"of course, it never rains in Brittany"

From the sublime (weather, that is) on tuesday afternoon

 to torrential rain on wednesday, despite the forecast promising two days of decent weather.

the satellite image shows how nearly we missed the rain - just a wee tail of it crossed over us this afternoon - should be OK tomorrow!

back porch continuing...

 

Finally got all the A frames put up last week. Then we decided to use up a couple of spare (new, but unused) windows we have had around the place for a while to make roof lights. We took them out from their outer frame, and removed the bottom strip of wood to allow them to drain off properly.They fit pretty much exactly between two of the A frames.

Need to use zinc sheets now to seal round top & sides, and to drain them off the bottom. Will do this next, as we fit more woodwork to hold the slates. Very pleased with these, as it will give lots more light than we had originally planned.

So its beginning to take shape well now. Once we have bought the zinc to make the gutters and the weather stays dry for a few days we can take off the slates from the roof behind and tie-in the new roof gable. The front gable end is also going to be glazed - we discovered that it was possible to get triangular DGUs, so thats why the front gable doesn't have an A frame. We have put in the inside walls, using mainly beton cellulaire blocks. The front two gaps will have terracotta blocks, as they ran out of the others, and we had these spare in the hangar. The outside will be a skin of stone to match the house.

 

The floor will be slated with what is left of the  slate slabs we have found all over the garden, and which we believe were the original floor of the house. This is a preliminary layout...  Gertie obviously approves.

not-so-new ducks and start of roof

Mrs Noisy came down from her nest under the bonfire pile in the field on the 5th July with her new brood - two tiny ducklings. They are amazingly strong, as they cannot be more than 24 hours hatched. Mrs N. has lived up to her name ever since, quacking loudly at anyone who comes at all near her brood.

They were swimming in the pond almost immediately, having tried out the possibilities of the food bowl first. They are, of course much bigger by now!

 

and here is a picture of the first two A-frames on the back porch put in place. The fourth will go where the gutter is at the moment, and the front one will not have an A-bar, but a vertical central post, and be glazed on either side. We have used the old oak roofing beams that Claude gave us (for firewood) that came off the old roof of his house in Kermarec. They have some really wild and woolly shapes!

 

We are also hoping to be able to use two existing DGUs from a window we had spare, to put into the roof to give some more light. Just need to work out how to fit them so they are weatherproof!