Busman's holiday

We have just returned from staying for 5 days with some friends near Cognac. They were looking for a property at the same time as we were and finally moved into their house last November. We called in to see them in January when we were on the way back from England and they explained all of their plans for the house. They are most anxious to have some rooms ready for B&B as soon as possible, but.....

Veronica has MS and is very immobile, whilst Bob is not in the best condition for starting a new life as a DIY builder. So, in a rash moment of sympathy, we volunteered to help them with whatever they wanted. We got there last Wednesday to find that things were very disorganised; obviously, coping with her disability and with all of the chores of daily life (let alone the difficulties of language and cultural differences), was not allowing Bob to get on as fast as he was hoping. Things weren't helped by the fact that their dog became ill 2 days before we got there, plus they brought home a 15 month old puppy ( Setter, Lab cross) the day before we arrived. And their cat wasn't too impressed either.

However, I enjoyed my stay as I was able to learn about the French system for dry lining.

The first job was to move a door from a space for coats to the beginning of a passage. I learnt that it's best to rehang the door before finally fixing the second side of the doorframe to avoid having to shave off some of the door to get it to fit!

We then had to put up a false ceiling where we had taken out the door. Next job was to cut an arched entrance just inside of the new door into a bedroom.

Finally we could erect a partition wall next to the new bedroom entrance to create an En-suite area for the bedroom. We positioned some of the sanitaryware to give an impression of what it will look like.

The French (and maybe the English now for all I know) don't use wood to make studding walls, they have a system of metal channels which you screw to the ceiling, floor and walls and then you screw your plasterboards to the metal. Whilst it's light, once it's screwed together it has strength, plus it's a lot cheaper that wood. (Sorry ladies for this technical bit).

Whilst I was learning on the job, Sue was helping Veronica tidying out the pantry, which was in total chaos as it was just as it had been unpacked out of the packing cases.

Whilst we perhaps didn't make that much of an impact on their progress we felt that it hadn't cost us much to give them some support. But it was nice to get home!!!