Romantic Valentine Serenade

Well, my nine days off work just flew by (as they do!).  When I got back yesterday nothing much had changed except that sales of ready-made lasagnes and mince are down - people are actually going to real butchers and making their own lasagne so they don't risk eating horse meat!  It'll be interesting to see how long that lasts.  My hours are a bit different next week and I'm working on Wednesday instead of Saturday!!!!  That means I'm having a Saturday off without booking it as holiday for the first time ever!  And it's my Sunday-off weekend so I have a whole weekend - can you believe it?  I couldn't and had to check the rota about six times.



Think the camera lens needs cleaning!

So, while I was off we cracked on with the lounge.  We took the temporary loft boards out of the crog loft and laid proper floorboards and it now looks quite posh up there now Bob has given it three coats of floor oil.  It's a shame we have to spoil it by storing boxes up there, but I guess that's partly what it's for.  Eventually, Bob's record player will be installed along with all his LPs (I don't have any of mine any more - they disappeared in divorce proceedings somehow).  We'll also get a squishy sofa bed up there and make it into a den-type place. 

There, I've cleaned the lens

Ellie, my 16 year old neice has bagged it as her sleeping place already!  Along the low parts of the walls we'll build some cupboar/storage aort of things which will be very handy as we don't have a traditional loft to hide junk in.  The black line you can see along the floor is the other tie-bar we put in - didn't plan this very well did we, we could have put the joists a tad higher and then the bar would be hidden between the floor and the ceiling below.  Not to worry, it's not where anyone would trip over it and in a way, it's nice to see the workings of the building - there's not much that's hidden here.

Once the floorboards were down and we'd finished banging nails in, we got on with skimming the ceiling below.  Oh, what a nightmare that was!  We have got on fairly well with all the rest of the skimming we've done, but this just didn't go well at all.  I suppose it is quite a while since we did any and se we're out of practice, but this is also the only expanse on horizontal ceiling which must be the most awkward to do.  The only other horizontal we've done is the kitchen, but that is borken up into small segments by the oak joists.  As we were doing it it didn't feel as though it was going too well, but it didn't look too bad when we'd finished, so we were happy.  Then I went in there in the evening and switched the lights on - oh my goodness, what a mess it looked.  I suppose the lights and shadows highlight all the flaws.  It was bad enough for us to mix some more plaster and have a go at putting it right.  It's better, but is definitely not our best piece of work - cottagey you could say if you were being kind!  Anyway, tis done and painted, so that's that.  Since then I've done some wall painting.  It takes ages because, being bare stone, there are all sorts of nooks and crannies to cover, so that's an ongoing task.  You know, from our New Year's Day planning list which filled an A4 sheet with tasks, Bob has been able to cross off loads of things, but I've only been able to cross off one thing.  It doesn't take much to write 'pointing' on a list, but it took weeks to be able to cross it off and 'painting' will be similar I think.

We've also has some 'us time' while I've been off and had the friends from the caravan on the farm over the hill over for dinner - I don't think they wanted to leave our cosy kitchen because it was about 2am before we went to bed!  It was a good evening though.  The next day Jan (Bob's stepmum) came over for lunch.  It was a lovely sunny day and so we went for a bit of a walk and then sat on the beer bench for a cup of tea and a piece of cake (sticky marmalade loaf from the February page of the 'Bake-off' calendar Ben and Lucy gave us for Christmas - yummy-yummy-yum-yum!).  It was just so nice to sit in the sun for an hour or so - we seem to have waited a long time for a nice day.  Do you think that's this year's summer gone?  We also went over to Montgomery to the auction (didn't buy anything yet again) and a look round their little shops and galleries which made a pleasant change.  For Valentines we planned a romantic meal (bargain steak - reduced at M&S at Christmas to just 40p each) with all the trimmings and I was really looking forward to it.  Unfortunately, just as the steak finished cooking, I splashed a bit of redwine into the pan to loosed all the tasty bits which splashed cooking fat over the top of the woodburner, causing smoke, causing all the smoke detectors to blare out.  Because these are the proper hard-wired things, you can't just take the battery out which is what we used to do in the caravan (well, we actually used to take it out before we started cooking!) and wafting the newspaper under them makes no difference.  So we started our romantic meal to a fanfare!   Spoiled the ambience a bit!

Oh, nearly forgot - I've finished typing up my early diary, so there should now be three parts over on the right under the 'Pages' title.

Yellow paint - aaaarggghh!

