Finally finished digging the trench to take the rainwater away from the new guttering on the kitchen out into a ditch on the edge of our property. It's was not a long trench but it was heavy going clay type soil mixed with rubble and some old farm rubbish and ended up taking about a week all told (not full time!).

Part of the process involved excavating around the bottom of the building to remove the builders dropped bricks and motar and put in a French Drain and gravel. The depth of the new foundations meant that the soil , when returned, would pile up around the foot of the building and could cause a damp problem if the water is not allowed to soak away. The French seem to paint a rubber solution around the base of new building below ground level rather than use a damp proof course between bricks.

Of course at the first sign of rain I was stood out in the ditch watching the water gush out of my new pipework.

After the plasterboard delivery Monday, Ian and I have been making the piles smaller by putting up the two ceilings in each of the gites. Apart from boarding straight over the first loft hatch and forgetting where it was everything went very smoothly. I didn't make the same mistake with the second hatch in the other gite. I know it sounds a bit bizarre losing a loft hatch that I only constructed a few hours earlier, but once the ceiling is up it's a bit featureless. A bit of tapping around and a small exploratory hole soon confirmed it's location.

Ian spent half a day of sterling work filling holes in the gable ends with small rocks and cement whilst I humped 15 huge rolls of 200mm glassfibre into the loft space ready to lay out once I've run the electric cabling for room lights etc. and VMC ducting. The VMC is a fan unit located in the loft to extract damp air from bathrooms, toilets and the kitchen by a network of flexible plastic ducting. It detects the humidity/mositure in the air. Caroline has started to do the internal pointing for the exposed stone walls with a sand and lime mix. It really makes the stonework come alive and look very nice indeed.

Today has been another monster shopping day for Caroline and I. We've been buying toilets, showers, internal doors, baths, and various other bits and bobs so next week we can start on the internal walls and subsequently first fit electrics and plumbing.

We had a delivery today; a huge lorry load packed to the gunwales with stuff. It looked extremely daunting see it pull into the courtyard. We had ordered 140 sheets of plasterboard, 450 m² of glassfiber insulation (various thicknesses), wood, metalwork etc. I'm not sure I appreciated quite how much stuff there was.

Ian and I shifted all the glassfibre inside (it's a lot heavier than you think) and we were already tired out by the end of it, and we hadn't even started on the plasterboard.

Fortunately Caroline had sweet talked our local friendly farmer, Yves, to come round with hist tractor and help us lift all the plasterboard upstairs. A little improvisation with a forked hay bale lifter a few pallets and the plasterboard balanced precariously on the front was just the job. After moving 70 sheets upstairs the four of us where dead on our feet. As luck would have it it was now 12:30 and time for lunch. With a Frenchman in our midst we felt obliged to have a three course leisurely lunch with Ricard and wine.

Rejuvenated and revitalised the second instalment didn't seem quite so bad, but it's possible the soporific effects of lunchtime were blurring our judgement and numbing the aches in our limbs.

The good news is we are all systems go to do nearly all the ceilings and walls in the two gites upstairs.

Armed with 36 tubes of silicone mastic I had the remainder of the windows in my sights. Five of them went in very easily, with just one other causing me a slight probem because the window sill wasn't level – and hence square to the walls – it wanted to twist the frame.

I ended up using just over 2 tubes of mastic per window. By the last two windows I had to use my left hand to operate the mastic gun cos my wrist was shot. Caroline also had to do a bit of surfing to find out the solvent for silicone sealant. I'd wiped my hands on my overalls so many times some of it had rubbed off onto the glass. A bit of white spirit was all that was required.

The last few days have seen very good progress. Caroline has spent most evenings over the last week painting the doors and windows for both gites. One door – two are on order- and nine windows. In the current weather they dry much better between coats in our house and then I can fit them finished.

Three windows upstairs have been fitted, but I had to stop because I ran out of mastic. All the windows and doors are fitted to the inside of the stonework and it uses quite a bit of mastic to fill any gaps. The addition of windows to the gites makes a real difference to the appearance. Instead of a stone building with holes it's now starting to look like a house.  In the meantime Ian and I have finished the studwork for both ceilings upstairs, and all the external wall studding and sloping ceilings/walls. Once the lorry load of plasterboard and insulation arrives on Monday we should be able to start putting up some internal walls.

Tomorrow will be another mamouth shopping trip to buy more supplies; mastic, wood, metal studwork, screws …