Really moving along now

We had a pretty cold start this morning. I left at about 7.30 am for a dental appointment in Brive and the temperature then was just on freezing. As I descended and drove through Montignac and beyond it fell to -1 degrees C and didn’t budge from there until later in the morning when I returned and began to climb again and was approaching Fleurac.

When I arrived back it was already above freezing and the same two guys from yesterday had already made a good start. From then on the conditions only got better and it became a fine winter’s day for doing building work. They again made excellent progress and here are some shots that I took after they’d left for lunch.

Now you could see the positions of all the windows. I think some kind of slab or block has to be placed in the bottom of each opening on which to support the window frames because the bottoms of the apertures as they are are lower than the planned heights of the windows above floor level. It makes sense because as they are, the blocks are full of holes. Later on I spotted a Terreal beam on the ground that they’d brought with them and I wonder if that’s what they’ll be using, but we’ll have to wait and see.

I didn’t go out to see how they’d done until the end of the afternoon when they were clearing up and preparing the site for tomorrow by placing boards all around so they will be able to reach the top level. Here are some more pics that I lifted from today’s videos that I shot as they were finishing off.

And to finish off, some shots that I did at ground level which give the proper impression of the height that the walls at the southern end have now reached.

Didier dropped by at the end of the day as I think will become his routine. Given the rate of progress, I queried how long the blocks will last as I think that there may not even be enough for the two guys to do a full day’s work tomorrow. I think he said that a new delivery has been ordered but it probably won’t arrive until Thursday afternoon.

If so, this will be a pity because my guess is that if they were able to work non-stop, the two guys would have all of the external walls up in a week. I think that’s amazing and it shows what can be done with modern materials and building techniques. I can’t understand why we still persist in the UK with building almost all new houses brick by brick from the ground up. No wonder British houses take so long to complete and are also so expensive.