... about time!

Yes, I know ... it has been a long time since our last Post - no excuses!
But the weather here has been really unusual - our last Post commented on the arrival of cold weather - with snow, both air and ground frosts, and generally 'what's expected' in December and January: 

Since January it has been cold and wet, with a far higher rainfall than usual:

The early Spring flowers have battled valiantly , but it is has been difficult .... we reckon, looking at our diaries from previous years, that Spring growth is now at least three weeks late:

So, how has the wildlife around the garden and hamlet been coping? Well, there has been plenty of nesting activity - the wet weather has meant that there is a lot of moss in the grass and lichen on the trees and there are definite signs that the wildlife has been busy gathering material for nests, hides and burrows:

And braving the rain and bursts of bitterly cold weather we have seen some beautiful green woodpeckers in the garden, close to the house; and also, unusually (as there seems to be a much smaller population than in the UK), some badgers; our considerable population of frogs have been less in evidence than usual at this time of year but, in the last few weeks, if there is any sign of sunshine and warmth, they suddenly appear by the side of the pond, taking huge leaps into the water when anyone walks close-by:

But what has been really special over the last two months has been the appearance of a pair of Little Owls. Readers of the Blog may recall that we have had Scops Owls, but sadly they disappeared last year - so, we have been thrilled to see the Little Owls. They have a territory of about a square kilometre and are extremely vocal from all quarters of their territory day and night, calling to each other and flying from tree to barn, to wall-niche and chimney-pot (as I'm writing this they are having a really animated 'conversation'). We have found it impossible to photograph them, but this is what they look like:  

We chose this photograph of the Little Owl walking, as they often hunt on the ground - eating frogs (well, they're well-served in our garden for that!), insects and particularly beetles .... and, we're told, they also catch moles, not eat them but to lay them out on the ground to attract beetles and then they eat the beetles! So, we'll keep you up-to-date on 'Little Owl progress' and, if we can, will take some photographs of these fascinating birds.

Barn Studio

What has been taking most of our time has been the final stages of our Barn Studio room conversion. To recap: following on the very successful creation of the dining and sitting room areas, used by our Chambres D'Hotes guests and other visitors, we have been developing the final area (about 80 square metres) of our ground-floor barn to create accommodation for a gîte, designed to be fully suitable for people with disabilities, including those requiring the use of wheelchairs. It has been necessary to sort out the floor of the area - it was already concreted, but very unevenly, with a considerable slope from one end to the other, and also sloping crosswise. So, we decided to give the overall area two heights, with the sitting room at one height, and a gentle slope up to the bedroom and bathroom area. This has required around 30 tonnes of concreting, with special reinforcement on the slope to ensure wheelchair safety. So, quite a lot of ballast and cement!:

The old concrete floor needed to be divided up with 'shuttering', to even up the height differences:

The sections of wall placoplatre that had already been put into place needed protection from the concrete and then the various floor sections were laid one at a time:

The ramp up to the bedroom and bathroom areas needed a specially strengthened screed and we used additives to the concrete mix that would do that:

There were a few challenges, other than the weather (minus 14 degree temperatures stopped us mixing the concrete, as ice crystals made the sand solid), in particular the piano that has remained in the barn had to be lifted up on to the trough that runs along the west wall, out of the way of the concreting!:

As the flooring was completed, we have been gradually been able to look to some of the details - such as using some really old cast iron balustrade for the slope up to the bedroom/bathroom area - it was only a short piece, but weighed over 100 kilos, and fixing it so that it remained solid was a challenge: 

Where possible we have used existing hardware ... like the door we're using for the bathroom, which was rescued from another barn, covered in mud and muck - but cleaned up well and turned out to be solid oak and was also wider than the standard door, so is ideal for our wider doorway requirement:

Probably the most challenging things has been the plumbing - running the shower, basins, WC pipework up to the upper floor has meant drilling through oak beams and flooring half a metre thick .... enough said, describing pipe installation is not exactly raw excitement!

The creation of the wall frameworks and the support structures for the pipework has required a lot of battening - we calculated the other day that we've used around three-quarters of a kilometre of battens.
But now all the walls are in place and we have the main sitting room, the lobby/dressing room, bedroom and bathroom. The sections of exposed stonework have been sorted, and the extended windows completed, with sloped framework to reflect light inwards to the room. We have cut away a section of the original cow troughs that we have kept, so that the bed-head will rest on this, and old chestnut flooring will be used to cover the trough for shelving and be used elsewhere for surfaces throughout the rooms, The electricity is completed and working, designed to be wholly accessible for people in wheelchairs. In ten days time Monsieur Buoanaito, the 'tile man', will arrive to lay tiling throughout - these will be specially strengthened, non-slip tiles. After that it will be painting and finishing - which always takes longer than anticipated, and by that stage one is just keen to get it all complete - but we hope to finish by the end of May and be ready to welcome guests by the early summer ....'Phew!

So, more news soon - on owls, barns and some belated 'awakening' into Spring and Summer!