Still awaiting a delivery of ten tonnes of ballast so that we can crack on with the small outhouse roof. We have been tipping earth from digging out places behind the barn in a small walled area and today is the day that we dig out all the nettles and smooth it over.

An overcast day with no rain makes it not too hot for working outside so we set too. First off we lit the fire out the front to get rid of the rotten timbers from the outhouse, the nettles and brambles from the previous trip. Either the chainsaw is behaving or we are getting used to it’s starting up routine. Cut the timbers into more easily burnable chunks and stacked the fire up. Then up the back and systematically digging out nettles and adding them to the fire.

We had a couple of English visitors during the day about lunchtime. Dave and Wendy live near Castillon and were walking by and noticed the UK plates on the truck. Curiosity got the better of them and they wandered up. As it turns out I have probably met Dave before, his name is familiar and he pops back to the UK from time to time to work for the licensing authority for outdoor centres. He works with a load of people I know from my outdoor activity days. We chatted for a while and swapped contact details as they may have a contact for a local water diviner.

We had a visit from Lou Lou who lives just down the track and is usually up regularly from St Girons, we had not seen him since we arrived and were hoping that he was OK. He is always very keen to see what we are up to and give us some local advice which is always interesting.

Finished off the day planning where things were going to go in the bathroom so that we could crack on with the installation of the toilet. No sign of a delivery of ballast!

In the evening we got Freddy and Daniella over for a drink and catch up. We have not seen much of them to date as the bar is closed and they have been busy doing maintenance on the Auberge. Didn’t feel like eating much after so finished the soup. We did check the dates on all the meat in the fridge and decided that we should try and find someone with freezer space otherwise we need to each a load of mince, a chicken, some trout and half a dozen sausages by Saturday night. And we have already been invited to Clive and Gizelle’s for food on Saturday