Putting in the windows

In the absence of any paid builders - Francois the plumber apparently still off with his bad knee, and Raymond the tiler running three weeks behind schedule - I decided to get on with work myself. We'd ordered small fixed windows for the few original window openings in the barn - small high-up square holes, which will now be in our bathroom, shower room, etc - just the double-glazed units with no frame.

I cleaned up the openings yesterday and glued the panes in place with mastic, and today I mortared them in, on the inside and the outside. To me most of them look slightly crooked, but I am not sure whether this might be an optical illusion: they seem to be square in the stone opening. I'll check with a spirit level one day, but in the meantime I'll try to think that they add character that way.

The openings did appear to have been cut with a view to putting glass in them, with a flat inner surface that otherwise would have been unnecessary. Though clearly in the 100 years since the barn was built (OK, 99 years) no one had got around to doing it before.

Starting work on this was a little delayed, as a result of a cow incident: Jean-Pierre's cows all escaped and had to be fetched back. This was about a dozen Saler cows, a similar number of calves, and, of course, the bull. Unusually, they had got through the fence into the woods below the field, and had them wandered up past our barn and down the lane. We didn't realise how they had got out until we thought we'd rounded them all up, only to see a lone straggler walking past our pool. Luckily it decided the water was too cold for swimming. The bull was a little frisky, and decided to demolish a large part of one of Leontine's new apple trees. He may just have been scratching his head, but the result was a late and rather heavy pruning. I was astonished to see how little attention Leontine paid to the cows and the bull, walking through them on the lane to get to the bakers van: the cows all have wicked pointed horns, and with their calves around there's always a chance of a misunderstanding.

By the afternoon the weather had actually become hot, and Caro braved the 20 degree water in the pool (twice). I'm waiting for it to be a bit warmer, though I couldn't find enough shade to sit and read later, as the walnut tree is not yet out in full leaf.