Firstly, my apologies for not posting a blog last week. Secondly, additional apologies as this blog is likely to be pretty short as well!
The reason for both is that the last 2 weeks have not seen as much progress as previous weeks, and not on things that make for good photos, and last Sunday night we had the first of our ‘Games Room Warming’ parties.
My last blog, on 3rd June, said that we had been into Morlaix to a fete and passed through a heavy downpour on our way home. Later than afternoon it became obvious that the deluge had some damaging effect in Morlaix as a month’s worth of run fell in 30 minutes. If you’re not familiar with the topography of Morlaix, it sits in the base of a valley where a river joins an estuary into the channel. Through the centre of town the river has been channelled underground and this evidently proved unable to contain all of the rain which fell so it naturally coursed through the centre of town flooding the shops and businesses in its way.
My blog also said that our neighbours were holding a garden open day that afternoon and, to show just how local these storms were, they didn’t experience any rain until a small shower in the last hour.
The weather for the last 2 weeks has been very variable but, thankfully for our guests, it has never been as bad as the forecasts seemed to predict. It meant that the day we spent in Brest was not one wasted from the garden. Inevitably we visited the Swedish furniture store to get a few more items for the games room so that we could set up the ‘library’ and we need to return to collect some blinds we have ordered for the cinema!
With the weather I have done a mix of indoor and outdoor tasks including spending some more time on the sewing machine to create dust covers for the pool and babyfoot tables as well as the inevitable lawn mowing and strimming as things continue to grow apace.
The one major task I have completed is preparing our petanque pitch to receive the sand which has been ordered for delivery on Tuesday by which time I hope to have removed the remainder of the gravel, and large pieces of slate, from the top. Plan is to be able to play our first game of petanque before this time next week.
We didn’t have a traditional topping out ceremony when we completed the roof of Grange so, to make amends, we had a Games Room Warming party last Sunday. Actually, because there were so many people who helped us while we were building Grange who we wanted to thank, we are having a second party tonight.
Last week, as we had David’s aunt and uncle, Chris and Clint, staying with us, we hosted mainly English speaking guests while tonight will be the French gang. Having Chris and Clint also gave us the opportunity to visit some of our favourite local eateries and introduce them to another we discovered in Morlaix last year, Le Bains Douches. Le Bains Douches is located in Morlaix’s old bath house and they have retained many of the interesting features. It is also immediately adjacent to the channelled river which flooded 2 weeks ago and, sadly, their basement was completely submerged and destroyed. They have evidently worked hard to get the first floor restaurant open again but they tell us all their stock in the cellar was lost.
This coming week will hopefully be a little more productive and I will have more to show in next week’s blog – there will at least be a new petanque pitch to show!
Kenavo.