La Vague Froid

In retrospect, of course, it was never a great idea to strip the roof off in January. Not when the antiquated water supply pipe we rely on still runs along the wall for the whole length of the barn. Not when there's concrete that needs to be mixed and used. Not when a massive high pressure system linked Brittany all too  intimately with Siberia ......

Yesterday was the fourteenth day running that we had an overnight temperature below zero and it was the coldest with the thermometer recording -9C at 8am. Local opinion on the weather was varied "c'est polaire!" at the Bricocash checkout; "c'est glaciale!" at the Leroy-Merlin checkout; "c'est froid, froid, froid ...." from Gérard the roofer when he arrived at 8:30. Aurélian, his assistant, didn't offer an opinion but made directly for the soldering rig and fired it up to start hot soldering the downpipes - probably the only warm job available. Despite the cold the roof has progressed very quickly and will be finished in one more day.

North side of the barn roof

Slating mainly finished on the lean-to

South side of the roof finished with three new velux windows

The cats have hibernated in their baskets in front of the fire through the cold spell, they got a nasty shock yesterday when the chimney was swept - in France roofers (couvreurs) are responsible for chimney sweeping and Gérard offered to do ours while he was up on the roof. Smudge has only just  recovered from the surprise of a brush suddenly appearing in the stove next to her basket.

Gérard sweeping the chimney

The water pipes froze in the barn last Thursday - we had survived -8C last year but that was when the barn had a roof and the pipes were in the ceiling that no longer exists. I set to in the area that I realised had frozen and found and repaired a split pipe but by then the whole system has frozen solid. Bad timing as Barbara, her sister Judith and husband Steve were due out on the Friday. Being able to pump water up from the well saved us from having to stay in a hotel and a slight thaw freed the ice in the pipes at about midnight on Saturday night. Fortunately Steve somehow heard the water spraying from two more bursts in the pipes and turned off the supply before we had more than two inches of water in the barn.

Bienvenue a la piscine ,,,,,,

So, La vague froid (= the cold snap) has had quite an effect, Here are the temperatures at La Basse Cour for the year so far, one year ago the maximum day temperature was 13C, yesterday it was 1C!