Snow in April

Katie and Simon had arrived in the early hours of Monday morning after a long drive down from Bristol on Sunday. It hadn’t started snowing when they got to Dad’s cottage and gone to bed. So when Noah got up in the morning and told his mummy that it was snowing, Katie said “Noah, it can’t be, are you sure it isn’t thick fog?”, he exclaimed “it’s snowing, it’s snowing!” and sure enough it was.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised because we are in a Ski resort area but the temperatures last week had me believing that summer was here.

So it has been pretty cold here these last few days but it is now brightening up and hopefully another heat wave is on its way.

Progress this week has been frantic. Mr Laine has brought in some extras so we now have the full team. Let me introduce you to them:

The Plumbers

Monsieur Jean-Jaques Degulange and Monsieur Jean-Charles Kettler

The Decorators

Monsieur Joel Laine (the main man)

Monsieur Andre Gayton (his right hand man)

Monsieur Jonathan Calliere (his apprentice)

Monsieur Jean-Claude Protin and Monsieur Jean-Michel Ondet (the extras)

The Electrician

Monsieur Didier Faye

Monsieur Laine is the joker in the pack and is constantly making the others laugh, especially when I am around which is slightly concerning. He speaks pretty good English though and is always greeting me in English which doesn’t really help my small talk that I am trying to improve.

Monsieur Gayton is a gentleman and I think he sticks up for me when the others are all taking the piss out of the Englishman.

The 2 new extras are good fun too and always rattle some small talk off to you when you pass them on the stairs (which is often, because they are painting the stairs!) and then have a little chuckle when I say “oui” when I probably should have said “non” or more likely it does not require a yes or no response.

The 2 plumbers are my best friends though because they are so friendly and never make fun of the Englishman. They don’t like small talk and instead we have intellectual conversations about the pros and cons of geo-thermal heating in the Volcanic region of the Auvergne – seriously!!

So back to the work: Katie, Simon and I get on with it straight away in Suite 3.

Katie has made this beautiful stencil that she is painting in Gold on the Aubergine wall. She will hand finish it afterwards

Simon is creating a painting of an Orchid on a canvas to hang in Suite 4.

I am being less artistic and simply painting out all of the blue. We have got a fantastic Farrow and Ball colour called “Great White” which is slightly pinky and goes really well with the Aubergine F&B colour called Brinjal (Indian for “Aubergine” don’t you know!).

My Mum is making the curtains for the main living room. A long process that requires a lot of dedication. Mum has chosen some beautiful fabrics that she lugged here all the way from Cardiff.

The stair case has been stripped right back and is having its first coat of primer painted on. The “trop grande Anglaise” has whacked his head on the scaffolding at least 3 times already whereas the short Frenchmen just breeze straight under it!

Monsieur Gayton has made Suite 2 a labour of love and filled every hole and crevice in the room. It has taken him ages!

It must be frustrating for him because Monsieur Laine then just strolled in with his big machine and sprayed the ceiling with paint in about 30minutes.

The bathroom in Suite 5 is now fully tiled.

The plumbers have fitted Suite 3 bathroom now, however the curse of the short Frenchman strikes again. I got in the bath and the shower head is at my eye-level!. I had a good humoured conversation with them about it and of course they blamed it on Mr Huin, their boss, (who started the work and is surprisingly quite tall!). Of course they will change it and it only means 2 tiles will have to be reset. Luckily all the other showers have been set at the right height.

With Suite 3 nearly finished I decided to crack on with suite 4, however Monsieur Faye has asked me to do this later because he wants to finish the lighting in there and is expecting to make a mess – Great!

So I got back to the never ending project of the living room and painted the red with more red! We have got a new F&B paint called Radicchio which is much better than the old colour which was too bright. However, when I put it on it looked exactly the same. All was fine though because it went a lot darker when it dried and it now looks great – very pleased with it!

Joe has also been really busy overseeing things and making sure no one is slacking – except for him of course!