Enfin!

Today was the long-awaited day when the big windows went in to the new house.

I arrived at 8am by which time the window installers had their coffee machine set up. (Well, we are in France.) I set out chairs and a parasol ready for Ali and mum to join me.

We watched the four boys heave, tease, and coax the weighty windows into place with the aid of Manu and his suckery lifty crane thing. They danced across gaps, leapt through voids, teetered on ladders, giggling and joking as they went. Everything was millimetre perfect. Sadly, they forgot to clean the windows while they were up there, but we have a scaffold tower and a squeegee so we'll do it.

By noon all nine huge windows had been installed, the windows and doors are locked and finally it feels like our house.