Right let's resume the story :-
We signed a 12 month written contract with the French builder that the architect worked for, in May of 2006 . (We preferred them to the alternative English builder we had considered, mainly because they seemed much more interested in what we wanted to achieve and appeared very professional and organised in their approach). From what I could tell they had a well established reputation in the area and of course my French teacher said that I should choose a French builder in order to improve my French (I don’t think she quite understood the gravity of this, but boy how right she was there). I also liked the idea of putting something back into the community that we were fortunate enough to be buying a small part of.
Works started on time on 21st May 2006. (Quite bizarre really that we started the foundations of our own self-build project in England on exactly the same day six years earlier !
As you can see, due to the site being on a decent slope (pente) the builders had a bit of 'terracing' to do, before construction commenced !
Being on the side of a hill has it's advantages - fantastic views for one. But the down side is that - Bigger the slope = bigger the construction costs.
I think I once read that for every 1 degree of slope a site has, you can add about 1% to your build costs. In our case a 12 degree slope, probably did add about 12 % to our costs.
I ensured with the builder that we were notified of the exact day they were to dig the footings, so that we could go over and watch the process. I needed some reassurance that these people knew what they were doing and wanted to make sure that they didn’t skimp on this crucial part of the project. 
This is me just posing, pretending I was helping out with the footings, but it was in fact a pleasure not to have to.
Christine and I watched the concrete being poured into the trenches, which I have to say was a much more relaxed affair than our own experience some years earlier, when the trenches began collapsing, Christine managed to cut her wrist open on some reinforcing mesh and we had torrential rain for about two days afterwards. All hands to the pump and chaos are my memories.
By comparison, the French guys (there were only two of them, one digging out with a JCB and the other using his laser level, to ensure the concrete was poured correctly) seemed to know exactly what they were doing and had apparently done this a million times before.
Our next visit was in July, by which time the ground floor slab had been poured and trunking for cables and pipes as well as foul drains had been laid beneath the ground.
The ground floor walls had been erected and by the time we left at the end of the week they were up to the ground floor ceiling. 
A start had also been made on the swimming pool.
Another trip over in August and the builders had cast another concrete slab at first floor level (they do seem to like their concrete over there and it is all very well reinforced with iron meshing. Even the base for the “Plage de la Piscine“ is reinforced concrete, ready to then take the slabs on top. I figure the slabs once laid on top wont budge an inch for decades, against the English idea, of a bit of hardcore, “Whack it down”, a couple of inches of sand and slabs on top of that, which does last for maybe tens years before you need your hiking boots, whilst walking, to make sure you don‘t twist that ankle on them. The reinforcing is one of the reasons why the pool (10m x 5 m) cost more than 50,000€ to construct. Another being that we have had concrete steps leading from the house down to the pool . There is also to be quite a large “Plage” around the pool and there is a concrete pool house (“technique local“) attached to one corner of the pool, where the pump, filtration etc has beeen housed and which is large enough for some additional storage. But the main reason for the seemingly large cost of the pool construction, is the sloping site. As mentioned above, do not underestimate the costs of building on a slope.
It is our belief that these costs are more than compensated for, by the view from the house down onto the pool and across the adjacent fields., which in August are “A sea of sunflowers”.
The last trip of 2006 at the end of October, revealed the roof complete, the bulk of the construction work on the pool completed and work about to start on the inside in earnest. A time also for choosing the essentials, Showers, Baths, basins, sinks, doors, floor tiles, wall tiles, guttering, style, material, colour etc, etc,etc.
Talking of colour, the builder gave us an option of doing the decorating ourselves. Just for painting all interior walls, ceilings and the exterior shutters their price was almost 8,000€. (Paint is very expensive in France compared to the UK). So, figuring we can do it for less than half that price, we decided to pay for flights for a few friends and have a paint party when the builders had finished their efforts in March 07.
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