oak frame completed at last

We have finally completed the oak frame for the back porch - still have the roof to put on it, but this is a start.  Most of the frame is either jointed or fastened together with oak pegs. We have found that any screws used to hold stuff together temporarily tend to shear off when we try to get them out again. Apparently this is because of the tannin in the wood.

I always imagined that oak frames would be fairly simple, but here is one-half of one the corner window sill joints. We have routed out a groove for the window units, and will fit the units so there is apparently no extra 'frame' showing, ie the window units fit directly into the oak frame. They won't, of course, but that is what it will look like.
The gaps under the window sills will be filled in with stonework to match the back wall of the house, which will also stabilise the whole structure. We are going to use slate paving slabs from the garden to lay on the floor.

oak posts and windowsills going up

We have cut the windowsills to fit into the notches on the upright posts for the first side.  Here is the first in position:

Then the second:

 

and the third:

 

 In the picture below, you can see the groove we have cut in each sill for the DGU windows. We will be using softwood packing, the thickness of the DGU, backed by a thinner piece of oak on the inside sides of each window. That way there will be no extra frame around each pane.

 Gertie has taken to sleeping on top of the tool shelves. When she wants to get down in the morning, she waits for Pete to supply a 'ramp' for her elegant descent onto his shoulder!

 

more oak frame put up

The oak posts for one side have been put up temporarily (three only shown here). They will need to be cut down to the right height and marked-up for the position of the windowsill pieces. This has to be done 'in situ' as the oak is changing shape just about by the day and no two gaps are the same. Each post is sitting on a nut and washer on a length of studding set into the concrete foundations (you can see the front corner one) to allow a bit of rotation to happen with drying out. This also keeps the wood off the ground and will allow a tiny bit of vertical adjustment if necessary. We have taken lots of advice from our friend John W. (ex building foreman for the Shakespeare birthplace trust before he retired to France), and who has probably forgotten more about oak construction than we will ever learn!

Pete sawing...

and me cutting one of the slots for the windowsill cross-pieces (not a bad tan for early June eh?). These will also be mortice & tenoned into the uprights. Next we will have to make lots of oak pegs to fix it all together... Don't use screws says John, they will fall apart in months, says John. So the whole edifice will be held together with oak pegs. I now need a piece of metal with a hole in it, the proposed diameter of the pegs, so I can hammer roughly-shaped bits of oak through it, to make the correct-diameter pegs - that's how its done!

See how wet the oak is once you get a centimeter-or-so into it!  Cuts like a dream though!
Its funny, but I'm really enjoying having a bit of interesting building work to do again. We are now talking about building a whole house using green oak one day perhaps, as it's such lovely stuff to work with, and relatively affordable, here in Brittany.
Keep looking - will update again soon.

re-start for the back porch

After a couple of years delay we have eventually found the time and funds to go ahead with the porch we planned in 2006.
Here we have close to two thirds of a cubic metre of green oak, which is more than ample for the frame, but because of the cutting required had to be that much - suggestions will be sought for the spare stuff later....
Pete hard at work measuring up. Not much to show yet but will keep progress updated.

Pete's orange melodeon

Yep, its orange! in three keys, A, D & G and he's well pleased with it! Mind you, it will be a day or two before he can play it well enough to venture out in public. Once he's OK playing it, we can play all the English tunes we used to play at the Dressers Arms on sunday nights. Pete will also be able to accompany/do intros for, many of the songs we currently sing, as loads are in A.  So now I have to get the fiddle going again, after a pause of some years when my thumb joint was a problem - that seems to have calmed down again now.

Fete de la Morue - Binic

We went up to Binic on Thursday afternoon for the first day of the 'Fete de la Morue'. The port de plaisance was crammed full of boats and the weather was glorious.

We were taking part in the repas chanté put on for all crews of the visiting boats. A pleasant afternoon and a good meal for the price of a couple of songs - fair exchange!

We are going to become members of the association 'Le Grand Léjon' - click the title of this post for the site link. This is an association that owns and runs a Lougre (lugger) built at Loguivy de la Mer, from the plans of an old boat, and launched in 1992. as members of the association we get to have use of the boat when it attends various events, such as the Binic fete, and lots of others throughout the summer. They also do voyages around the Brittany coast, to the Scilly isles and to Cornwall occasionally. For a very reasonable fee, we can go on these trips... We know loads of the people who are in the association already - the group 'Fortune de Mer' and Hervé & Hélène who are singing at our concert in June are members - have a listen to Hervé & Hélène on the Grand Léjon site.

Ducklings!

Seven ducklings have finally hatched out yesterday. Mrs Broody is very content with her new family, but she is going to get quite a surprise when they start swimming in any available water! The ducklings are surprisingly active, and already superb fly-catchers (and eaters - nice). Luckily the weather is due to be quite good for a few days, so they can take advantage of the sunshine to get outside & bask. Mrs B must be heartily sick of the little broody coop when she has spent the last 4 weeks!

