Occasionally I'm constructive

Here’s proof that – thanks to M. Chauvel’s sauteuse (see Aug 10) – I was able to fashion the mortice-and-tenon joints necessary for the freestanding bookshelf. And no, the thing isn’t falling apart. The photo was taken through a wide-angle lens on my well-loved Pentax. Hence the curvaceous verticals.

Above the bookshelf is the underside of the wooden spiral staircase that persuaded us – more than anything else – to buy the house in France. Alas I don’t have a usable picture of the operative side of the staircase. A shame. No step structure was duplicated and the glossy black wooden handrail was polished by the passage of hands over at least 130 years.

The house walls were nearly a metre thick and resembled the masonry equivalent of Peanut Brittle. Piercing the wall to create another window was a hazardous business; small holes tended quite rapidly to become big holes. That was the job of the maçon who also provided a sort of sous-titre service when the dialect of the artisans proved hard to decode.