The renovation work continues to make great progress. Well, it's progressing as fast as two men working flat out can achieve. It has been a busy week so far and I admit to feeling completely knackered already.
Today, I spent three hours sanding plasterwork, a horrible job, in preparation for painting tomorrow. By the time I had finished I looked like I had aged 20 years with completely grey hair, eyebrows and beard. Actually, I felt like I had aged 20 years.
Late this afternoon, we went to buy a joist to support the upper part of a wall that we plan to take out. As you do, we popped down to the local DIY store, called Tridome in this case, with an Audi Cabriolet of all vehicles to bring home a 4 metre wooden joist, 10 x 20 centimeters thick. Now the Cabriolet may be a brilliant car for cruising about in the 300 days of sunshine a year we get in this neck of the woods but it's hardly the ideal builders van. Undaunted, we rocked up, ordered and paid for the 'tree' and backed the car up to the collection point, roof down, naturally. As the yard man drove up with our purchase balanced on the front of his forklift, his face was a picture of disbelief. "C'est votre voiture?" he asked. "Oui", we replied with dead straight faces. 'Ze crazy Eengleesh' - his face said.
One end in the passenger footwell, between the front seats and up and out of the back of the car - a sort of reverse jousting pole for anyone who got too close behind - our own personal portable telegraph pole. We got some funny looks on the way back and a woman, in classic 'Buster Keaton' mode, nearly walked slap bang into the beam when I stopped to reverse the car through the arch. Oh that would have hurt, but I don't think we would have been able to not giggle at her misfortune.
Yesterday, we removed an old 200 litre water heater from the bathroom in the separate apartment. My God, it weighed a ton, even when empty. It was mounted above head height, held by only three bolts onto a 2 inch thick crumbling eighteenth century wall. A combination of a scaffold, a ladder and two men who have seen better days just about managed to lift it, lower it and, thankfully, not drop it. We then had to manoeuvre it down three flights of stairs to my basement storage cellar. It's probably a miracle that it hadn't found it's own way there, taking half the house with it. In a continuation of the silent movie theme there was a definite 'that's another fine mess you've gotten me into' moment as the French 'timer' light went out, plunging us into pitch darkness halfway down the uneven stone cellar stairs with a tonne of water heater slipping out of our grasp between us. Funny, it wasn't.
That job came after two hours of shifting boxes. We had been using the living room of the separate apartment as overflow storage space whilst renovations progressed but with a now imminent need to start work in that space it needed emptying. This must have been the fourth or fifth time that I have carried some of those boxes up and down stairs, in and out of vans or just from room to room. You might say that as they have yet to be opened that I clearly don't need them and they should be thrown out, but no, they have become a symbol of my own private battle with my demons. They will be carried and moved no matter how many times until they can be unpacked and put in their place when the job is finished - they are my personal private baggage, and this renovation will be my redemption.
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