Progress report

On Monday, the installation of our new sanitation system was signed off. A 4000L fosse toutes eaux and a 30m2 sand filter bed satisfies the authorities and means that our household waste is no longer fertilising our field! This may or may not be a good thing, as Andy found a cracking tomato plant with ripening fruit in the midst of the lush vegetation down here. Hey ho!

We took a much needed break from work on the house for the week that our friends Jenny and Mike were with us. During that week we celebrated both Jenny's and my birthdays and Andy, as in-house chef, did us proud with some truly delicious dinners. The weather during the week wasn't full-on sunshine every day and was a lot cooler than we have been used to of late, but still only Wednesday morning and Saturday afternoon were wet, which was a darned sight better than the UK weather last week which sounded truly miserable, so our friends were happy. The relative dry weather meant we were able to get out on the mountain bikes on three occasions which was fantastic fun

We also had a lovely walk from Artigue above Luchon up to the Spanish border at the Col des Taons de Bacanère.

One foot in France, one in Spain....

Spain, and the remains of an old cable winching building, probably used in WW2 by Franco's army...

Since the weekend, a wonderful high pressure system has taken up residence over us and we are enjoying clear sunny days and temperatures into the high 20s. It is just glorious! Unfortunately, we know this will not last and the nights are already cold, so we are having a big push to get the woodburner and central heating system installed before the weather turns. Lets hope we don't have any major hiccups along the way.