I have now done my three days at work and I'm not in again until a week tomorrow - yeah!!  I have used up my last two days holiday for Saturday and Monday and because of the way my shifts work it means nine days off which is good.

Lounge ceiling against the stone.  The long black line on
the stone wall is the tie-bar we put in from one side
of the house to the other to keep the walls in place
and the smaller piece is an old wall strap which was
presumably supposed to do the same thing!

I am having a bit of a nightmare with yellow paint just now - never before have I had such a dilemma over painting a wall!  We got the breathable claypaint for the stone walls and also got some ordinary emulsion mixed to match for the plasterboard ceilings.  The paint is mixed to match the colourchart and it is a very good match - trouble is the colour chart doesn't match the paint it is supposed to be illustrating!  I have always said the colour we chose is an earthy yellow and Lucy confirmed this by calling it mustard when she looked at the chart.  As soon as we got home I couldn't resist trying a bit on the wall . . . . it is really quite a bright yellow.  I love the colour, but I'm just not sure it's what I had in mind for the lounge.  Anyway, yesterday I got on and painted the high ceiling with the emulsion and that is exactly the colour I did have in mind for the lounge.  So, I got a scrap piece of wood and painted half with the clay paint and half with the emulsion . . . . it was the opposite way round and the claypaint looked earthy and the emulsion bright.  Once it dried though it swapped round - it was really messing with our heads I can tell you and we were totally confused! 

The cosy batloft - or crog loft as it will now be known.
That's what they call one of these sleeping platforms
in Wales.

Each time I look at it I think something different and I have been going to go back to our friend at the decorators merchants and ask him to squirt a bit of brown in the claypaint and mix it, then I'm thinking the ceiling's too dark and needs lighter walls, then I think the walls are too bright and the ceiling's fine and round and round I go.  Think Bob's a bit fed up with my dithering!  So, the ceiling's had two coats and the batloft walls have had a coat of claypaint, I've also done a corner downstairs with it and I haven't added any brown to it and we'll see what I think when it's dry tomorrow!  We bought the curtain material for lounge a couple of days ago - it's a sort of slightly marooney chestnut colour, not sure what it would be called.  What colour is mulberry?  It sounds as thought that should be it, but I think that may be more purple.  It's definitely not purple!

Bob has made the pelmet to hide the messy top of the blind I made for the triangular window and it looks really good.  Bob confessed to being surprised that it looked OK because when I first mentioned the idea he thought it'd look a bit naff!!!!  There's faith for you!  It is made from a wany edge of Elm and so has quite a nice grain close-up . . . . it also had woodworm!  But it has been treated a couple of times and the holes filled so it should be OK - you can't just waste nice bits of wood!

As you can see from the pelmet photo, we've had more snow.  We had a good covering when we got up on Monday and that has stayed and then it snowed most of today too.  By the look of the forecast, tomorrow and Friday should be nice though so we are planning a day off - probably gardening or log-chopping, but it'll be nice to be outside for a change.  Then the next house job is to lay the floorboards in the bat loft - oops, sorry, the crog loft - because it'd be better to do that before we skim the ceiling underneath.  That way we don't need to worry about the plaster when we're whacking the nails in!

So, yesterday was pancake day.  I usually make too much batter and we end up with too many, so I scaled it down this year.  We have several frying pans in varying states of non-stickiness (should really say 'varying states of stickiness' to be more accurate).  We've been meaning to buy a new one for a while, but haven't got round to it which is a shame because the chickens ended up with more pancakes than we did!  They had all the disasters until we finally found a pan that worked and by then there was only enough batter left for three pancakes between us - still we enjoyed our one and a half!

Exciting news all round

Well my exciting news is that the pointing in the lounge is just about done and I can move on to other things!!  We will have to do a bit of re-building around the flue pipe when we install that and I have left a bit of pointing around that (so that there isn't an obvious line if the mortar is a slightly different colour when we come to do it).  Bob also found a bit I'd missed at the bottom of one wall.  I think I must have run out of mortar, then had the next few days at work and things got stacked against it and, in my mind, I thought that wall was done.  There are also the fiddly bits round the oak shelves and lintel.  But, that's not much so i can say it's just about done.  So, to celebrate yesterday I painted the high ceiling - yeah, decorating in the lounge, can you believe it?!!!!  At the moment it has trade magnolia emulsion on it because it's cheap and does a really good job.  That is just a base coat to seal the plaster though and I think it's going to havve and earthy yellow on it.  The stone walls we are painting will have clay paint on them which is very breathable (important for walls made of natural materials), but that is quite expensive so we'll get some standard emulsion mixed in the same colour for the plasterboard ceiling.  It'll be nice to have some proper colour somewhere as everywhere else is just pale cream.  The lounge should be quite light as it faces south and has two door-size windows and so can take the colour.

