Triangulation problems

Oh, don't talk to me about triangles - they've been causing us major headaches in one way or another.  On Sunday I decided to finally make the blind for the triangle window in the oak room.  This has taken an awful lot of thinking about, we even spent a whole morning with Dad a few months ago brainstorming solutions to the problem of curtains/blinds for a triangle-shaped window with a sloping roof above.  We went through all sorts of wacky ideas.  We finally decided on a roman blind which opens with a sort of fan action.  This, of course, means that you have to pull the strings different amounts to make the blind pull up different amounts at each side.  For now we will just have two separate strings and you do just that - pull them different amounts.  Eventually though and when Bob had his lathe set up, we will conjur up a system where each string winds round a different size wheel.  You turn both wheels together, but the different sizes compensate for the different lenghts of string.  Anyway, I measured up each side of the window and cut the material to fit (or so I thought).  I worked out how the stiffening struts fit to do the fan bit and where the strings need to be attached to each strut so the strings pull up properly.  Bob made a batten to attach it to and we held it in place only to find that I'd gone wrong somewhere (probably because I couldn't be bothered to get anything to stand on to measure the long side and so couldn't really see what I was doing properly).  The slope of the material doesn't match the slope of the window!  I think I'll be able to sort it though.

The other triangle problem related to the stairs.  Bob has attached all the triangles to the diagonal supports under the stairs and attached them to the wall.  He then spent an afternoon puzzling why the steps don't fit as we'd expected them to.  It seems he overcompensated (or undercompensated) when adding (or taking away) thicknesses of the wood of the stairs themselves.  So, there's nothing for it but to take them off the wall and cut all the triangle bits off and do them again.  Before we do that though, we need to go and buy some more wood.  Ho hum!

Oh, to add to our misery yesterday morning we broke one of our precious pices of glass that are to go into the draft holes!  We had them made by a local glass artist and they survived three years in the caravan falling off their perches, etc. But when we were attaching the batten for the triangle blind, one got knocked off and broke in half, unfortunately not cleanly so we can't really just glue it back together.  Oh, we were a bit miserable and cross at that point yesterday I can tell you!  So, an early cup of coffee and clear the heads was needed before we could get on and think about anything else.  After the dodgy start though, we got on and had a really good productive day.

On Monday before I went to work we quickly plasterboarded
and skimmed both sides of the new bit of wall in the kitchen

Then yesterday I tiled and painted it.  Not really sure if you're
supposed to do all that in 24 hours, but it all seems fine!

While I was doing that, Bob built two of the steps
that go through the wall for the bottom of the stairs.
It just looks so much more solid now.  He's going
to do the bottom one today (if it ever stops raining
long enough to get the cement mixer out!).  Oh, those are
the offending triangle bit which have got to come off!

I got the end bedroom decorated over the last few days
which I really enjoyed doing (good job because Bob
doesn't really like decorating).  We're not sure the colour
is quite as we remember it, but we like it anyway
which is the main thing.

and here it is done, with the shades on the light and the
black window frames re-touched.  You can't see it on this picture,
but the glass shades have little bubbles in them which makes
a lovely soft pattern on the walls when the light's on.  Aahh, can
you see poor Bob mixing mortar in the rain!

Last night we went to a film-showing at the neighbouring farm all about becoming less dependent on oil and promoting local.  That all sounds a bit boring doesn't it, but it was actually quite interesting and positive - all about doing things ourselves and in our communities instead of relying on big Govt initiatives.  There was beer from down the road and bacon butties made with their own bacon and bread made on the premises - yum, yummy, yum yum!  On Monday evening I had to go to an M&S team brief on plans for the year ahead - oh, what a contrast, it was all about money, money, money.  Tonight we have a talk on ducks and geese at smallholders.  Then on Thursday Jan (Bob's step-mum) may be coming to stay - busy, busy, busy.

Friday was Bob's birthday and we had a lovely day doing not very much.  Lie-in, breakfast in bed, lunch at a canal-side pub and then a walk along the towpath, lazy afternoon then fillet steak and good wine by candlelight.  A nice break.

Morning!

Morning!  I'm back from my sickbed, thank goodness.  I had a fortnight of feeling absolutely rubbish - mainly a sore throat and cough and then of course no sleep because coughs always get so much worse at night, why is that?  I had to have Easter Saturday off work because I got conjunctivitus too.  Luckily the shop was closed on Easter Sunday and I only had to do 4 hours on the Monday and then nothing until Thursday, so it gave me a bit of time to recover.  I still have a bit of a throat, but it's on its way out.  Oh, a chunk fell off a back tooth on Easter Monday as well to add to my misery!

So, I haven't been doing much in the way of 'housework' (as in the building type not the dusting type, mind you, I haven't done much of that either!).  I did do major freezer-filling cooking though - 8 x chilli, 12 x chicken pie, 6 x sausage and mushroom plait, 1 x pastry flan case, so time wasn't wasted.  It's such a good feeling to have a freezer full of homemade 'ready meals'.

Bob has been doing major housework though . . . . . . wait for it  . . . . . . he's started the STAIRS!!!!!!!!!  First is the oakwork - a sole plate (on the floor) with the newel post coming up off it and a post next to the wall which is really only decorative.  The bit between the oak posts will be plasterboarded and on the cooker side there will be tiles like the wall behind the cooker.  The work surface will go around the cooker (not the front of course) and will come this way a bit to make a useful little surface.  Where Bob is will be an understairs cupboard (so useful for hiding junk) with a door on a slight diagonal to the edge of the fireplace.  It will only be half-height because above that the stairs will turn to meet the landing.  Not quite sure what will happen with the underneath of the stairs there - I think we will finish them as though we'll see them and then we have the option to leave them visible or hide them.  Can't plan this bit ahead, it'll be one of our 'decide when we get there' bits.



