Renovation project - John exposes and builds a fireplace in a day!!!!!

Renovation project - John exposes and builds a fireplace in a day!!!!!

Well it’s an early start today we have loads to do and we have booked the ferry for tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to see my daughter and baby granddaughter, I just hope the baby remembers me I know it’s not that long since we last visited but it was such a short visit and I’m worried that the baby will have forgotten me. This is the hardest part of living away; you miss the important bits of a baby’s life.

I have the day to get the house ready, any rubbish has to be taken to the tip as we don’t want to risk anything smelling when we come back and as a cat has returned and started to rip open the bin bags we really can’t leave anything around. Plus we are now at the stage when we can have some house pride; it still seems strange cleaning the house when part of it is like a building site!

I make a trip to the bank to transfer some money, we have some bills due out whilst we are away and in France unpaid cheques are taken very seriously.

Theresa calls for a visit and we get to have a sit down and a chat and I suddenly realise that no matter how much I want to go and visit my daughter I am going to miss my new friends in France, we have felt like France is our home for some time, but seeing friends and popping around to others to say good bye, I realise just how much France has become our home, we have a wonderful social circle here and I am going to really miss our new friends. Could I get any softer????

John popped up to our friend with the bed at lunch time and it is now nearly 6 o clock, I decide to pop up and see where he is. When I arrive I find out he hasn’t just knocked a hole in the wall to check if there was a space behind it, he has actually taken part of the wall down and exposed the chimney, our friend is over the moon as she can now have her new wood burner installed inside the recess and put up the new fire surround that John has just made from some spare wood she had in the yard. Our friend is one very happy bunny!

We now have the fun of trying to get a 5 foot wooden bed down twisty narrow stairs and out of the cottage, 

we manage and it is on the roof rack, we once again look like the Clampets!

We are packed and ready to go, England here we come!