Summer's a-coming perhaps

At the beginning of June, we took ourselves out to a Sunday lunch at a nice restaurant which has outdoor seating under a 16C wooden market. After our meal we walked up to the 13C church, Saint Romain. This is the view from the steps looking back to the market.

This is the tympanum over the door to the church. If you understand the symbolism here, please feel free to leave a message explaining.

People who've visited us may remember the big evergreens (Thujas) at the bottom of the South Forty. There were two at the southeast corner and one at the southwest corner. These have gotten huge since we've been here and it wouldn't have been possible to drive between the two without damaging them. (We think that there was an intention to have those two on either side of a drive to a garage that was never built.) So, we've had all three taken down and now have a pile of woodchips to use in the garden. This really opens out the view, but it still looks odd when we walk around behind. Here's Ed inspecting one of the stumps.

For quite some time now, we've had a soggy place below the fosse septique. We thought that the pipe from the fosse to the first view pipe (the stink pipe) was broken somewhere, so we had someone come to replace that whole length of pipe. Messy work. What he found was a bit surprising. This entire length of pipe was slotted to let the water drain out. It was wrapped in burlap (to keep roots out, but not very successfully) and surrounded by gravel. It's no wonder the grass was so lush in this area. It seems that the back yard might have been intended to be the filter bed for the fosse at some point.

It is strange, though, that normal pipe then extended beyond the stink pipe to (we think) a filter bed somewhere in the South Forty. Remember that since we didn't know where this was, we had a new filter bed put in last summer. The pipe for the new bed was spliced into the one below the stink pipe.

Work on the kitchen progresses. The wall behind the stove is insulated and wallboard installed. On Monday we ordered the new flooring (Wicanders Cork Comfort, Slate Eclipse), and were told to expect a 2-week delivery time. On Wednesday, they called to say the floor was in. We'll pick this up next week and start in on this bit of the work. We'll have hard flooring in front of the fireplace; unfortunately what we chose here has a 30-day delivery time. It would be nice to have this in place before we start with the cork floor, but it looks like we'll have to improvise a bit here.

We've had some sunny dry spells, with yet more rain in between. The rain makes the grass grow and there's barely time to get it mowed when it gets dry.