At Last!

The tiles finally began to go on to the roof today. Yesterday was spent in lots of final levelling and preparation of the woodwork, and we see that they've cut the beams where the velux windows will go. I think that it was safer to do all of that before the weight of the tiles are bearing down on the beams.

The men have actually started to put the tiles on both sides of the roof; they've done the fiddley bits up against the wall of the higher part of the house which includes lead-work and a mortar skirt. So, tomorrow it should be plain sailing; just like dealing a pack of cards.

Whilst this is all going on, we've been trying to sort out our French taxes. We were sent the tax forms (2) at the beginning of the month, and we have to send them back by the end of May. We compiled a list of all of our wordly wealth and then went down to the Tax office in Gourdon. A very nice lady went through the form with us, showing where we had to fill in what, and gave us yet another form. We spent the rest of the evening filling the forms in (in pencil!), and back we went this afternoon. Bearing in mind that there is only just over a week before the forms have to be in, we were part of a throng of people at the Tax office, all trying to sort out problems. However, we didn't have to wait long before we saw a young chap (Sue says about 35). After we'd explained our circumstances and showed him what we'd done on the forms, he went off to check some details. 5 minutes later he was back and said that, as it was complicated we could have an appointment on 6th June to sort it out. He wasn't worried about the fact that this would be after the deadline; their approach is obviously to get the simple queries out of the way first, and then start to look at the difficult ones (like ours) later.