We’ve been busy here at Bussy-la-Pesle, and here’s video to prove it! This shows our latest work laying down a flagstone floor, and it also includes some adorable bonus footage. You’ll have to watch it to see what I mean.
As some of you may have noticed, a couple days ago I tried to upload another version of this video which included extra minute of footage accompanied by Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond. But due to intellectual property laws, that video was blocked just about everywhere except for South Sudan and a few obscure islands in the South Pacific and the North Atlantic. For the record, it was very well-received in South Sudan, where it has been selected to open the Juba Film Festival next week. But those of you who live in more repressive societies will have to make do with this version of the video without musical accompaniment. I’ve saved a copy of the original version, so when you see me in person I would be happy to arrange a screening of the Director’s Cut.
The blog’s been pretty quiet lately, but there’s lots going on here and I’ll have more updates for you soon. Tomorrow I’m going with the Laurenty family to visit Guedelon, a château being built from scratch using only techniques that were in use during the 12th century. So stay tuned!
Brendan en Bourgogne 
Hi Bren,
Great to hear your voice, see you in action and continue my favorite class, “Chateau Renovation 101.” Back story re. kitty please? Name?
Her name is Caroline, and she showed up a few weeks ago when she was barely larger than my fist. She got one of her paws mangled in a defective door at one point, but it’s recovered nicely and she’s growing very quickly. For some reason she seems to love attacking moving feet, so I breathe a sigh of relief for each day that passes without me accidentally kicking her across the courtyard.
very good work the density of stone is about 3kg per liter . so brendan you lifted how many british stones?
That looks like some pretty serious chiseling. How long does it take to prepare and lay one stone?
It varied quite a bit from stone to stone. Actually laying them in place wasn’t too bad – it usually took somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes. But for the ones that were too thick, the process of cutting the extra rock away took a long time. That could easily tack on 30 minutes, much more for the biggest ones.
Most of the flagstones that were originally from that room were pretty easy to work with – similar widths and not too thick – so we made good time at first. But those were only enough to cover about a third of the floor, and from then on almost all of the stones needed substantial reworking.
AH la petite chatte du château est trop mignonne. Donne-nous-en plus!