A great deal has happened since my last post. We have been in England and there was a wedding. As we were rather involved, we didn't get a chance to take many photographs. No doubt lots will appear on facebook, so I will leave this momentous and happy occasion to others for the time being. We did, of course, go to considerable lengths to taste and select the wines.
They seemed to go down very well.
The day after we got back they were due to start on the pool. We waited. No one came. So at about ten I rang the digger man to find out what time he was arriving. The line was very faint, but it soon became clear he wasn't coming today. He had had an accident (French artisan excuse no. 7). He said something about a broken arm. I wasn't clear whether it was his arm or the arm of the digger (the machine) that had been broken. This was perhaps the third time we had been told by an artisan that they couldn't make it because there had been an accident. I was very sceptical, but felt I ought to express some concern. A combination of annoyance, scepticism and limited French, however, I fear made my sympathy sound just a tiny bit insincere (tant pis).
On Friday the digger man arrived - with an enormous digger. For some reason he started by showing me a most horrific scar on his arm (so it wasn't the digger that had got broken). I (rather sheepishly) expressed genuine sounding (I hope) sympathy.
On Friday it was 30 degrees so we were quite pleased a start was being made on the pool.
Things progressed rapidly and by the end of the day the outline of the plage (pool surround) was complete.
After he'd gone off for the weekend I tried to find out if he had left the keys. Sadly not. I had seen lots of actors "hot wiring" cars in the movies, and it looked pretty easy. G, however, thought this was not a good idea.
On Monday there was lots of spraying of fluorescent red paint. There were various technical looking instruments and I began to realise it wasn't quite as simple as it looked.
Two holes first; I don't quite know why.........
and then it wasn't long before the hole for the pool started to take shape.
Scraping the bucket sideways (at an angle) was very impressive.
He had all sorts of drilling type bits but, so far, he hasn't needed them.
It seems a massive area he has created, but it really is amazing what you can achieve in a day or two with a really big digger, if you know what you are doing - to be continued...........
