Parlez-Vous Francais ?

Another hectic but good week overall. Weather has been dry so has allowed a fair bit of progress. I spent the best part of the week tracing an underground water supply which had been bodged, crossed and spurred by the previous land owner. I managed to find the majority of the runs but one is going to need finding with the Cat and genny working with the trace wire. Basically a flexible cable is put along the plastic MDPE pipe as unlike steel pipe it doesn't really give off a signal when using the Cat (Cable Avoidance Tool). The genny then energises the trace wire and the Cat is then able to pick up the signal.

The rest of the lads have been busy stripping out an old cattle shed and putting in all the concrete formers for a wash pad in a haulage yard.
I've been looking at a variety of trucks for them and quite like some of the ex-utility company Defender 110 and 130's. They have a good set-up with tool lockers etc which could be useful.
Well, this looks as though this will be the final week that I have my Defender as my Discovery is now in at the dealers waiting to be prepped and go through the workshop. As I've said before, it has been the best Defender I think I have owned and I'll be sad to see it go - well, until I'm sat in the comfortable heated leather seats of the Discovery....

Managed to get a low-loader move in yesterday afternoon so the 14 tonner is now at the next job ready for early Monday morning. Bit of a challenging job this one with a wet hole in a woodland needing to be drained. The levels are fairly tight and it will be a constant operation between digger and site level to get it right. Having said that, those are the jobs which make the whole thing interesting.
One of my customers in London who has a big property in France has requested that we go over to France at the end of April to carry out some maintenance and repair work on the place. It is in a beautiful part of Normandy and is always a 'work hard, play hard' type of job which sees a lot of work carried out during daylight hours and a lot of eating and drinking of good food and wine in the evening.
It's one of the only jobs I know where I have a 'waiting list' of people who want to work away !
My most important task when I am over there is to go to the village each morning to buy fresh bread, cheese and cooked meats for lunch as well as the ingredients for the evenings main meal and of course a few bottles of wine. Once that has been done, I can attend to the less important matter in hand and oversee what is going on with the job ! The people in that region are fantastic and so warm, friendly and helpful.
If it wasn't for the funny language, you'd swear they weren't French...



Barry Chuckle is infact Wayne Rooney's brother.