Frozen Jeans

Tee hee!  Look at my new jeans!  These had been on the line overnight and froze as stiff as a board.  Bob took them off the line to ask if I wanted to put them on . . . errrm, no ta!  This was a couple of days ago and they have now thawed out because it has actually been quite warm.  Well, when I say quite warm, I mean in comparison.  All the snow and ice has melted leaving just mud!

We have grabbed the opportunity during this heatwave to get on with all sorts of bits that can't be done in arctic conditions.  So we've squirted expanding foam all over the place, mortarred in (or should it be mortared in . . . or is that not really a word at all?) all the pipes and cables going through walls, built-up the threshold in the kitchen/garden doorway ready for the doorframe and painted various bits of cast iron pipe to make up extractor fan vents.  We have to have four extractor fans (just don't get me started on that subject - why on earth we can't be trusted to open the window I don't know!), but we can't bring ourselves to put plastic grilles on the walls where the extractors come out so we came up with a cunning design which uses bits and bobs we have lying around.  Not sure if you can see on this picture (not recent, by the way!) the little round black thing in the brickwork, well that is our patented design - four short pieces of small cast iron pipe shoved into a piece of 4" plastic pipe (which goes through the wall and connects to the extractor), then two bits of cast iron gutter surrounding the little pipes which is what you see from the outside.  They look a bit like gattling guns!  When I made the first one and came bounding down from the workshop pleased as punch to show Andy, the builder, he looked completely non-plussed and just said "Why?" which made me laugh.  Well, we think they look better than a plastic grilles.

Yeah!  Hello to Juliette (my new follower) - oh I get so excited when someone new 'joins', that's a bit pathetic really isn't it?!