Well its been a busy week, Tom arrived and we got stuck in to plaster boarding the bathroom, but Tom had to change his plans so this meant he wouldnt be here as long as he had planned so work stopped on the bathroom so we could get the concrete finished on the ground floor.
We have now finished the floor, Tom as been a great help, and he is now stopping on until Thursday so we can get even more done.
Tom on the barrow
Well for some time now our goats billy and milly have been getting out, this baffled us as we have checked all boarders, and highered a lot of the fencing, anyway, today we found out how they were doing it.
Well after my comitment to the bathroom things didnt quite pan out, Rachael slept in a funny possition and her shoulder was giving her some jip, i fell through the hole on the floor left for the staircase and damaged my leg and arm, so neither of us were capable of lifting the plaster boad to the second floor in order to continue the bathroom, but on the bright side, Tom arrived safely today (turns out he is english not canadian ) so im off to bed now in order to get a nice early start with Tom Finishing the bathoom plasterboarding.
Well last week i didn’t get much done, was busy with work, i got one afternoon in, Ive made up for it today, had a really good day and got all the tracking done for the bathroom and framed out the office.
Im going to make sure i get plenty in this week, also we have a “holiday worker” coming Thursday, Tom from Canada, he sounds like a good laugh and all being well this should speed things along a little.
When we bought the castle there was some of the original oak beams remaining, the main beams, massive things approx 16 inch square are all there, but its the smaller ones that span between them, anyway, Ive been itching to strip one and see what they come up like, yesterday I did just that, they look good, now I’m itching to treat them and see the end result, a friend of mine had said that you get a great finish with bees wax mixed with turps, but it seems you cant get it in France.
I dont want to varnish them, we were at some friends last week and they had done theirs with linseed oil, that looked quite nice.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, please use the “post a comment”
Some time ago we had a big bramble problem at the front of the castle, all the base of the tower was so badly overgrown with them, then another large section was the same, nothing seemed to work, then someone suggested goats, telling us that goats loved brambles, so, off we went and bought 3 miniature pygmy goats, 2 females and a male, enter Billy, Milly and Cher.
Billy and Milly
Cher
We duly installed them at the front of the chateau to set to work on the brambles, months passed and nothing, they ate just about everything but the brambles, then, just has we had given up, I went across to feed them one day and the bramble pit was clear, Yippee! They obviously saved the best till last 
As pigmy goats are very popular as pets we had bought 2 females and a male with the intention of breading them, I figured they might as well pay for their keep and contribute to the kitty, wel, now Cher is pregnant and expecting soon, the down side is ever since she came in season Billy as stunk to high heaven, it really is terrible, and every time I go over there he tries to rub his sent on me, its a nightmare! The other day I got is sent on my hand, I washed it in bleach and could still smell it after!
Before she came in season and he did the business he was obviously a virgin as Billy and Milly where quite young when we got them, he didn’t smell and was very friendly and playful, but now he as had is wicked way with Cher is as changed totally, now I think he sees me as competition, he gives me the evil eye and looks at me as much as to say “have you been messin wiv ma bitches” He also tries to sneak up on me and put his sent on me, he really does smell bad, it makes me heave, the other day I was outside the caravan talking on the phone, suddenly I could smell him, I turned round and he was coming through the gate, he had escaped from the front of the chateau.
So, it looks like our breeding plans are over, it’s the snip for Billy followed by a good shower!
The moat is filled in at the front, we think this was partially due to the practice during the French revolution of knocking the tower down in to the moat and therefor breaching two defences at once, also over the years this as probably spread across the front to increase garden space, the original bridge is there at the front, with the two pillars that used to support the draw bridge, also if you look from the side you can see where the missing section of the bridge as been filled in. We intend to put this all back to original eventually, but the castle comes first.
There is also a smaller bridge that as been added to the back of the castle, this was of course added much later when hostilities had ceased.
Before we started the roof we had a lot of clearing to do, because the previous roof was in such a bad condition, most of it had collapsed then the loft floor and the first floor had come down as well, so on the ground floor you couldn’t walk under the beams there was that much rubble.
Getting rid of it was a problem, they don’t have skips here in France, at the back of the castle is a large area that we intend to make in to a patio, so we decided to pile the rubble in to a mound running across the back that would create a divide between the patio and the field. This was fine, but there was far more than we anticipated, the mount was done and we still had a lot to get rid of, so with the need to keep things moving i decided to just tip the rubble on the patio area and work about it later (bad decision) I figured we could just hire a mini digger and level it out when we are ready to do the patio, the area just became overgrown over time and it was difficult to keep it tidy.
Then last week a slice of luck, our neighbours were having a car park put in, and this enormous digger turned up to do the job, we had a chat with the diver and asked him how much to clear and level it while they were there, €90 and 45 minutes later it was done.
You cant see the castle in the photos as the moat is lined with tree’s, the castle is behind the tree’s in the first photo etc
So, I have the castle, now to get started, the first job was a roof the castle is in 3 sections (I will do a plan to show this later) for the 
purpose of work we are doing each section one at a time, the first section as we call it, is actually the youngest section of the castle, built in 1694, its internal measurements are approx 11 meters by 5.
One of the reasons for starting here is this section is the only section that had a partial roof, the roof supports that you would find on a conventional building would be A frames, on our castle these are quite unique, they are more like a arched (bottom of a boat) type affair (see photos) this design is unique to this area, two of these where in a bad state of repair, the others where fine, after much deliberation we decided that we could eliminate one and repair the other.
Because the chateau is a listed building we could not use the conventional French tiles with flats and rounds, it had to be rounds on top and bottom, this can be a 
pain as using rounds on the bottom is prone over time to slide down the valeach (a planking put over the main structure of the roof ready to lay the tiles) luckily when we consulted the local builders merchants, they now do a round under tile that as a lug at the back that sits on battons to stop the old problem of slipping.
One of the biggest problems facing us on the roofing, because the castle as a moat to three sides it was not possible to scaffold, after much scratching of heads and coffee we decided the simplest solution was to put the grenier (loft) floor in and use this as a platform from which to do the roof. This we did and it worked well.
It is important for me to keep as much originality as possible, some of the surrounding medieval buildings, the lodgy etc have adopted a more modern style, completly flat roofs, short overhang and guttering, we kept the croakied lines of the old oak beams and kept the traditional large overhang and no gutters. 
Finally we had a roof!