finally located them. The tiles have now left Morocco! (yippee) They are now stuck in Cadiz in Spain (boo). We need to get a copy of the architects Carte Nationale and VAT certificate to get the damn things into France. Of course, Didier is very difficult to track down. Maybe I'll manage to track him down tomorrow. If not the tiles have to stay where they are.

We found a fantastic kitchen manufacturer in Wales at the weekend. Alan Parkin. He doesn't have a web site (or email for that matter), but his kitchens were excellent. After several fax exchanges we have come to a great design (not this one, this is one of the early ones). He is making us a solid wood kitchen, painted in cream, with solid oak worktops. We are still finalising the design, hopefully we can agree the kitchen and price tomorrow. He also knows a local who re-sells Rayburn ranges, we are after a wood burner as a back up in case the power goes off.

Our gardener was supposed to start this Monday. Not sure that he has been around yet.

The kitchen wall of the house - no progress here either...

More plaster man photos. still no progress.

Beverley went around today to see the massive progress that has been made over the past few weeks.......

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING was the response.

When she was there though the plasterer turned up in his 4x4. He is delivering the material to create the partition walls on Friday and the work will begin on Monday. I'll wait to see what happens.