Days 81 to 86 in isolation at Tony and Nickys

Full of garden waste? Don't be ridiculous!

We did have a whole day off and very pleasant it was too, though sadly it kept looking like rain so we didn’t go and see the sea!

Thursday the gable end block work was finished, it actually took a lot less time than I expected as although lots of blocks needed cutting, the rows kept getting shorter.... Very pleased that that was done as we kept getting swifts (or are they swallows?) in. Then they fly up and down getting quite frantic and tired till either they manage to find another way out, or someone gives in and fetches the window opener... The really strange thing is that since we did this we still have swallows (or are the swifts?) three or maybe four, but these seem to know what they are doing. They come in the back door, that we use most

The last cut block for the gable end!

of the time, not concerned whether we are in the way, and then play, swooping up and down, and chasing each other, before darting out through tiny gaps above what will be the big windows before coming back in and repeating. What the difference between these three and previous birds is I don’t know, but they are loving it and are totally at ease coming and going and with us making lots of noise and mess.

Swooping birds in the Steading

Blockwork done round the big window and door on the right

Friday was going to be Hugh’s again, I was quite excited to leave the property for the first time in two and a half months, but sadly Tony’s half hour meeting at 09.30 was still going at 11.00! Then it was going to be tomorrow, but no, another meeting has reared it’s head... Instead preparation work was done for the back door and the big French windows, little retaining walls need to be built before the final concrete pour is done. The back doorstep also needed lowering, it was fine for me but apparently it wouldn’t be for anyone else! This involved Brian and I taking out the very big stone in the threshold and the little stones beneath it. It will also need making wider and possibly higher which will involve raising lintels Tony put in some while ago!

Look at that beautifully painted porch!

The next few days were spent working on these doorways, digging trenches to fill with concrete and building. Brian has opened up underneath another window to bring electrical cables through, and I’ve spent two days painting the porch. Bits of all three walls had been painted, but not all of any of them, that was rectified and a second coat done all over. It’s horrible paint, black, sticky, bitumen paint to waterproof the block, which is also horrible to paint as it’s not an even surface and paint has to be dobbed and stippled into all the little holes and crevices! I still feel I’ve got painters claw!

Old lintels out, new ones in, wall held up by anti gravity paste!

Today was lintels in another window, downstairs living room. Again the hairy business of removing old wooden beams leaving the stones above supported by anti-gravity paste until the new concrete lintels are inserted and cemented in with packing to fill the gaps. Once started we have to continue, so make sure we are fed and watered before! Only one more window to go, upstairs in the gable end!

The chicks can’t really be called chicks anymore, if they were being bred as birds for 'roast chicken' they would have reached the end of their lives, as they are not you wouldn’t really get a satisfactory meal from them but it does put things into perspective... They have been allowed out into the bigger space attached to their little pen and they love it. It really wound the geese up as they were getting too close to their nest, albeit with a fence inbetween which the geese couldn’t seem to fathom. It didn’t take the chicks long to work out that the geese couldn’t ‘get’ them though....

Little chicks in their new outside home

Actually, they're not so little - or chicks now

Tony has had a delivery from his mum, we were having a conversation the other week about childhood foods, Tony was going on about Blancmange, not as I remember it, cold and in a jelly mould, but hot as chocolate custard. Then, completely out of the blue, Tony had an email from his mum asking if he would like some chocolate Blancmange, she was going to be ordering some, and some custard packets.... freaky or what? 

A box arrived last week, 24 packets of custard, 12 packets of chocolate Blancmange and six chocolate cake mixes (each one making two layers, so one per Blancmange.....) so, how would it be? As he remembered it? Better than I remembered cold Blancmange? Good, yes and yes, hurrah! The rhubarb bushes are going mad, so that’s custard sorted and Tesco have condensed milk back in, so that’s Brian’s ice cream back on the menu, particularly yummy with any of the frozen fruit sauces from last years fruit. Luckily Brian is ‘pudding mum’ when it comes to serving up!

A quarter of a chocolate cake each, covered in hot chocolate custard. Whats not to like? And memory lane for Tony. It's only a pity that you can't see what time it is on the clock. However, you can see the bottom half and no hands are visible, so its at least 10 pm and probably later

Swallow/swifts up in the rafters in the Steading

Tony is in the somewhere sanding the floor. That's the dust being blown out!

Gummy and Tufty cats keeping out he way

Along with Genghis cat who decided the trailer was a great place to sit

Geese getting a little agitated with the chicks in their new home

Brian dug a hole through a wall for access for an electrical cable. Tony planted Roland Rat in it

Here's the next problem Tony has to sort out - underfloor heating. This is the finished house with 12 separate loops of underfloor heating coils all beautifully terminated and connected. This now needs to be repeated in the Steading

There will be two separate manifolds, one of 8 and one of 6. The one of 8 has to fit in this window recess (the one with Roland Rat in the left corner). Most of the loops of pipe have been concreted into the floor, more will go under the lounge area yet to be poured with concrete, and are coiled up just out of view. The scary part is cutting them and joining to the manifold. If they are cut wrong they won't fit and, under concrete they can't be replaced. It has to be right first time! Scary! I'm not going to cut them, Tony will do that! 

Footprints in the concrete from an earlier concrete pour. Whose prints are these?