Construction Widow aka Gilles has a new mistress

It is official. I have become a construction widow! In other words, Gilles has a new mistress (picture on the left). His new mistress was once just an idea, a dream. Now, she is taking shape. When I met her today for the first time, she had a few floorboards nailed down. By the time, Gilles comes home tonight, I expect that she might have the wall structure already built. This my dear friends is one of 2 mistresses Gilles is allowed to have: the shed & the house.

So, I decided to embrace his new love and make sure he was well fed. Ok, I also wanted to spy a little and see how things were going. Yesterday, I brought lunch. I stopped by the Rumeur Affamé, picked up a quiche and headed over to the construction site. What a pleasant break from a hard working day. Today, I showed up with sandwiches, but the lunch was quickly over. After gobbling, his sandwich, Gilles' mistress was calling and he quickly returned to nailing some lumber.

Later, I thought I would grab some groceries and prepare Gilles' summer time favorite: BBQ steak and BBQ corn on the cob. I imagined he would not be home early so I prepped everything for 7 which is already past his usual arrival time.  Well, 7 came and went and still no sign of him. I wondered if his mistress would not let him go. This morning he thought he might sleep there, but he promised to come home for dinner. So, I decided to go ahead and make it to buy some time. I ate dinner alone thinking he would be home any minute and then he would just join me. My dinner was over and he was still not home. Finally, at 8:15 I decided to drive to meet him and find out what had happened. Mostly, I thought I was just going to get annoyed at him losing track of time, but you never know and it is best to be prudent. By the time I got to the village, I saw a dirty old construction man waiving me down. Where was the car? What was he doing just walking in the village? Was he just running late and picking up some fromage en crottes??

The truth was that Gilles wanted to leave the land and his mistress behind at a reasonable hour. The car, on the other hand, had other plans. It did not want to leave. So with a car that would not start, Gilles decided to walk home. Now, I would like to put this in perspective. Gilles worked hard from about 8:30 to 5:30 all day on the land, hard labour. Then, he hiked home for about 12 km or 7 miles to the village. He left most of his tools in the car, but he did manage to carry the batteries all the way so that they could be charged for the morning.

Well, I am happy he is home safe and sound. We'll figure out the car issues tomorrow and hopefully it won't be such a big deal.

More pictures of the progress. Click here