While Mum's Away...

Well, Mum has been away for four days now, and so far everything is going splendidly... we have discovered several new fungi around the house (a tasty snack if things get desperate), Archie has finished up much of our unwanted leftover food from the kitchen surfaces (and thrown it up under the table as a special treat for Dad at 3am) and to solve the problem of showering, there is a handy leak just above the toilet (multitasking at its finest). We only forgot about the chickens one day and they seem to be surviving, Islay, on the other hand, is being particularly mopey and following us all around like a lost... well, dog I suppose.

(That's a puddle of her tears on the floor there)

I bought her a knuckle bone today in the hopes of cheering her up, but instead of sad she's now very angry- so much so that I wrestled it away from her before I could go out in fear of her attacking a visitor in my absence.

On a more relevant note, the house itself is doing excellently although living in it is a little breezy at times. The roof is nearly done and Dad and Rick have been bashing in windows upstairs in preparation for an even chillier winter. They managed to get three in yesterday, with a new and improved fitting technique, even after spending quite some time trying to fit the wrong one to start with (it was too fat for the hole).

(It's very dusty up there)

No window...

Window -seaward view...

Window -treeward view...

A rare sighting of the red-capped window fitting gnome...

The scaffolding has come down a layer at the front, allowing us to access the bottom of the windows from the outside, but also creating a treacherous three foot drop which must be clambered up and down four-hundred times a day when we're up there. This is the scaffolders taking it down a level, I'm sorry you don't have a better shot, but I felt like a bit of a pervert...

I'd love to give you some pretty photos of a sunset or frolicking otter, but it has mostly been raining and I have mostly been looking at the inside of the upstairs bedroom walls ~(in order to fill in some of the many holes).

(This is no longer a hole)

Instead, here is Dan, an unfortunately placed drop of spray and some nice waves down at Kintra the other day...

And this is the view from the top of the roof (in case you were wondering)...

Typically, there was no actual need for me to be up there, but apparently I don't know the difference between lead and aluminium and spent an hour perching on the ridge trying to polish it shiny regardless. 

Anyway, I am off for dinner now (Dan has rustled up half a pig) which will hopefully be a better success than my gloopy/chewy beef pie yesterday. The less said about that the better I think. 

Ta ta for now. 

Katie xxx