This blog entry is most especially for my friend Lynn who
was also an animal mad vet nurse when we first met
and for Phil who is just mad, but knows so much about trees!
There are days when we just look at the Screwfix catalogue
or gaze into space...
Look over the hills...
... for tree monsters...
...or into the burn for something to shake...
...days when we start a new phase...
...then realise that it's the worst job ever!
It gets in your eyes and if you wear goggles you can't see...
So you go outside and have a look around...
...check out the view...
...from the Fairy hill.
...the larch trees are waiting...
...bent by the winds...
...graceful...
...waving..,
Foxgloves too!
...and catkins on Hazel trees...
...time to go down...
...the house is calling...
We have 2 weeks to get 4 rooms ready for Martin,
the electrician, to come and do the first fix.
Dan and Katie move 2" x 3" wood up through the ceiling.
Jenny fills notches in the joists,
they have been weakened to run wires through in the past.
Very frustrating at first as they have to be a very tight fit without splitting. "Did I hear a rude word Jenny?"
Time to ask Gary back...
...and look at the progress.
Stud walling, window seats, insulation...
...even the odd water pipe.
Everyone had to cut the insulation boards in the end
and guess who's line was straightest? Not Nick!
Gary even let us use his saw to cut noggins.
Dan has to win the prize for perseverance in cutting
the awkward shapes out for 3 days.
I had to have a break and do easy things.
Like use my new pole chainsaw!
Thanks to my brother Steve for getting it here,
it came all the way from Norfolk last week.
It's amazing, what more can I say?
I hope my Dad would be proud of my hedge laying, though
I don't remember ever laying Rhododendron! It's like a monster, it twists and turns and kills everything in it's wake!
A room with a view, but not much else!
In the not too distant future all of this lath and plaster is going to fall into the room below where we are living...
but hopefully in a controlled way.
There were times this winter, when all were not happy in the Dower House, stuck doing things that needed doing, but didn't seem like progress, in the wet and damp. That has all changed in the last 2 weeks, Martin Armstrong agreed to take us on and also Gary who doesn't have to teach us, but does and these are the people we could not do without.
After all it's a big job, or so we've been told!
In April Dan ad Katie will be preparing to leave on their travels to Trinidad and South America, family and friends will be visiting...with their tools and we hope to have Andy Thomson, chainsaw man, working with us part time, while starting his own business. So you see that's another step forward.
Mary-Ann
P.S. Is there a plumber out there who fancies a couple of weeks on a beautiful island with the best view in the world???
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