Un Jardin Remarquable - Le grand Launay

On Friday (a bank holiday here in France) we visited a local garden - Le Grand Launay, only 20 minutes up the road, and one we had not heard of before. It was included in a series of gardens open for charity this weekend, which is how we got to hear about it. it is classified as un jardin remarquable and with good reason.
The first bit is the beautiful archway into a large lawned courtyard. The lawn is immaculate, without a weed to its name, and carefully mown in stripes. The owner, while taking our 2 euros, explained that is was une pelouse anglaise and that he had bought an English cylinder mower to get the correct effect.This is one huge courtyard! All round the edges are mainly foliage plants, plus some beds edged in low wavy box hedges and one massive tree as you can see in the picture above. Pretty breathtaking start. I could live in that courtyard...However, after a slow circuit of the courtyard we left it and came upon the back lawn. The beds surrounding the lawn are edged in undulating box hedging, with cloud-pruned trees behind. At one end (left in the photo below) there is a low mass of beech 'hedge' the same level as the terrace above & behind it. The house from this angle is pretty amazing too! Carrying on round this back lawn brings you out to the most amazing little orchard I have ever seen - there are box 'serpents' trained up each of the trees! The effect is weird in the extreme, and I think is designed as a witty reference to the book of Genesis.Further on is a sunken area with a 'source', the floor of which is paved with blocks to allow the water to trickle through in rills. There are lots of lovely candelabra primulas here.
The rills finally join together and empty out into a beautiful pond, surrounded by foliage plants and trees. This pond is the source of water for the next feature - a cascade within a gravel garden.This bit of the garden still looks very new and a bit contrived, but will probably mature and fit in a bit better eventually. The slope is surrounded by trees with mown paths through them, which are lovely to stroll round, looking at the sunshine through the new leaves.Finally we came out behind the first building, where there is a small potager and herb garden.
This is surrounded by espaliered apple trees, within box hedges with wild strawberries below them. Within these is a woven willow fedge which outlines the potager and jardin des simples, or herb garden, with a small pond in the centre - all just immaculate.We came away with our jaws hanging open and a determination to get planting lots more hedging in our own plot. I love the idea of undulating hedges, carefully trimmed but following their own varying contours. Of course we have neither the setting, the means nor the full time gardener to copy this place, but we have come away with loads of ideas, and a garden that is close enough to visit regularly throughout the year.
Click on the title of this post to go to the site: http://www.parcsetjardins.fr/bretagne/cotes_d_armor/le_grand_launay-858.html

baa baa had a little lamb (called Mary)

Completely unexpected, as we hadn't put the sheep to a ram last year, Baa Baa has popped a tiny black lamb. Dolly's lamb last year was a ram lamb, with obviously more go in him than we realised. Our friend Carol commented the other day that Baa Baa looked a bit broad in the beam, but she always seems to be like that. Pete thought he heard a lamb bleating this afternoon, and when I went to feed the sheep only Dolly came down for food - very unusual. So I went up the field to find Baa Baa and infant who was by then at least a couple of hours old. Good eh? Dolly is also excited - she went bouncing around the field all on her own - daft bat!
In addition, one of the grey hens has gone broody again, and we have put a dozen duck eggs under her to try and get a brood of ducks - lots of people want some of our Indian Runners. She started on the 21st April, so hopefully around the 19-20th May there will be some duck chicks.

kitchen fireplace and ham

The vegetarians amongst you must turn away quickly.Others are invited to admire our first foray into the art of 'le traiteur'
Voila! air-dried ham and lots of it. It still has some drying to do, so we will not be eating it too soon, but judging from our first tastes it is unlikely to last too long, and will get better as it dries further. The pantry smells like heaven now!

We have eventually dry-lined and tiled the fireplace behind the cooker in the kitchen. Pete is seen grouting the tiles, and below is the finished effect. It's beginning to look like a proper grown-up kitchen now. Floor tiles and whitewashing the walls next.

Marathon de Paris 2009

Last weekend was the Paris marathon, which Greg ran, but Pete didn't. We had a great time, with a bit of sightseeing thrown in.
Our apartment was very close to the Pompidou centre, which is a superb building, with a very inviting plaza in front of it
- just the place to sit and people-watch.
Here are some of the crowds at the start, just down the Champs Elysées from the Arc de Triomphe.
Greg takes on calories before the start
It was a bit of a tense time, waiting for the start...
Shorts and legs in the top left hand of this picture = Greg passing Bastille the second time (really!)
Pete and Alice at Bastille, before we jumped back onto a metro train to meet Greg at the finish.

On Monday we did a bit of reminiscing, and found the road we stayed on during our honeymoon - 36 years ago to the week. The metro line (which we hadn't realised at the time is above ground) is little changed, but the cars look a bit quaint back then.

Lastly, we found the lion statue that had amused us originally - scrambling to get away from the water spay up its bum - the spray was still on, but was further back in the garden!

cats & sunshine

Here is the new length of 'dead hedge' we have used to replace the useless bamboo screen we put up as a temporary expedient last autumn. The colours won't last, but are pretty at the moment. This is all from the willow trees we coppiced a few weeks ago.Hugh was vainly trying to disguise himself as a bunch of twigs, so he could get some sunshine in peace, but with very little success. Gertie soon found him and chased him out of it!
Then she decided to help Pete with the hole for the gate post...
and the twig that had fallen into it,
She looked up to the camera just as I pressed the shutter. Bit of a sweety really.

june concert - chants de marins

This is the poster for this years concert at St Lubin in June. For photos of both Fortunes de Mer (Etienne & Etienne) plus Hervé & Hélène see my blog for 20th December 2008. We will be using a sound system this year, so singers being accompanied will be able to be heard.

Samson, our new cockerel

Here is Samson, a (predominantly) buff orpington cockerel, just over a year old who we acquired yesterday. He was fighting with his father (inevitable, really) so we got him for free. He is in quarantine for a few days, while I am treating his scaly legs (caused by mites, so insecticide and vaseline will do the trick), and then we will let him out to join the girls. Hopefully we will get some nice crossbred chicks from him. Our grey hens go broody prettly regularly when it warms up.

For those whoM I havent told, I now have a garden blog, in which I am posting pictures as well as information for myself, about planting dates etc. The link is given in the header to this blog.