We put the oak joist into place on Sunday.  It was a little awkward as it is, obviously, the same width as the room, very heavy and needed to be high up.  We lifted it diagonally onto the scaffold tower, but unfortunately did it on the wrong diagonal as and so had to turn it the other way (because of the stones, wall straps, etc it had to go in a particular way and we'd forgotten that).  This was the point that I turned and walked straight into it banging my head and rattling my teeth . . . . oak is quite hard you know and it certainly made my eyes water.  Once I got over my dizziness though we got on with it and it fitted first time (well done Bob).  It looks quite smart now and much more finished.  We are starting to believe that this might actually be a room some time!

On Monday, Lucy (Ben's girlfriend) came to stay.  She had an interview at Aberystwyth Uni for the teacher training course the next day which went well.  So, the other bit of exciting news is that she got an e-mail from them first thing on Wednesday and they were pleased with her interview and wanted to offer her a place (well done her!).  She decided to make a little holiday of her trip so she stayed on Tuesday night too.  On Wednesday morning she helped us with jobs here.  She did the second coat on the panelling in the lounge and so that is now ready for the oak shelf on top - I think Bob might put that on today while I'm at work.

For ages Bob has been wanting to double-glaze the rooflights in his workshop and we have had the stuff to do it for ages, but he has been doing house-stuff.  So yesterday while Lucy and I were painting he got on with those and Lucy went and helped him put them in place when she'd finished her painting job. They are sheets of polycarbonate with a wooden frame round which fix under the ceiling.  They should stop condensation building up on the wriggly plastic hopefully.

I have ordered the clay paint for the walls in the lounge and that should be in tomorrow, so then I'll be ready to get on with some proper decorating!  Trouble is, I'm at work for the next three days after that - how frustrating!

Lintels and ornaments

Well, the snow all disappeared pretty quickly didn't it?  On Friday evening, we had loads more on top of what was already there.  Then on Saturday evening it poured with rain (I got drenched walking back to my car after work - really wet, icy rain) and by Sunday morning the snow had all gone except for a few stubborn patches.  Driving to work first thing in the morning was interesting.  The road in one place was like a river, and quite fast flowing and water was literally gushing out from a side road - quite dramatic.  All the rivers are several times as wide as they are supposed to be.  We went to Shrewsbury this afternoon and from the top of the hill just near us you can look down the Tanat Valley and the bottom of it was glittering in the sun where all the water was lying.  All the flood defences were up in Shrewsbury and the water was half way up some of them!

So, apart from dealing with the weather and M&S work (and pointing, of course) this is what we've been doing for the past few days:

An oak 'lintel' in the lounge.  This actually just hides three
concrete lintels.  I think you'll agree (well, I hope you
do), it looks much better.  This is just glued in place which
is a bit of a leap of faith, but it seems fairly solid!

 

New bookshelves in the purpose-built alcove
on the landing.  This meant we could unpack
two boxes of books!!

Here's a detail of the landing bookshelves which gives away their
origin.  Our scaffolders kindly left us a couple of scaffold boards
to use as temporary shelves in the top barn, which we did.  When
we were hunting for something to make these out of we thought we'd
recycle and they look quite good smoothed and polished - all part of
the austerity measures you know!

 

Here's the lounge with half the ceiling removed - looks like
the ceiling is floating or just held up with that wall strap.  While I
was pointing and had mortar available, Bob took a stone out at
each end and replaced them with bigger ones which stick out into the
room.  The chunky oak joist which will go on the front of this lot and
hide the softwood joist can sit on these (it will also be attached to the
softwood!).  There are stones randomly sticking out of the wall in several
places in here, so it will fit in quite well.  The oak joist should be delivered tomorrow.

As there was nothing on telly last night (just for a change!)
we decided to unpack some ornaments and treasures.  Just
like Christmas because we'd forgotten about half the things!
We found homes for some things, re-packed some and . . . erm,
the others are now in a charity shop in Shrewsbury!

