Mid September and we finally had our first proper holiday since Christmas. We're putting the lack of break down to being 'too busy' to really do much about it. Nonetheless Beth managed to single-handedly map, organise and book a road trip from Spain back through France.
Because some people enjoy doing this kind of work, the laptop came too. It's more a case of finally having time to sit and think things out. Trawl the internet for items, draw up new plans. That sort of thing. Holidays are for doing the things you enjoy aren't they? It's not like the house was sitting idle either.
We'd arranged for the sparky to pop by for a first fix whilst we were gone, the idea being that we'd come home to new wires hanging out of walls and nearly ready to go. Plans had duly been drawn, thick pen markings drawn on walls and long, detailed emails sent. The electrical work is the key to unlocking the rest, including a new boiler. With the walls ripped open, floor merely bare joists and plans to have a lot of floor sockets we were hoping it would be a pretty quick job.
Upon our return it hadn't all been done as we had expected. Surely not uncommon. Expecting to find all the walls chased and everything being ready to be made good and for a second fix, there was somewhat little sign of work, save for some dangling wires. We were assured that the hard work had been done, which is a very credible point. Working out how to lay things out is harder than it may sound.The chasing would be quick and could be completed at any time we were assured. It's not like we weren't disappointed or anything, but fair enough. The hot water tank was also somewhat obstructive to wiring progress and we were keen to retain the ability to make hot water in the meantime.
The other problem with this is that we'd booked in a new boiler installation assuming we'd have a single requested power outlet in place for it. With this not the case it threw that plan into jeopardy somewhat. Luckily it turns out using an extension lead is a suitable temporary solution to not having power. We duly bought a couple of 40m reals to run from the small bedroom all the way down. One for the fridge and washing machine, further extended for internet, another for the boiler.
Meanwhile, back in France, we'd managed to get our next Listed Building Consent form sussed. Having fully revealed the ugly extent of the Hall's chimney, we decided it just had to go darling. We'd replace it with a log burner both to better heat the room and also to reflect the old archive plans we'd found which specifically showed stoves in place. This should be a fairly straight forward application with a good case behind it. It does mean finding a builder happy to take a chimney apart without it toppling over. Work generates work it turns out.