As above, the old decking was getting downright dangerous as it had been hacked together decades ago with whatever they had lying around the farm, most of the wood was rotten so it had to go.
With the wood shortage in France, it proved challenging to get everything to match, but we got there in the end, glad it is mostly finished and in-between cutting grass and gardening/cutting trees down, I can start replacing 4 windows in the cottage.
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Well done Colin - very tidy job!
Good work 
Very tidy - not a huge fan of decking personally but I can see that you have done a good job there. The cats seem to have given it their seal of approval as well
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It’s complicated, there is not a lot we can do bar put decking down as there are old stone beds under it which would need a JCB to lift.
The cottage used to be a 3 storey House, two brick plus wooden top floor and roof, at some time between the 17th & 18th century, the old castle was turned into the chateau and the moat was widened and stone lined, the top of the house burned down and the hundreds of tons of spoil from the moat was used to level off the farm and the bottom floor of the house was buried and became the cellar.
The old front door and window are now 10ft underground, the 3 storey house became a cottage and was extended three times.
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Can see how wood use got more sparing at each stage Colin! Are you planning on letting any plants climb on the trellis fencing at the front edge?
Erm…it certainly sounds as though your house has got solid foundations
Cool.
Where’s the hotub?
What a complicated history.
It is, the stables lower floor was filled in and buried, the back of the cottage and stables is between 8 an 15 ft lower than the front and the conservatory is built on top of an old 6ft high very large concrete septic tank 
parts of the chateau incorporate the old sheriff court and one of the original 6 turrets, one of the other turrets is now in the middle of a man made huge lake, the back boundary wall between our property’s are part of the old 25 ft high battlements of the old castle.
The 300 square metre barn we are going to convert used to be a manor house centuries ago, if you look for them you can see where all the old huge arched doors and windows have been filled in and where the fireplaces were.
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nice tub!
I wanted one that was easy to empty and could be put away for the winter, it’s one of the ones that have the rigid foam sections between the inside and outside liners so once empty it can be dried and folded up then stored until the spring again, it makes it easy to move as well, in saying that I’m explaining this to the wrong person here 
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The decking was designed like that not due to shortage of wood, I don’t like spindles and a banister as they are too thick, so use the trellis instead as it would block the view from the hot tub and the wicker furniture we will bring back from the UK on the next trip.
Today’s job was trying to get the pond greenery back under control, between the brambles, hazel, willow, lilacs and reeds it is a yearly battle.
There is still 5ft to come off the height, but at least most of the width is now back, using a chainsaw or hedge trimmer while up to your chest in water in a set of waders, is interesting at times, especially when you get a slap in the back of the legs from the big carp who don’t like you being in their pond 
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We’ve taken to using Lidl’s chainsaw-on-a-stick thingy for difficult to get at bits. Probably a bit too amateur for you though 
Two chainsaws, one petrol, one electric and one of these.
Oh, excellent, Colin! You should be able to tackle anything with that lot (and it does rather look as if you have to, one way and another )
The hedge trimmer tool is especially good because of the torque the petrol engine produces, it just chomps through branches that a electric or battery one will not look at, it is also good that you can trim at a right angle around 15ft up so you don’t need ladders.
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Looking good Colin!