Talking of bunnies . . . . we have a great big one who's desparately trying to make its home in our garden and has started numerous tunnels which we keep filling in and blocking with stones. I may soon be looking in the recipe books for a pie recipe I think! We also have our mole back. I just don't know why it would want to tunnel through the rock and clay that make up our garden. I'm sure it must bring sackfuls of nice topsoil from somewhere to build its molehills out of, because the fine tilth that keeps appearing everywhere certainly doesn't look like anything we ever dig up! I really should collect it up - just like my Grandma used to do. And while we're on the subject of pests (that's the mole, not Grandma by the way), the dreaded squirrels have finally found the relocated peanuts. I'm surprised it's taken them this long actually. It is definitely a 'them' and not just an 'it' because one of them met a very sudden end as it hung off the nuts yesterday (won't be looking for pie recipes for that one by the way - another story which I will tell the unsqueamish of you some time), but its friend was undeterred and was feasting again today.
We had a good couple of days with Mum and Dad when they visited and, thankfully, Mum wasn't ill this time. As a special treat, we took them for a rummage round the salvage yard. How exciting is that? We need to find something to make a shelf next to the woodburner to put the kettle, pans, etc on. Ages and ages ago we bought a fancy cast iron grid (used to be over the floor heating in a church) which we think would have been just the job. Trouble is, we can't find it. It used to stand up outside the caravan, but it ain't there now. So, it's either been nicked (and I guess it was quite nickable, so it was a silly place to leave it) or we've put it away somewhere safe . . . . very safe! So, we were on the lookout for soemthing else to use as a shelf, but didn't find anything. We did buy a little round lead rose (they used to put them as decorations on the hoppers for gutter downpipes) and that will do nicely to cover the keyhole in the oak bedroom door if we can just think how to attach it!
We have had another busy week in the end bedroom (ex padded cell) and have got all the plasterboarding done and all the beading on the corners. Bob put wooden quadrant beading on any outside corners so we have rounded corners instead of the very square corners modern houses have where platerboard meets. It's a bit of a faff, but looks much more in keeping when its finished. He has also made lovely oak sills for the windows. I have filled all the little gaps round the edges of the plasterboard. One wall in there is going to stay as exposed stone so is, obviously, not at all straight or square. We cut the plasterboard to fit as best we could, but you're never going to get an exact fit, so the gaps needed filling. Same goes for where the plasterboard meets the purlins. They are made from small tree trunks in the round and so are not cut straight and square. I haven't told you about the friends we have to help us with plasterboarding. Do you know how you cut palsterboard? I didn't until we helped Bill do a bedroom ceiling what seems like a million years ago. You score a straight line on the right side of the board with a stanley knife which cuts the paper and marks the plaster middle then you just snap it along that line, bend it and cut the backing paper - simple innit?! Sometimes you have to tidy up the edge a bit by scraping along it with the stanley knife and that's it. Of course all that plaster dust really knackers the stanley blade and clogs the knife up so while we're plasterboarding we have a designated knife that is just used for that and he's always been known as Plaster Stanley. This time he has been joined by a friend called Stanley Skrimshaw (sounds like he should come from Oldham I think). He is sharper and used to cut the skrim which is the mesh tape you put over the joins between boards which strengthens them and stops the plaster cracking. Of course he can do all sorts of other jobs as well, it's just Plaster Stanley who is only allowed to do the one job. This afternoon was lovely and sunny so we had an outside afternoon and had a bit of a tidy up in the garden. We cut down all the dead stalks and seed heads we'd left over the winter for the birds. Everything has got new green bits peeping through - it's an exciting time of year isn't it? Especially for people like me who can't remember what plants are where - a nice surprise every year! Some of the plants never did die down properly and have new shoots and leaves with old dead bits all together. Someone on a gardening programme once said that for a natural look you should garden like a cow - that is, you should use your hands and gently grab and pull at the plants (like a cow grazing) to thin them without pulling them out or chopping them, so that's what we've been doing. It does a good job of pulling off the dead bits and leaving the new bits. We have also been up to our bit of wood and chopped down a dead holly tree. It was quite big and got caught in a hazel (so that got coppiced in the process). It made a proper tree-felling crash as it came down which was quite exciting. Holly is brilliant on the woodburner. A decent-size log lasts ages and burns really hot which is good for cooking. Because this has been dead for ages, it is already seasoned so we can use it straight away . . . . well, when it's been cut into slightly smaller pieces!
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| Here's Bob relaxing after our day's exertions. Can you see his feet? He's stretched out reading the paper on the settee which is in the oak bedroom. |
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