Days 73 to 80 in isolation at Tony and Nickys

Slight problem with my glasses! 

A whole day off, maybe, but I bet we end up doing something later except that our clothes are all on the dryer...

We finished the internal woodwork as far as we can downstairs on Monday, the kitchen, downstairs bathroom and utility room, walls and ceiling joists. Having randomly ordered wood before lockdown, Tony called out that we needed four more ‘sticks’ of 4” timber, handy that as we’ve got four sticks left.... “right, you’ve got to measure right and I’ve got to cut right then”! 

We do feel this build is lucky to be as good as it is, I have to peer at the tape measure as I’m wearing my old reading glasses, not wanting to risk my only varifocals, Brian doesn’t hear half of what is said to him, and when Tony went indoors to find a pair of glasses he came out empty handed as he couldn’t remember what he went in for.... 

Tufty cat checking that I'm doing things correctly

Between the kitchen and living room will be a block work wall, but before we do that we need to lay the underfloor heating and have a lorryload of cement delivered, and before we do that the kitchen doorway has to be enlarged and the French door space made solid.....

Here's a really annoying mistake I made: See those 'boxes' with the plywood backing? They are made like that so the plywood holds the uprights and horizontals square to each other and are used at corners or major junctions of the wall build to make sure everything is square. I've made all the ones on this part and they shout out dimensions required and I work out wood cutting lengths and build them up. So far every one has been correct, but on these two, they gave me the finished height required and I forgot there were two floor plates on this run, not one (you can just see the two on top of each other on the floor). So I built the two one thickness of wood too high (45mm). I wasn't until they were fixed in position was it noticed. Jackie looked up and said 'they are higher than the one on the left' and on looking, it was obvious. Solution: take them partially apart, cut wood, rebuild. An annoying two or three hours of extra work, but here they are refixed and correct! The gap on the left is where the kitchen window will be, just the lintel and a few stones removed so far

Little three legged Cookie cat on our bed

Yesterday Brian and Tony went to ‘Hugh’s’ farm, about an hour away where Tony started installing electrics in the cowshed (Hugh is a farmer and vet who breeds Aberdeen Angus) for calving. He got light in for that, but now it needs finishing off and electric sockets adding. Brian can write more about that as I wasn’t there...

B: Aberdeen Angus bulls are huge! They stood looking at us from behind solid steel railings and I was very glad the railings were there. They were not agressive, nor did they make a sound or move, but their presence was enough! We saw no-one at the farm, so just got on with the work Tony had started. He was installing lighting, I got on with fitting plastic conduit for wiring sockets high up round a big barn. It

A heavy downpour created this lovely rainbow

was quite dark, very dirty, with three quite noisy and smelly dogs in cages in there and I had to move loads of junk to get access to the walls to rest my ladders against. In four hours I fixed about 30m of conduit into stone walls, up and down ladders, in and out to collect bits etc. Tony managed wiring for some of the lights, but we have at least another days work. The conduit needs extending through an upstairs room and into a cattle barn then all wires need pulling through, sockets fitted and properly terminated. Its hard work, but the views outside are nice, its high up giving splendid views all round but, they tell me, its exposed and can be very cold and windy. The scenic drive back was lovely and rekindled my desire to get back out into the hills. Oh how long will this lockdown continue? 

Little chicklets out in their new home, feeling very unsure of where they are

Here's very shy Dougal cat sorting a plant out!

Instead, I was here with Nicky, I tidied up, putting away, amongst other things, the half dozen different sized screws we’d been using, two sizes of nail gun nails, four different sizes of spirit level and swept up enough sawdust to fill at least two bran tubs! I sorted out wood that the slater has thrown down, put a fence round the second vegetable patch with Nicky and made another new perch for the babies. I’d already given them a second perch, on the same beam as the one that was in there, but realised it’s really quite high for the little birds, so I’ve put one in lower. This wasn’t as easy as it sounds, there was a beam for the other two but not this one, so screw some blocks from the outside and rest the perch across it. One side easy enough, I could reach in through their entrance, the other, no way I could reach, and Nicky had gone to Tesco. Screw the points in a smidge, jam the block on, screw blind from the outside while keeping fingers crossed.... hurrah.

We even had time for an early evening G&T in the garden with Genghis cat

The babies have been outside for a couple of days now, it’s a little early, but the amount of poo they produce is unbelievable, and they were almost bursting out of their cage. They hated being put into the pet carrier either to be taken outside if the weather was good, or just to be cleaned out if the weather was bad, but strangely now it’s their safe place! What they are scared of now is the hen house, dark and full of straw. Getting them all in there for bed has been a challenge! They love the space of the little run though, watching them jumping and flapping was very cute.

Late one evening, just before dark we went out to put all the birds to bed to find the white guinea fowl on top of the duck house. Trying to get her down frightened her - and she flew off to the top of the Steading roof! 'What's your strategy for getting her down now then?' Tony asked. 'Errr' Fortunnately she flew down of her own accord before it went dark (about 11pm!)  

So why the day off? We don’t know what to start on next and Tony has meetings for the day trying to decide which college kids to pass, and which to fail. Very difficult as some of them only did 5 weeks of the 16 week CAD module and haven’t ‘engaged’ during lockdown....

Here's an updated time lapse video of the Steading woodwork build process. I think, more than anything else, its interesting to see how the piles of wood go down

Here's another view of the woodwork so far (and as far as we can go until the next concrete pour to raise the level of the lower bit in the foreground). This area is going to be their kitchen - big isn't it! Beyond, at the end will be a utility room on the left and a downstairs loo and shower

This is a view at the end. The stack of sheets of plywood is the top of the kitchen (you can just see it in the previous photo) and this is looking into the utility on left and loo and shower room in the right corner

And this is a view from inside the utility back the other way, where you can just about see the far wall, one hundred feet (30m) away