It was time to move onto the frame for the glazed side of the extension. Steve was very pleased to get back to working with his chainsaw. The trolley worked well, yet again, with the biggest trunk so far (weighing approx. 200kg) being transported safely. Is there a chance that he actually over-engineers things?! Of course, as this one was going to be the base of the glazed wall I had to dig yet another trench. I’m sure Steve must have had a past life in the army, as every time he gets me to dig a trench he then makes me fill it back up! This took two days – all that rain had certainly helped soften the ground up and I wasn’t going as deep this time. The trench was filled with small stones, like the other, and once we had managed to manoeuvre the ‘beam’ into place I would back-fill the hole. Once again Steve used his ‘to the millimetre’ measuring which meant that there was a bit of finangling to get the ‘beam’ into place. But, it’s in now and I don’t think there’s much chance of it coming out again!
Next up was a fairly major job, probably the most significant or highest risk job that we have on the plan – fitting a lintel into the gable end of the two storey building so we can open a doorway through and, as I am sure you can remember from the photos, this is the wall with the bloody big crack down it! The architects did have concerns with this modification as they thought that the likelihood of the wall collapsing was very high (we tended to agree with them!). Steve did his best to stabilise the crack by placing several rocks in the gap and then it was his job to cut out the wall for the lintel. I took this time to do a bit of tidying up – I cleared loose render and odd concrete bits from the walls and also the plants that were growing from the wet cob. As Steve had said he would probably use some of the old slate tiles to wedge the lintel I thought it would be a good idea to collect them into one (and, for once) small pile. I got a couple of surprises doing this! First off, a red slug, all curled up in a ball – the first time I had seen one, and then when I moved a piece of slate, something underneath jumped – a cute little frog!
When Steve got to the last five or six inches of his knocking out he did feel a small stone land on his arm and he wondered if this was the moment that the wall would fall down, however with a couple of temporary blocks in place the wall above remained stable with only one additional crack to show for it – albeit 2 ft long and horizontal. He was then able to complete the final removal of cob – it had only taken him two days and was a success, hole cut and wall still in place! I did manage to get into a little bit of trouble (well, time for yet another laugh moment!) I knew that Steve had decided to use the large crack in the side wall as a gauge (to see whether the end wall was moving at all), using his fingers as his datum, but didn’t know which part of the gap he had used (because of his height, I assumed he would have used a higher up section) and in my exuberant render removal I had removed a vital part of his gauge! At least I owned up quickly so he didn’t have to worry that the wall was actually moving, well, at least I don’t think it was!!
After the precision with which he had planned out the first wall frame I thought he had done the same with the lintel placement – however, his thinking had got as far as, get it resting on the wall beam and slide it in – but the wall beam was 2 metres up and the lintel weighs in excess of 120 kg! So after one aborted attempt it was time to down tools, go back to the boat, think about it, drink wine and tackle the job tomorrow! The following day arrived and this was the time Steve decided to test out his workbench (first job for it and a big one at that!) With levers and strategically placed steps and rope, we slowly, but surely, got it in place. We only had one minor hiccup where one of the ladders decided to go for a walk – landing Steve on his arse! However, my timing was impeccable on this occasion and I managed to get my ladder into the right position to save any embarrassment or starting all over again!!
At the end of the day the lintel was in and the wall was still there!!
Steve had been bleating on that he had lots of woodwork to do and he had decided that my job, being a menial task, was to open up the doorway in the cob. I’m pretty sure he knew how hard it was going to be and that was why it was my job!! Cob, what is cob? It is just a combination of clay, sand and straw. This cannot be that hard, can it? However with a wall thickness of between 400 and 800mm, it bloody well is! With my new first-hand experience of the strength of cob I set about the mammoth task of removing the doorway section, 1.2m wide x 2.4m high. This was an incredibly dirty and sweaty job! Not being a fan of dust masks we decided that a snood would be the way to go! The same snood that had kept me warm in June 2012!
We thought that I should start inside the main building so as to be able to recover as much of the wall material as possible as we will be reusing it to build the new wall. Standing on the spoil created previously I got into quite a rhythm with a club hammer and bolster. I love these mindless jobs! If you are lucky and hit it just right it will sometimes come off in huge great clumps – great for this removal job, probably not so good for when we want to reuse it, I think I will be using a sledgehammer to break it up! There was one good thing though, inside the house is incredibly cool and with the existing front door open there was occasionally a nice breeze blowing through and the really fine dust was being blown away from me to the outside! It didn’t stop me sweating though! After four days I could walk through, even if it was onto a pile of rubble! A morning of shovelling and it would be clear to walk straight through! We were pretty sure that there was quite a difference in the floor levels of the two buildings but now we had a chance to check. Steve just had to do a test with his fancy laser level and we discovered that it was just an optical illusion as the levels are similar enough that we won’t need a step between the two buildings.
Midway through this job we were allowed a day off – there was a large ‘marche aux puces’ (flea-market) being held at Lanvollon. We have been searching for a scythe but so far, at all the vide-greniers (similar to English car-boot sales) we have been to, we have been unsuccessful. As the stalls at Lanvollon stretched through the whole town we were hopeful. However, as is so often the case, we were to leave empty-handed. Steve was all excited when he spotted my washing machine (a wash-board) and he could hardly contain himself when he saw what could be my perfect spin dryer – no idea what it really was but it looked like a commercial sized salad spinner – the size of a rubbish bin – he reckoned that if it wasn’t quite fit for purpose he would be able to modify it for me. Surprisingly I didn’t agree with him and, as he had left his trolley behind and I would have had to transport any purchases on my bike rack I refused graciously (well, I gave him ‘the look’!) when he offered to buy them for me!!
We stopped at the property on the way back from Lanvollon as we had decided that we wanted to try and harvest some of the cherries before the birds get them all! I’m hoping that, as there about 300 cherry trees, they will leave some for me! As most of them are far too high for us to reach we thought we would pick up the windfall ones – quite a lot were resting nicely on the long grass and other weeds and hadn’t made it to the ground! This year’s cherry vodka will be with my own cherries!!
My next job is yet another trench, this time where the original front door is. (Technically the last building trench, well apart from drainage and other services). The door is being replaced with a window so I have to dig a small trench (we have discovered that the property has no underground foundations) and build a stone plinth. Steve insists that I have to do this one – I’m hoping it won’t be too difficult as I found a lot of rather nice, flat faced stones in the end wall which should make my jigsaw puzzle easy to do!) Steve kindly lifted the door off its hinges (far too many thick, black cobwebs for me!) and I set to work. I got about an inch or so down when I came across some large stones so I think I’ve found the original door jamb! This means that my trench will not be as deep as I first thought as we have decided not to remove stones that have been in position for the last two-hundred years! I am not enjoying digging this trench as much as it is a bit more fiddly!! One side of the door frame has rotted at the bottom so Steve suggested that I might as well take it out – this involved using an auger (hand drill thing!) to drill out the peg. I am not the tallest person (although I think I’m pretty much average height for French men) and unfortunately found that I was just a bit too short to drill comfortably, I ended up using my head as well as one hand to put pressure on the auger and taking frequent breaks to ‘rest’ my arms. Two hundred year old oak is hard to get through, let me tell you, nothing like that green oak stuff Steve has been playing about with!!
Fate Or Folly 