Two weeks and no blog - shameful!

It's been a rather bitty fortnight really.  I've been working really annoying shifts - one day on, one day off for the last 10 days.  We have managed to get on with things, but not major visible progress.

A rare sight - two chaps reading the instructions!

Our third woodburner arrived which was quite exciting.  It is specially designed for a workshop which means you can burn sawdust on it - normally sawdust would just damp down a fire completely and not burn well.  This one has an internal flue which means air gets into the heart of the fire and so it will burn sawdust.  It is a little dumpy cylindrical thing - you can't see the fire like you can in a house one, but it should keep the workshop toasty and be a way to get rrid of all the wood bits and dust Bob will be creating.  So, we have now been able to finish putting the wriggly on the roof of the workshop (we had to wait for the woodburner to see the size and position of the hole needed for the flue).  We did that on Friday and were all ready to put the ridge on to finish it off completely, but hit a major snag.  Not enough overlap.  The measurements were always fairly tight, but between us and the chap selling the Onduline, we thought we'd just manage with one and a half lengths of wriggly up the roof and then a 9" ridge piece.  You need a certain amount of overlap to stop wind and rain getting under the top sheet, but when it came to the ridge it only just covered the top of the sheet - no good at all.  So the company are making up some new wider ridge pieces for us and they'll trim and crimp the ones we have so we can use them to go over the eves.  So, not much wasted except another week without a watertight roof.  Ho hum.

In the meantime, Bob has been getting on with the doors and their frames - almost up to the painting part on one of them and then that can go in.  We've put the big window in without any problems, but when we went to order the glass for the little window from the funeral directors we usually use we found out that they are no longer doing the joinery and glass side of things.  What a real shame - we really liked the idea of an old-fashioned local company who kept up the old tradition where the village carpenter also made coffins and so was, in effect, the village undertaker too.  Another piece of history disappears.

Here's a test for you!  Spot the Peregrine . . . can you see,
slightly north-east of centre there is a rock that looks like
three little upside down steps?  Well it is perching on top
of that. Just trust me!

Mum and Dad came to stay for a few days and while they were here we took advantage of a lovely sunny day to take the short walk up to the rocks where we saw the baby Peregrine and the thousands of orchids.  It was lovely up there and Mum and Dad enjoyed watching two lads rock climbing and then abseiling down barefoot.  There were no orchids of course at this time of year, but we were really surprised to see a Peregrine perching on the rocks.   It was difficult to pick out and Bob did really well to spot it so it was a real bonus.

And here's another bird picture.  A Chaffinch decided to check
out the shower in our en-suite.  It must have flown in through
the bedroom window and then into the shower.  It was difficult to
persuade it out though.  Because the roof slopes down towards
the window it kep flying as far as the purlin, giving up and flying
back into the shower.  In the end, Bob had to get into the shower
and then when to flew towards the window I held a towel up behind it
so it couldn't fly back and it eventually found its way out.

 Because severe frost was forecast a couple of nights ago, I decided the tomatoes weren't going to do anything further and picked them all green and red.  We had enough from our hanging basket plants to make a batch of green tomato chutney which I think is quite impressive.  We'll definitely grow them in there again.  I also picked what I assume will be the last bunch of sweet peas - although, there are still lots of buds on them I don't suppose they'll open now it's winter!  They've done really well too though.

Last night Phil and Ann came for dinner - all cooked on the woodburner - and so that was a good evening.  Carol and Graham are coming for a flying visit this week too, so fingers-crossed for good weather and we can go for a long walk.

Matty's last  great adventure before contributing to a very
attractive and tasty salad - easy riding around the kitchen
with Biker Dude, leaning into the corners and feeling the wind
in his topknot.  Just the most thrilling thing he ever did in his little
life - woo hoo!