Piddler on the roof

Sometime between lats and delts at the gym this morning I received a simple text to say that the new roof would be going on the house very shortly. I was so excited I was worried a little bit of pee might have escaped. This is such a distinct milestone in a world paved with seemingly endless milestones. It will hopefully be followed very shortly by milestone sceptic tank and milestone kitchen... seemingly unconnected but so very vital in terms of being able to live at Le Monteil comfortably so we can chunk through things like taming the 7 acres of wilderness which surround the house, tackling the barn which will be converted to double our living accommodation and then erecting a new wooden barn to house an array of wilderness taming kit....some of which I admit I am quite intimidated by. I will have no clue what I am doing with most of it and nervous I will convey this when I go to buy it. I am even thinking what outfit will reduce the chance of me looking like the potentially dangerous amateur I inevitably am. Wellingtons and overalls must surely do the trick. Anything with lambswool and matching corduroy will look like a weekender.....

I've been busy with the dying embers of my career this week, it doesn't officially finish until April. As David Mees has also been madly busy my animal husbandry has gone to pot. Tubby dog has developed an obsession for the chickens' food. He busily scoffs their corn and seeds as they squawk in vein protest. His little doggy brain doesn't equate his illicit snacking to what happens later. I've never been one for granola bars but never less so after seeing something similar being ejected with great determination and something of struggle from the rear end of a hairy French hunting dog. I will need to improve how we separate creatures from nature's all you can eat buffet when we're building compost heaps with free ranging wild boar and deer at our back door.

The endless and slow paperwork for Le Monteil has changed our overall thinking slightly. Not a complete deviation but certainly a commercial adjustment. The whole buying process will likely take 9 months (if we're lucky) that's before we've hoola hooped through the planning permission process for the building changes and then found someone to do the work. Building our gites empire may take a backseat for a while. It's too slow a burn to get them up and running for income and we cannot afford that. Our adjusted plan is to divide our time between a UK bolthole and France for a while, both fulfilling freelance projects. I'd always wanted to do some project work anyway to keep my hand in and keep my brain going. It felt like we'd softened but actually it might be good for our sanity and long term success. The posts have changed but the goals haven't. We're ploughing on... figuratively and literally.... well we will when the rotavator has been mastered

I'm a bit worried about Iron Girdle, she's not been seen for a while, she's not in the headlines. How does she motivate herself if she's not got a summit to see over? Did they not have one this week? They usually do. However the exchange rate is hovering at a steady and tiresome 1.2 and some change.... she must be exerting some influence....