A tap at the window.......................

Another blazing hot day - wonderful!  Dan and Jenny hadn't slept too well as the inflatable mattress they used in the half-renovated attic developed a hole in the middle of the night! Apparently Jenny spent most of the night gripping the edge and trying not to roll onto Dan at the centre!
A breakfast of freshly baked pain au chocolat soon put everyone right !

Jenny then took a quick bath before the builders arrived. (The scaffolding is currently placed directly outside the bathroom window and there are no blinds!) As soon as she was in and we heard her splashing around Darren climbed the scaffolding to rap the window pane to make her think the builders had arrived early! Panic ensued to say the least!! I suppose that set the tone for the rest of day  - and things only got more hysterical when Mark grabbed some work boots and had laced them up before  realising he was wearing two left feet!
But..... the builders and painters were soon in full flow - and as they got to work on the walls....

Dan was digging the footings for a new wall in the old barn with.....

Darren on wheelbarrow duty!

Our two preganant girls did not escape a little work either ... and enjoyed painting a 19th century door before collapsing on the sun loungers for the rest of the day with an excuse that they were incubating!

With all occupied outside, I remained in the cuisine to prepare lunch;  caramelised onion tarts with endless salad concoctions to feed twelve hungry workers, Digger our Jack  Russell and Charlie the Baron, our apricot-coloured kitten.
As expected, both Charlie, le Baron du Breuil, and Diggers decided to checked that the footings  were up to the building regulations in their own inimitable way!

 So  - a long hard day for all with plenty done - but then despair! We opened a tin of the specially-ordered paint to check the colour of the French grey only to find it was much too light, hardly grey at all. So early tomorrow I will have to go and buy some pigment colouring  and deepen every pot before we start. It has to be quite precise so that each pot is the same shade. But I do want it to be right!!! 

  C`est la vie!!!