Graham and I were keen to ensure that all of the fixtures and fittings for the next phase of work to Les Terraces was on site before we left France for the winter – the last thing my long-suffering stepfather needs when he comes over to do the work for us in January is to be running around an area with which he isn’t familiar in a language that he doesn’t speak.    So we arranged for everything to be delivered in the first week of September – well before we left so that  if there were any problems we had time to handle them.

You know what deliveries are like … hurry up and wait.  We tried to schedule everything for the same day, but that didn’t work.  And then one of the suppliers decided that they wanted to change their delivery day.  OK – good thing we’d had everything organised for well before we left.  the first delivery was 395 kilos of fitted wardrobes.  No problems there.  The second a large piece of glass, an equally large shower tray, a marble bath and a few associated extras.  The large piece of glass only just made it up the stairs, which gives us cause for concern for the even larger one that has yet to be delivered. And then there was the bath.  It looked a lot bigger on the pallet outside the front door than it had on the shelves of Leroy Merlin 2 weeks previously and the delivery crew comprised a man and a woman instead of 2 guys (which was more than a surprise).    Pamela explained that if we wanted taken upstairs it would have to be removed from its packaging (it was abundantly clear that it couldn’t go inside still wrapped) and that we’d have to sign a waiver before they did that, otherwise it would have to remain on the ground floor.

Well there was no way that we could get the bath up the stairs so I swallowed and wrote the words that Pamela dictated on the delivery note and off came the packaging.  Call me stupid (please do, I shan’t take offence) but dumbo here hadn’t thought about the constraints of the staircase when looking at what we wanted for the bathroom.  I’d only considered the space into which it was to be installed.  How blonde is that?  Fortunately, the bath tub made it up the stairs (just) and now rests in the Studio ready for Robin to come along and install it with everything else at the beginning of next year.

And what did we do while we waited for the delivery folks?  Well, made a hole in another wall, of course. What else?