 

And that's our week in a nutshell.  Tomorrow, as I say, the oak joist should be delivered and if it is we will get on with sorting that out and putting it up - a twelve and a half foot chunk of oak isn't easy to store, so the best place for it is in its place.  Just for a change, I thought I might do some pointing.

 

I forgot to tell you, one lunchtime last week in the middle of the snow a fox appeared on the track next to the garden.  The chickens were out and he/she knew they were there, so we leapt up and opened the back door and clapped our hands at it.  Very nonchalantly it retreated a couple of steps and then turned back to look at us.  Bob  put his boots on and went out and it hid behind a tree, still looking at us, before trotting across the path and into the quarry.  We haven't seen it since which is a surprise and a relief! 

 

 

 

 

Snow and Welsh cakes

Well, we've had more snow and everything looks lovely.  I quite like the look of the garden at the moment - we can pretend that under the soft piles of snow are all our lovely shrubs and plants waiting 'til Spring to do their thing and look marvellous . . . . instead of weeds, mud and building rubbish!  Apparently, on Friday M&S actually closed early because of the weather and on Saturday we were able to leave very quickly after closing time instead of staying for an hour to tidy shelves, etc.  Most of the roads are fine, it's just the little lanes that are a problem - my Manager hasn't been home for days because he can't get his car up the lanes.

More progress on the lounge (apart from pointing) - we have taken out half the ceiling and so can now see right up to the roof.  Last time we could do that you could also see the rafters and even the sky above!  We took down the plasterboard and rearranged the loft boards above and then took out the joists.  Yesterday, Bob set to to cut through the wall plate the joists were attached to and cut off the bolts we'd epoxyed into the walls.  As he was doing the last one, the one right next to all the cables in the wall, it started smoking - of all the ones to do that, that was not the one you'd choose (it would be a tad annoying to set fire to the wiring!).  We suppose that the epoxy had got really hot from the angle-grinding.  With a spot of quick thinking, Bob dashed outside, grabbed a handful of snow and stuck that onto the wall to cool it - handy.

Welsh cakes cooking on the woodburner.  Honestly, I
scrubbed it just before, but it looks awful
on this photo - well-used you could say!

On Sunday we had a bit of a lazy day - we weren't even up and dressed until about 11am!  We then went into the workshop to play with Bob's new toy.  He has bought a pillar drill and it needed putting together.  It's a big, heavy old thing, so it took two of us to do it.  Through the woodyard we use, he got to know about a chap who deals in second-hand workshop tools, mostly from the days when they were really solid, well-built and made to last.  So this drill is from the early '90s, but is actually brand new and still has its protective film on.  In the afternoon we lit the woodburner and I made welsh cakes for with our cuppa.  Really nice cooked straight on the top of the woodburner. On Sunday I also started typing up the old diary I found and the first instalment is over there, on the right, at the top, under 'Pages'. I got up early today to type this and now, at 7am, I am about to put a loaf of bread in the oven.  How impressive is that?   Actually, don't be too impressed, Bob made the dough last night, so I've only had to shape it and leave it for an hour - not too difficult.  Bob has been making our bread regularly for the last few weeks and I think we've only bought a loaf twice this year!  I am off today, so I'll give you three guesses what I'm going to be doing . . . .

Weather update - brrrrr!

The bread and butter pud was really good - definitely one to make again. The forecasted snow has arrived.  I'd say we've had about 5" and it's still snowing.  We went for a walk round the block (by block I mean lanes and paths) - not many people about!  I guess if it'd been sunny there'd be lots of people out in it, but to be honest it's just dull and cold.  The snowplough has been out and cleared the main lane and a bit down everyone's drive, but didn't come down our lane at all . . . that's nice isn't it?

Here's the view from our bedroom window

And again from the bedroom window.  The chickens really
didn't know what to make of it - especially when they
tried to go down the steps and found there wasn't anything
solid underneath!  They enjoyed their warm pea and raisin
porridge though - mmmmm, dishilicious.

And here's one I forgot to put on last time - sunrise from
the lounge doorway.  It looked far more dramatic than
this in real life.

Last night I found some archive footage which I will type up for you before too long.  It's from when we very first moved here.  Before I started this blog and I thought I might write a diary - what was I thinking!  Bob and I had already forgotten half the stuff I'd written so it was quite interesting for us to read.

We have a hole!

