Going Up

We weren’t sure we were going to make it to our third site meeting with the project manager.

A national strike on Thursday threw the trains into chaos for three days, and caused our early morning train to Vichy on Friday to be cancelled. They announced the cancellation late on Thursday afternoon, and we had a frustrating couple of hours searching for alternatives and changing appointments.

I really didn’t want to miss this meeting. It had been a month since our last site meeting, we were expecting the builders to have started the walls, and it was the first meeting since we’d had to make changes to the plan. I wanted to see that everything was back on track.

We found a different train route. It took longer, and we had to change trains, but it got us to Vichy. I called the project manager, and arranged to meet him later in the day. The train arrived just before midday, giving us less than 10 minutes to get to the car hire office to pick up the car before they closed for lunch. We made it.

There is always a point in the car trip, as we approach the land, when I’m impatiently looking out the window waiting for that first glimpse. I knew what I was expecting this time - the walls. And there they were, emerging out of our excavated plot.

We walked down the driveway, stepped through the opening that will be our garden door, and wandered around inside our house. The walls are not yet very high - we can still see over the top of them - but the walls to support the balcony are a bit further along. For the first time, I got a sense of how high up we’ll be when we sit out there. The views should be amazing.

Aside from just enjoying the fact we have walls, we checked measurements and noticed that another utility is going in (I think probably the sewerage). We also confirmed with the project manager that the recent changes to the plans are all ok and as we expect. I’m glad to have that sorted out.

Since we first made an offer on our little piece of French countryside, I’ve referred to it as “the land”. Now, a transformation is taking place. The land is becoming our house.