Remember those cracks in my bedroom ceiling?

Which I spent ages repairing that winter? Well what I didn't tell you was that it all cracked open again the next summer. Wet weather and the cracks close up (though not completely), dry weather and they open up again. There were also some cracks on the outside of the house at that end, the garage gable end. That blog post is here, but you will have to scroll past the bird photos at the beginning to see the decorating bit.

There wasn't much we could do about this so just shrugged it off until we started reading about lots of other people having similar problems after that drought summer of 2022. However in order to claim off the insurance, the commune had to declare the area a 'catastophe naturelle'. Eventually they did so, so we decided to give it a go, not really expecting much to come of it. 

A lady came around and had a good look around, couldn't see anything immediately to blame so she said she would arrange for various experts to come out and run some tests.

I can't remember what all these different people did, but one lot was looking for water leaks, and the last lot, by which time we were not holding out much hope any more, was doing a soil test. Result! (Actually a bit of common sense here...) The house is built on clay (we knew that) and it dried out more than usual during that very hot dry summer, causing the cracks. Actually the ones in our bedroom had already been there, they just got a lot worse.

So fast forward a bit of time and this June we will be having remedial works on the house. Basically underpinning the foundations of the basement load bearing walls by resin injection (a lot less work and mess than proper concrete underpinning). However I freaked when I discovered this work would take place INSIDE the house, and they'd be drilling down through our tiled floor in both the garage and the spare bedroom. I calmed down when they said that they would retile the floors afterwards!

They are also making a concrete 'pavement' all around three sides of the house running from the house for about 1 metre wide, sloping slightly so that rainwater is directed away from the foundations.

Then they will wait two years and see if anything moves. If it doesn't, then the cracks will be repaired and the house will be repainted on three sides. Our bedroom will also get the repair and repaint job. We have asked for them to paint the fourth exterior side (living room and pool side, not built over a basement) at our expense, as it will be cheaper as they will already be there with scaffolding etc. 

Our expenses will be 3000 Euros excess plus the expense of a removal company to come and pack/load all the crap in the garage and workroom and the spare bedroom furniture and store it for several weeks, then bring back here again. Plus the pool side exterior painting which we are choosing to have done. Given that these works are costing approx 150,000 Euros (of which it is 15,000 E just for exterior painting of three sides of the house), I think we have got off quite lightly!! 

Unfortunately though, it has meant the end of my shrubs out the front of the house beside the wall. We were also told that the fruit trees in the back garden were too close to the house and would have to go (there's a certain height a tree can be related to how far it is from the house and they far surpass that). Trees grow, and even though we have pruned back the fruit trees a bit, cherries like to grow and want to be big - and they suck up the moisture in the soil. We would never have planted them so close to a building, but other people just don't think ahead 15-20 years or more when they plant little saplings.

We were very lucky that a local gardener was able to come out very promptly and do the work for us, at a very reasonable price. He did in a day what would have taken us weeks!

So bye bye to my two wonderful cherry trees and the greengage tree, and also our bay tree out the front. Stupidly I forgot to cut a few branches for drying, but I'll be buying a bay tree to grow in a pot.

Looking back five years to this photo below.

30th Jan 2025. You can see that we already took out the two smallest plum trees, which never produced anything much, and what they did produce always had grubs in. You can see how much taller the cherries were - and see how much our oleander hedge has grown too, which is a good thing for privacy. (The neighbour's pool used to be in full view of our kitchen window, now I can see none of it).

During the work.

And after. We were really impressed by the gardener who left all the wood stacked and really cleaned up after himself. Plus he was nice and friendly!

Note also the home made bird feeder which Keith has made for our birds as the feeders used to hang in the tree there. They are still feeding like crazy and we like happy birdies!

The day before I was moving gravel away from the plants that I wanted to keep.

During. The nice gardener had offered to dig up the plants that I wanted to keep which I had only planted about three years ago - a couple of lavenders, a Mexican Fleabane and a Sea Lavender that was already there, plus a bit of Vinca which had a flower on already. 

He tried to dig up the Skimmia to take home himself but gave up as the roots were just too vast and the shrub wouldn't have transplanted losing all the roots that would have had to be cut away in order to move it. Shame.

He brought a shredder which made quick work of getting rid of both the shrubs and the smaller tree branches.

And after. So bare, so sad!

God, the house looks so filthy now! It's going to look so much better after painting. The plan out the front is to lay gravel over the concrete that is laid in the front and put pretty pots there - I'll buy some decorative plastic ones and paint them, or some of them, in the bright blue that I like. For some reason that colour is out of fashion in the garden centres and I haven't seen that glaze available for several years now. Obviously the pots will have plants in!