We have a hole!  Yep, we've made the hole in the lounge wall through to the chimney for the second fireplace in the kitchen which backs onto it ready for the lounge woodburner flue.  As usual, thinking about it was worse that actually doing it, but I had kinda forgotten the bit of adrenalin rush you get when you've managed to loosen the first big stone and reallise that, in theory, everything above could come down when you pull it out!  It was well built and the stone got slightly wider as it went back into the wall - good practice as it makes the wall stronger, but not so good when you're trying to take it apart! 

So, Bob had to whack quite hard and chip some bits off.  As he did that all the mortar dust on the whole wall jumped which made it look as if all the stones were jumping which was a bit disconcerting.  In addition, you could hear loose bits falling down the chimney into the kitchen which made quite a rumbling sound.  Oooooh errrrr a bit scary!  Once the first stone was loose, we could see that a couple of big stones above had also come loose so we had to wedge them together with a bit of old iron we had lying around so their weight would lock them together instead of letting them fall.  Bob then took the stone out and I quickly propped it all up with bits of wood - phew! 

Bob then nipped to the Builders Merchants to get a concrete lintel and in the afternoon he fixed that in place.  Then, leave well alone while the mortar goes off.  We had put a piece of card over the fireplace in the kitchen to stop too much mess, but we acidentally dropped a chunk of stone down the chimney which knocked the card away and so there was rubble all over the kitchen floor.  Not really a problem and nothing like the dust that was everywhere the next day when we raked out the other walls in the lounge ready for pointing and then swept it up.  All along the hall was covered in a really thick layer.  Mind you, it makes for really satisfying vacuuming!  Today (two days after putting the lintel in) Bob carried on removing stones to make the hole for the flue to go through at an angle. Once the pipe is in place, we will build the stones back around it and face the lintel with thin stones or brick. 
While he was finishing the hole, I got on with more pointing.  I think we can actually see the end of that at last - still a few more sessions to do, but we're getting there.

Yesterday, Bob's car was due for an MOT.  It has been pretty bad at starting lately, so they were going to check that out too.  As I've feared would happen for ages, not only would Bob's car not start, but mine was a dead as a dodo too, so we couldn't jump it from that!  So, the nice chap from the garage came along and jump started both of them.  Hopefully, we've diagnosed the problem with mine - a loose connection, so fingers crossed that's all (apart from the squeaks and clunks and rattles!), it started OK this morning.  Bob's passed its MOT and now has a new battery so hopefully that'll be OK too.

We have made another batch of marmalade which means we now have 23 jars (four different sorts) . . . should keep us going for a while!  This was slow-cook marmalade, so insted of boiling it fast you let it bubble away for hours.  It makes it really dark.  Following Delia's instructions I now have a chunky marmalade bread and butter pudding cooking in the woodburner - she says you have to make it as soon as possible after you've made the marmalade, so who'm I to argue?

On my last blog I was going to tell you about the feeling of Spring in the air, but forgot.  There was a primrose in flower in our wood when we had our bonfire, we have snowdrops and the birds were tweeting their little hearts out.  Now what's happened?!  It's been snowing all day, though it's not mounted to much more than a thin covering of slush, but we're due for about 6" tomorrow.  Sainsbury's was packed this morning with everyone stocking up in case they're stranded for weeks!

So, I told you Bob has been making/putting up shelves all over the place, well here are some of them:

This is a yew shelf from our old house with new brackets made from
old gutter brackets.  Another marmalade shelf you might think, but
this is more of a pickle shelf I think.  Eventually the fuse box to
the left will be housed in a little cupboard and then the end of the
shelf can be attached to that, until then we can't put anything heavy
on that end.

Next, another shelf from our old house.  This one is made
from Laburnum and has gone a really rich dark colour while
it's been in storage - nice.  It's at the top of the stairs.  The twig
to the left was saved from our bonfire - literally, I grabbed it off
the fire as I thought of a use for it!

And this is in the end bedroom, made from oak and is new.
We didn't have walls this wiggly in our old house!

Just realised that we've now got more dusting to do!

PS:  We're not happy about HMV going into administration!!!  We always try really hard to buy from shops rather than online and going to HMV when we go to Shrewsbury was a treat (the only way I could get Bob to go sometimes).  It was exciting looking along the shelves, choosing some CDs (asking staff questions and being surprised that they all know what they're talking about) and then whacking them on really loud when we got home.  Now what will we do?  Obviously, the few we bought weren't enough to keep their profits up, but we tried and it's very sad and soon there won't be anything left but charity shops, mobile phone shops and empty shops.  BRING BACK REAL SHOPS!!!!!

OK, rant over - better go and try this here bread and butter pud.