A door is dry!!!

Oh, this blog is really suffering at the hands of Marks and Spencer isn't it?  I never seem to do my normal hours and always get asked to do extra - oh well, I suppose it puts a few extra pennies in the bank account.  My initial contract is up in a couple of weeks and I haven't heard yet if they need me to stay on until after Christmas - I guess I'd better ask, because if not I'd better start looking for something else.  That'd be a bit of a pain wouldn't it?

So, what've we been getting on with in the last few days.  Most exciting is that one of the doors has finally dried enough to hang (how sad is our life if that's the most exciting thing, eh?).  So, the bathroom now has a door which seems really strange.  The bathroom is the most modern room in the house, so this old pine door is quite a contrast.  I quite like that though, it kind of reminds you that this is a new bit, but it is part of an old cottage.  I'd quite like to get a little old cupboard or set of drawers for in there for the same reason.  We need to finish painting the architrave for round the door opening and sort out some sort of latch.  Do you like the way the decorating and picture-hanging goes right up to the point where the house is still a building site?

We have finished plasterboarding the ceiling in the oak room.  Next is the dot and dabbing on the wall adjoining the bathroom and the bits around the door and then we'll have to try and remember all we know about skimming.  Might have to read earlier blogs for instructions!  It's funny how these things get filed away in some far recess of your brain the minute you start on something else.  Hopefully, we've done enough of it for it all to come flooding back - just like riding a bike!

On the solar front, the news is not too good.  The plumber came and put it all back together again and fitted the new pressure release valve, re-pressuried everything and toddled off happy that everything would now be fine.  Well, it appears to have held its pressure which means there are no leaks.  As I'm sure you noticed, we had a brilliant few days of hot sunny weather, so ideal testing conditions.  We haven't lit the woodburner and, as we were away for a couple of days, we switched the immersion heater off.  So that was all perfect to give the solar chance to prove its worth all by itself without us drawing off hot water and blurring the results.  So, when we got home from our two days away in the sun (in Peterborough and Norfolk) we had high hope of a tank of good, hot, free water . . . . alas, it was not to be and the temperature had only risen by 10 or 15 degrees in the whole time.  Oh, boo hoo, if I wasn't numbed to it all I could cry.  What the heck is wrong with it?!  The plumber says he's fitted a couple more systems the same since ours and they're working fine.  Don't really know what the next step is.  I guess we wait for the plumber to have his heart monitoring done at the hospital tomorrow and then get him back.  He did seriously suggest that if it doesn't work he takes the whole lot out and we fit some other system!  Seems a bit extreme, be we're running out of ideas.

Our days away in the sun involved doing the Autumn tidy up in Bob's dad's garden which was easy compared to trying to do any sort of tidying up in our own garden!  We also had a night with my mum and dad in Norfolk which was nice.  We then did shopping on our way home which included John Lewis in Peterborough to spend our house-warming vouchers from my sister.  I was quite surprised to get house-warming presents when we moved in, but apart from the vouchers we got homemade jam and cookies from Phil and Ann and a cake from  another neighbour - how nice of people.  Anyway, we then called in at our favourite place on the way home - yep Ikea again!!  Not very successful - we wanted to order a settee and a mattress for the spare bed to be delivered together.  Trouble was that Ikea mattresses don't relate in any way to British bed sizes.  We knew the bed was a kingsize, but because of the different mattress size we needed the exact measurements to make sure it would fit.  So we ended up not ordering either and poor Bob had to go again today.  Anyway, if they can find us, they should deliver on Thursday.  Blimey, that'll be a luxury won't it?  A sofa!  Apart from our trip away last week, we haven't sat on a soft seat for three and a half weeks!

Bob's chickens have been being naughty again.  We had the kitchen door open in all that nice weather and when Bob went in the kitchen one afternoon all the damsons had disappeared from the bowl on the table!  Yep, the twins are apt to come in and jump up on the table the bad girls.  Elvis doesn't of course - she doesn't really do jumping.  So, every time they come near the door now they get a washing up bowl of water thrown at them and now, if you hold the red washing up bowl out, they run a mile!  Wonder if we could just leave a spare washing up bowl in the doorway to keep them out?  Guess they'd soon realise that, by itself, it doesn't really pose a threat.  We'll have to think of something though because we certainly don't want them making a habit of standing on the table.