The fireplace in the ‘piano room’ has been completely freed of its cement so that, as we’d hoped, the stone can appear, but we’re in for a big surprise (and no, it’s not the treasure of Kerbeleg…) when we discover a tangle of beams eaten away by insects and a heap of crumbly cob that we’re going to have to replace very quickly with good stone from the small wall and lime cement so that the sky (fireplace and ceiling) doesn’t fall on our heads. In the words of a former priest (our project manager Olivier, who has taken off his cassock and put on his architect’s habit): “It was only held together by theoperation of the Holy Spirit“. We thought the reference was a valid one, coming from a connoisseur of the subject and in view of the photos he showed us in Singapore in our absence…
