Stone wall repair

The chateau was originally built with stone walls. Over time many of these walls were rendered or plastered over. The reason for this was that by having your walls covered you were expressing your wealth. Of course the original stone walls look so much nicer and reflect the true age of the chateau and this is why we are repairing and exposing so many of them. While the sun shines Mark & Michelle are repointing the outside walls.

There are also quite a few repairs to make. Most of the damage is due to water from leaking gutters and drain pipes. There is other damage where pipes or cables have been put through the walls. The East side of the chateau is still pretty much all stone. Many of the other walls are rendered with the stone work visable just for the lower areas below the windows. Whilst Mark & Michelle have been doing the 

walls the rest of us have been continuing what seems to be the unending task of sorting out the lawns. We have to cut them to medium length and then dispose of all of the grass. We literally have tons of it. We collect it all up in large builders bags and as we are not allowed to burn it we are dumping it in one of the fields where it will rot and then be ploughed in before autumn. Once we have the taken away the long grass the lawns can then be cut with a mulching mower so no need to collect grass!