Chateau de Firbeix

I got back to France yesterday after 2 weeks in Switzerland with Caroline and the garden has gone crazy! The grass needs an urgent cut but on the plus side my sit on mower is working again after receiving a new battery from MTD. Also some amazing flowers have appeared. Not sure what this is but I'm sure a flower expert (most likely Mark) will know. Mark told me this is a Red Hot Poker or Torch Lily (Kniphofia Uvaria). 

Now we've received a major materials delivery from the local builders merchant (Gedimat), we started dry laying the pipes in the back PMR (disabled) gite. These two 100mm pipes will carry waste water into the mains to the septic tank and soon hopefully into the communal sewage network once we get connected.  One pipe is from the toilets (eaux vannes) and the other is all other outlets (eaux ménagères or eaux grises) from sinks, dish washer, shower, bath, washing machine, etc. They both come together and feed into the mains at the house boundary into the underground pipe for  eaux usées.  The concrete slab level will be the bottom of the internal door openings so we had to cut out a gap in one for the pipes to go into the PMR bathroom then vertically into the bathrooms above. They will be covered in concrete eventually.  We're missing a few connectors for the kitchen sink, dish washer and washing machine into the  eaux ménagères  pipe then w...

The bushes either side of the entrance were becoming so overgrown, delivery lorry drivers complained, you could hardly get to the post box and it looked so unloved so over the last 2 days we've been working on it. Before, although from March 7th: and now:

No this is not a racist post but a recording of amphibians across the road in the beautiful lake and now also some in our swimming pool (the rain water/leaves on top of the pool cover). It could be mating season as there are two type of noises, all very loud and continues all night although the double glazing is great so hopefully they stop before it gets into summer. You might need to turn up the volume when you listen to it.  Audio file

Some beautiful weather in France this week so I took a few photos in the sun... The grass has been mown since I took these on Monday and the building materials arrived. We've a ton of stuff to go to the dechetterie when it reopens.

On the first floor, which will be our private living space, is a bathroom and separate shower room which is in desperate need of a makeover... Today we started on the renovation by removing the old bathroom furniture... If anyone is interested in buying these then please let me know 😉 otherwise they're off to the dechetterie as soon as it opens again. We started tiling the floor today, yesterday we mopped the floor and put down the bonding agent so the new tiles will stick to the old ones. More progress today...