2003 Diary

2003

December.  Mark & Salena spent Christmas in Florida.  Ian, Mike & Janice held the fort and made great inroads to rail and plasterboard work for the barn bedrooms & bathrooms.

November.  Not too much progress on our own barn as we helped some friends put a new roof on their house, although we did have our new staircase installed—once again by our friend Andre.

October.  Finished laying boarding over 70% of barn upstairs (approx 70 Sq M) , laid acoustic insulation, steel reinforcing mesh and lightweight concrete.  Afterwards, Mark & Salena went to Florida.  Ian & Mike re-roofed the well.

September.  Laid oak & chestnut boarding in upstairs of barn.  Continued with electrical installation.

August.   Started putting up the rail system inside, downstairs for insulating the north wall and defining the bureau & downstairs toilet.  Usher joined us as a 7 week old puppy.

July.   Completed all the internal pointing.  Completed all the cleaning and varnishing of the old beams.  Put up the new cross-beam and pillars.

June.  Continued pointing.  Cleaned & varnished some of the old beams.  Laid some new boards.  Graveled over the garden in front of the house and barn (50 tons) .  Joan & Dennis, Janice & Mike back with us.

May.  Dug loads of trenches outside for drainage and managed to cut through the mains water!  Started joint work (pointing) on the stone inside the barn.  Removed some of the old floor boards.

April.  Ian arrived from New Zealand.  Had Easter visits from Joan & Dennis, Janice & Mike and Barbara & Warren.  Laid the new concrete floor in the barn, underneath which we had put drainage, water pipes and conduits for electricity.

March.  Continued removing rock from barn, with the help of an electric pickaxe and a mini digger.  The ground was so hard—solid rock in some places and we needed to go down about 30 cm.

February.  Got back from Florida on 5th to discover outside temps of 1C (35F) and inside temps of 2C (38F).  Tais joined us as a 4 month old puppy.  We started removing rock and dirt from inside the barn.

January. We missed January in France, because we took a break in Florida.