You probably know that the 14th of July in France is a national holiday. It's the day, some 200 years ago, that the French people decided that the royalty were too big, and cut off their heads to make them smaller.

They still celebrate this event every year. On the 14th, there is always a massive parade in Paris, on the Champs Elysee, but almost every city, town and village has their own parade.

This year, Trish and I decided to have a look at the big parade in Fecamp.

... we were not disappointed. It was massive....


The musicians, war vets and others were gathered at the main square.


2 rows of 5 war vets were flying proudly the flag.


Then they went for the parade, first the musicians, then the vets....


... followed by the fire brigade...


... followed by the local politicians (the Mayor decided not to attend) and the local constabulary.

And that ended another exciting 14th of July parade. Why people flock to the Paris parade is a mystery for me....

Well, the pool is finished, and apart from a few technical issues, like having way too much calcium in the water (from our normal water supply, which has one of the highest calcium contents in France), and some changes here and there which we need to do, the pool is now operational.

Trish & I spent the day in the pool. We half opened the shelter, water was between 28 and 30°C... bliss...

Below is the video of the whole construction project, from A-Z. The video lasts 8 minutes 20 seconds, and you might want to turn down the volume... just warning.

NOTE: The video was made using the security cameras in our house, so the quality is not that good.

Almost there. This morning they came and hooked up the pool equipment. Over the weekend, we had filled up the pool 3/4, then the pool guys came and adjusted the liner, hooked up all equipment, and now it's filtering, cleaning and heating.

Then at 1 in the afternoon, this showed up:



... and when the moved the side away, this is what I saw:



... the pool shelter had arrived.

Bits & pieces were moved to the pool...



... and in the burning sun (for a change), the big pieces were moved over...





... until all five elements were placed:





... then the side were mounted and the top placed onto the sides..



.. here's the view from the inside



.. and here's the finished product. It's not perfect, since when the shelter is pushed open, there's still a big space covered, but it's something that our mason can rectify by adding a few stones.









Thursday the pool will have reached optimal temperature, 28°C, and we'll be able to swim...

We're almost there. Today a liner specialist arrived with the pool builder. He was contracted by the pool company since he was a big specialist in putting up armed liner.

After coffee, they set off to clean the pool from the rain water and dirt & leaves that had flown in.


Then they set rolls of armed liner on the ground, and...


drilled holes in the concrete bottom and placed the liner. Then...


they placed the next roll of liner onto top of the first one, and...


with a sort of electric hair-dryer running on turbo and steroids, melted the PVC onto each other, and using a small roller, "glued" the two pieces together.


After a whole day, everything was melted and glued into place...


...and at 18:00 water was let in (using the hose since the filters are going to be put to work only tomorrow).


Next week Friday, the shelter arrives, so until then, the water will be dirty with leaves, since it's windy here.

After having visited a vintage car and motorcycle swap meet and exposition in Cany-Barville (see some photos by clicking here), we went and had lunch at our friends, the Froidures at their castle close-by.

It was a typical nice French lunch, in other words, plenty of food, starting at around 14:00 and ending at 18:00. Sunshine, good friends and plenty of food. Life doesn't get better....

There has been an enormous delay thanks to Stradal, the factory that makes the tiles that are placed around the pool. The ones that are to be placed against the pool are round, and the factory has been lying to us, making false promises, and eventually the local distributor had enough and sent one of his own trucks at his own expense to get the stones. As companies go, this one is rock bottom, soulless and not to be trusted.

We didn't have a choice, since they have a virtual monopoly in France. The whole affair has been like this for 2 months, and everything was held up, since the tiles need to be placed before they can continue with the pool.

Anyway, they arrived last Friday, and the lads have been busy placing them


Here you can see how far they are placing them.


You can see that they have also started putting in the joints.

.. and here's the progress on the garden:



Next week Thursday they start putting in the liner, and the week after that the shelter.

We had planned on spending an evening with our Belgian friends and neighbors at the local duck farm. The farm, who not only grow ducks, but also make a large variety of duck related food, like foie gras de canard, rilettes, and incredibly great duck sausage, were throwing a Cassoulet evening.

A Cassoulet is a white bean dish, normally with pork and beef, but in this case, with duck.

The farm had arranged for several other producers to set up their stands for people to try their products. Wine, champagne, jams, soups, etc were all available to try (for free), and to buy.



The Gods were on the farm's side, since the sun was splitting the rocks, but it was a tad cold.



Some 150 people were shepherded inside a tent and hallway, where there were several tables set for the guests.

Here's Trish with our friends.



The tent was set against their shed, so part of us were in the tent, the rest in the shed.



The Chef was working away in his enormous pots, where in the white beans were simmering away.



An army of helpers where at hand to bring the plates to the 150 guests.



Here you see the cassoulet on the plate.



Second helpings to the duck for everyone<.

We had a great night, with lots of laughter and a singer entertaining us.

Yesterday, the lads got the pool ready for the tiles, and today they poured in the concrete.



The whole day you could hear the concrete machine running...



Until Monday, we'll have peace here, since they're not coming back until then. The bad news is that the titles that were supposed to be delivered, have not, and will only be delivered on the 17th, so until then, there's not much they can do. Monday, they're going to start cleaning up the place, so that the gardener can start the main work.

After the pebbles were placed alongside the pool walls, it was time to place a fine concrete bottom in the pool, place and hook up the pipes, and even the gardener showed up to see the damage the trucks had made...



The pool bottom received a fine concrete layer onto which they will install a thick, and strengthened, liner.



Half got done, the other half is going to be done tomorrow.



You can (barely) see the pool guys hooking up the equipment in the shed.



Even the gardener team had done good work....