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.

I'm on 'oliday again!

Yep, I had my week off then back in for a week and now I have more than a fortnight off.  This is the sort of working I could get used to!  Mind you, yesterday was stocktaking day at M&S, so I was supposed to be in until 10pm  . . .on  Saturday!!!!  Just not right and I wasn't looking forward to a nine hour shift finishing that late (after a morning working at my other job as a builder!).  That said though, we rattled through the stocktake and finished in record time at 8pm, then another 15 mins tidying up ready for this morning and I was home by just after 8.30pm so nowhere near as bad as expected.  And now loads of time off - I'm a happy bunny!

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. 

So, we are now ready to start skimmimg . . . . if we can remember how! Just need to scrounge another scaffold tower of someone for a few days. With two, we should be able to both work on one section of ceiling and do the whole length in one go. Hopefully, we'll be able to make a start on that tomorrow.

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!

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.