Back to work

We were back to work today (including Laura - can't have her resting too much!).  Yesterday, Laura and I did the Sainsbury's/launderette thing in the morning and then Ben and Lucy called for a cuppa on their way home from Scotland in the afternoon.  Bob did a bit of pottering around work in the morning, like sorting out the extension reel we had been using for the hot air gun and hairdryers to thaw the pipes.  I can't remember if I said, but the outside electrics tripped at one point (that's in addition to the caravan circuit tripping!) and we narrowed it down to the extension cable.  He checked the plug and the wires were a bit loose so he thought that was it, but it wasn't.  So he checked the sockety bit on the reel - nothing obvious so he then decided to unwind the whole thing.   About half way through all the loops of cable were completely melted together!  Oops, guess it got a tad hot!  No doubt you are supposed to unwind the whole lot, but because we usually just use it for one drill or a couple of low-energy bulbs, we don't usually bother and didn't even think about it this time.  So, we now have a much shorter extension cable!

So, today's work has been to sort out the oak we picked up just before Christmas for the two outside doors.  We have a pile of planks of various widths so they needed sorting out to give something like the correct finished widths.  That done, Bob has been routing tongue and grooves into them to slot them together and next they will need sanding.  We found some little stained glass panels at a local salvage yard so we will put them in to give a bit more light in the kitchen and hall . . . . . just got to work out how you do that on a ledge and brace door.

While Bob has been woodworking, Laura and I put a coat of Danish Oil on all the oak beams, posts and purlins upstairs in the house.  They look tonnes better for that - not so dry and dusty as they did before - you can see the difference in this picture.  Oiling wood is a really nice job to do, really satisfying as you see the grain and colour come out as if by magic.  People of a certain age may remember Rupert Annuals in their Christmas stockings and they always had a magic painting page where you just paint over it with water and the colours appear by magic.  That is just what it is like putting oil on dry wood. 

Once that was done we got on with insulating the walls upstairs and managed to do the first layer on the bedroom walls.  Need to finish the roof insulation next and then we can put the next layer on the walls.  Then it'll be ready for plasterboard and that will seem like progress!

Right, better go now - we're off to the pub in the next village for a pizza and a pint - yum!