A day by day account of my holiday follows, for a lack of things to do.

Day 1 was fairly boring, just driving down. I drove for a stretch of the M20 in the UK (between the M25 interchange and Ashford) and then the A10 south of Paris to Orléans.

We got an interesting phone call just north of Paris, though. Turns out there’s been a freak storm here, damaging the house and what not. Parents aren’t best pleased with this news.

Spent the night in a motel room smelling of cig smoke.

Now we’re onto today, or day 2. I drove down the A71 for a few hours and then my parents drove down the back roads to the house. And then we got here, with the builders here and surveyed the damage. They’d manage to patch up the worst of the roof – some of the tiles had just moved so they just needed to be relocated. About a quarter of the roof is destroyed though, so they’ve just waterproofed and tarpaulined that up. A lot of windows are smashed, and there’s glass everywhere. The storm ripped up a fair few trees – especially on the flat area of land, so we’ve had to clear those up before we could do anything.

That’s about it, really. I’ve taken some pictures to show the house and the damage.

This is the house from the front. Currently there are no stairs inside so to get upstairs you have to use these stairs.

As you can see, the garden is on a bit of a slope.

The house from the back. You can see the tarpaulin on the roof. This is the only way to access downstairs.

This is one of the more finished rooms in the house, the kitchen. There’s a fridge and microwave behind me. Paul says he’s going to try and get that plasterboard finished on Monday so we’ll be able to start fitting the kitchen units and make at least one room of the house liveable.

This room is nowhere near finished. Indeed, it’s not even got a floor. It will be the living room, though.

This is a better view of the front of the house.

The bathroom is pretty much useable, although the glue hasn’t dried on the sink yet. Floors, walls and electrics need to be done though (there’s a temporary light in here)

The house was originally four appartments, and we’re building them into one, by knocking through the walls and building a set of stairs. This will be a step where a wall was. One false move and you could end up downstairs, though. ;)

This room bore the brunt of the storm. There was a door there, but it was blown off it’s hinges.

This is the valley as seen from an upstairs window.

This is where we’re living, just next to the house. My Mum thinks she’s being funny.

All these trees you see are what we’ve had to remove to make the area safe after the storm damaged them.

This was one of the bigger trees affected by the storm.

Our house is near the top of the hill. This is another picture of the valley.

All for now :)