So now when we go up the ladder there is a post sticking

up in the middle of the bit where you get off, just to make

things more interesting! We've got used to that now though

and it doesn't really cause a problem.

Those flippin' rabbits have been at it again!  We thought the roses we planted by the kitchen door would be safe because they were covered in thorns and have actually been sat there in pots since October without being touched.  But within a couple of days of being planted they'd been 'rabbitted'.  So now they look lovely with emergency rabbit-proofing in place.  So, we now have two jointed rabbits in the freezer!


At long last M&S have made a decision about jobs and have offered me a permanent post.  That is good news and actually quite a relief, but I couldn't help thinking it sounded a bit depressing - a permanent fixture, part of the furniture, I'll be there for the rest of my life!  That said, I'm hoping that the things that wind me up about it were all related to being temporary, the way they dealt with that and the uncertainty it caused and that now I'm permanent everything will be lovely.  I'm contracted to do 22.5 hours a week over three days with a strong possibility of extra shifts if I want them and I'll get every other Sunday off.  I did try to get one whole weekend a month off instead, but they wouldn't go for that.  So, I'm going to think positive and get on with that and enjoy getting on with house things on my four days off a week.

Just had to go out in the pouring rain as Bob spotted a rat going into the lean-to.  That's the very first rat we've seen since we've been here which is absolutely amazing I think.  It hid behind the tumble dryer and Bob tried to get the air rifle to it, but it scurried off too quickly.  So, we've blocked up all the holes round the door and checked the whole of the lean-to.  No sign that it's been in there much which is good.  Hopefully we won't see it again, but maybe we'll get a bait trap just in case. 

Right, I've got to get going.  I'm doing decorating today which is really exciting.  I'm going to start on the end bedroom and it's actually going to be a colour instead of the cream we've used everywhere else.  Our local decorators merchants managed to track down the recipe for and mix a colour we used to have in our bedroom at our old house and which has been discontinued - Natural Saffron.  Ooooo, so exciting, I'm itching to get going so that's all for now.  Bye.

Just look at what we woke up to this morning . .

Just look at what we woke up to this morning . . . . . .

         . . . . . . . after 25 degrees last week, this is a bit of a change!  It carried on snowing quite heavily all morning before it turned to slushy rain.  This wasn't nice fluffy white snow, it was wet, cold, horrible snow.  I think it's supposed to be quite cold tonight too, so it'll be ice tomorrow.  It's a real shame because all the blossom has just come out on the trees and bushes and this could well do for it.  We have a lot of bushes that were cut down to the ground before we moved here which we think are damsons, but they have only just got big enough to have blossom and, therefore, fruit.  They were covered, so we thought we'd know for sure what they are before long, but maybe we'll have to wait until next year now.  Our bit of woodland is also carpetted with violets, primroses and cowslips with wood anemones and sorrel coming through, just lovely.  They should be alright I think as they are sheltered by the trees.

We got our new energy certificate and the new scores on it, taking into account the solar panels, are 100% of this building's potential - pretty good, eh?  I'm actually not too sure what the potential score really means, because we could, obviously, improve our score by installing photovoltaic panels which would mean we exceed the potential . . . should that be possible?

Roses round the door

For the last few days we have been doing outdoor stuff as a change from all the crawling round in the batloft, etc.  The weather has just been so fantastic, it seemed a shame to waste it inside.  I took the thermometer just outside the kitchen door the other lunchtime and it was 25 degrees . . . . in March!  Mind you, it's all changed now and it is really hammering down outside.

We have finally planted the roses that Bob's
dad bought me for my birthday last year.  They
are deep orange, small flowered ones which
should look lovely when they've grown up a bit.

AFTER we'd planted the first one we thought we ought really
to point the wall behind it before it grows.  Bit of a silly way
round to do it I know, but I did I say once that we weren't
too good at forward planning!  My shoulders went pink while
I was doing this . . . March sunburn!

On the other side, we had help from the chickens.  Bob
just tipped the soil in and they did a good job of spreading
it out and levelling it off!

And here's where we're up to now.  Bob has been step-building
again, curved of course.  We have a bench that will sit nicely
between the steps and the kitchen door - ideal for breakfast or
lunch outside.  The ground level will be a bit higher so you
won't see so much of the edging on the plant bits which is made
from the offcuts from our hogsback ridge tiles on the roof for the rounded
corners and cut up floor tiles for the straight bits.

It's quite exciting to see some of the outside coming along at last.  We have some flat pieces of limestone which were used for paving and so we are going to use those outside the kitchen door.  That should be fun because to say they are random is a definite understatement!

Oh, nearly forgot to tell you - we have got our planning permission through to build the workshop . . . . three weeks early and with no onerous conditions attached.  A-mazing!  We have also had a copy of our Energy Performance Certificate.  There are two main sections to it, one is the energy rating and the other is the environmental impact (or CO2 emissions).  You get a rating for each in a similar way to fridges and washing machines with A being excellent and F being very poor.  They also give you a score for each against a potential score for the type of building it is.  We were within a point of both potential scores which I think is really pretty good, especially when you consider that she forgot about the solar panels which should improve both scores.  We should get the revised certificate with them on tomorrow hopefully.  So, we got a high C for energy and a high D for environmental.  That doesn't sound too brilliant, but for an old cottage it's actually pretty good.  We checked the scores for some purpose built eco homes and they only got Bs.  We also checked an old cottage in a nearby village and that got an F for both!  So, we are quite pleased with all that.