Day Two

Day twoNow there’s some progress.   More sunny but cool weather, so Dario and his son Sandro set to work on building the perimeter of the studio.   We are recycling all the beams that came from the living room in the main house.   But for this work, they decided to go for the planks of wood that have been well treated and won’t suffer from contact near the soil. Paranoid, moi?

And here is the detail on the cement footings that will support the structure.   They look alarmingly high.   But they have to be tall enough to permit a flash flood underneath the structure.   Sorting out how the decking is going to work out with this high a drop is the November issue, not now. Day two columns

The north side of the structure sits on the cement base and then two levels of what I would call brieze blocks. Goodness knows what they are called here. I don’t dare look through my list of receipts for Madame Felix: I might have to calculate just how expensive this building is.

Day two cement footingLuckily I was distracted from the hammering and sawing by a visit from Robyn and Sylvia. Lucky me to have a whole day of their wonderful company.   It’s tough when friends live so far away. Sometimes Facebook just isn’t enough.

We took Sylvia riding, picked endless buckets of cosmos for the big party at Sarnoux this weekend, and walked the property. Even going so far as to the vineyard. Sylvia and the greys

It’s not a place I’ve visited for months and the vines were rather groaning with fruit. If you could hack your way in through the bracken and brambles down there.   The sight would drive any vintner to drink.

CosmosBut no one is keen to take on this little vineyard, least of all me.

One lovely surprise down at this part of the farm was a huge medlar tree in fruit. I didn’t even know we had one.   The fruit is a long way off over ripe, so I’ll have to wait another few weeks to see if I could take to the rather acquired taste of rotting apple. We shall see. Medlar