Mega bonfire

Blimey, doesn't time fly?!  When I last reported in, we had just laid a bit of hedge and had a huge pile of brash to burn.  Well, right after that we all got really horrible colds (I even had a day off work which is very rare) and we had to postpone Bob's stepmum's visit.  So, bonfires weren't a good idea with tickly coughs really, but on Sunday Ben and I finally got round to having a mega-huge bonfire.  It took a little while to get going properly because it has rained quite a bit here so it was a bit soggy.  Once we got it going though it was brilliant.  It took three hours solid of both of us piling branches on to get rid of it all!  We got quite a routine going piling on loads of branches then weighting them down with ivy-covered logs or holly.  That green stuff burns surprisingly well - it does nothing but crackle for a few minutes while it dries out and then whoosh, up it goes.  There wasn't any breeze so when the holly whooshed you could see the holly-leaf-shaped bits of ash shooting straight up about 20' in the air.  Oh, I do like a good bonfire.  We were left with a very sizeable pile of ashes at the end - about waist high!

As well as all the hedge, we got rid of two massive bags of
wood chips from Bob's workshop.  You can only put a bit on at a
time or it smothers the fire . . . . 

. . . . but just a handful produces an impressive flare.
Fun, fun, fun!

As well as the hedge and two bags of chips, we also put the
last bits of the caravan on.  We had saved some of the thin wood
to cut up for kindling, but to be honest it's a pain as it has so many
staples and nails in it and Bob produces a plentiful supply of kindling.
So, onto the bonfire with it.  This, then, is the very last bit of our caravan
going on - oh, except the kitchen unit we're still using . . . forgot that!

So, what else has been happening?  Well, Ben now has a job as a Christmas temp at M&S, lucky lad!  He's been given plenty of hours which is good and works mostly backstage in the warehouse.  Trouble is, none of his hours match mine . . . ever.  We have to have a nightly transport meeting to sort out who has which car or who needs a lift if Bob needs a car.

Here's Graham's rocker finished and
polished and getting plenty of use.  I
think they can be proud of that between
them, don't you?

Bob had a show at one of the museums at Ironbridge at the weekend.  It was a Christmas craft and food fair in one of the old engine houses and had a really nice atmosphere.  Bob did quite well and sold everything except four pieces of furniture!  That includes the child's chair we've been trugging around shows for the last ten years.  Can you believe it that the very next day someone else e-mailed to ask if they could buy it having seen it at another show a few weeks ago!  Weird.  So, Bob will now have to make some new stock I think.  He just has one more market stall in  a couple of weeks and then that's it until the Spring, so hopefully he'll get chance to come up with some nice new things. 

Just look at this picture Ben took on
his phone.  Can you see the steam
shooting out of the end of one of the
branches? Fascinating!

Hedge Laying

In my last post I said we were going to lay the hedge round the carpark . . . . . well, we've done that now!  Carol and Graham came for a couple of days and wanted a bit of a project for while they were here, so this seemed like a good one.  Ben is here as well, so there were plenty of us to haul on the taller trees and to chop up the brash and stack it ready for a mega bonfire.  We got quite an efficient team going after a while with Bob on the chainsaw, whoever was necessary persuading the tree to fall in the right direction and then clearing away to the log pile or bonfire pile.

The planning meeting - chop here, pull that way, check
escape route

OK, take the strain . . . gently now . . . . and . . .

. . . . . RUN AWAY!
This was quite funny to watch!

This bit of hedge didn't have much in it that we could lay and so looks a bit sparse to say the least.  We have photos taken about 50 years ago showing a lovely, thick well tended hedge all around this field, but it hasn't been touched for at least 30 years and so the thick bushes had turned into very leggy, tall trees.  So, along this bit we have just had to chop the trees down and they should sprout again from the base and we can fill in the gaps with new plants when we plant the new hedge across the field.  The other bit we did, along the lane, had much more usable material in it and doesn't look too bad considering.  Again there were some quite big trees we had to just chop down and we had the added excitement of the telephone cable the other side of the lane to spice things up a bit.  At one point there was a small tree we wanted to lay growing right alongside a bigger, split trunk we had to take out, but the tops were all tangled up.  So Ben grabbed the smaller one and was pulling it back and forth to free the tops, to add a bit of extra force he pushed on the bigger trunk with his foot while he pulled on the smaller one.  Once they were free he let go of the smaller one which pinged back towards the smaller one trapping his foot between the two about 5 feet in the air!  Oh, it did look so funny!

This does look better, but it could have done with more little trunks to lay which makes the hedge thicker and higher, but you can only work with what you've got - it'll grow.  Now that the hedge has been reduced by about 25 feet in height, it does make everywhere look a bit open and vulnerable - it'll take a bit of getting used to, but it definitely needed doing and will look fine in a couple of years.  I think I now need to tidy up the builders yard that has built up and was hidden by these bits of hedges and is now in plain view.

We now have a huge pile of brash to burn (doesn't look very
big on this picture, but believe me it is!).  Luckily, Ben and
I had managed to burn all the previous pile (from clearing back
to lay the carpark) a couple of days ago in readiness for this next lot.

Work-wise, Bob has just finished making a big, round oak table.  It's a good job Ben was here to help as it was very heavy and Bob couldn't have kept turning it over to sand, etc without his help.  It took the three of us to cut it into a circular shape with Ben and I taking the weight and feeding it round while Bob manned the bandsaw and made sure it kept to the line.  The finished article looked really good and the customers were really happy with it.  Phew!  Bob was quite nervous as it is a bit of a leap of faith on their part to tell you what they want and hope you can interpret their ideas.  He needn't have worried though.  This table was to go in a winter house (as opposed to a summer house) in the garden and has a hole in the middle for a Japanese cooking plate so you sit around and cook your own food as you go.  Bit different, eh?

While Carol and Graham were here, Graham and Bob finished off the rocking chair Graham has been making for the last 6 months on odd weekends here.  Bob hasn't made a rocking chair before, but people are always asking about them, so good to now be able to say he has made one and Graham will send us some photos when he's oiled and waxed it at home.

We are in the middle of a visitor frenzy - Mum and Dad were here last weekend, followed by Carol and Graham and then Bob's stepmum, Jan, is coming on Monday.  So, the washer's working hard and the pub in the village is doing quite well out of us as each set of visitors wanted to eat there.  Funny how we go for months and months with no visitors and then everyone comes within a few days of each other . . . do you think they plan it?!

How to build a carpark!

And so the landscaping continues.  This time on a larger scale with machinery and a professional!  Now that we have bought part of the field nextdoor, we have room to park the cars on our own land (up until now they have been on a little slope at the side of the track).  So Bob's brother-in-law, Chris, came over on Saturday to get on with it.  He does groundworks and landscaping for a living and is just much better than us at knowing what needs moving where to make a flat bit, etc.  This was all decided at quite short notice, but we arranged to borrow a neighbour's digger and sorted out a delivery of stone from our quarry.  Chris was impressed that we could sort that out so quickly and for a Saturday morning too.  Bob and I had an afternoon in the week cutting down hedge and clearing back overhanging branches and marking out and measuring so we were ready to go.

On Saturday morning Chris arrived at about the same time as the neighbour, Dave, with his digger.  Dave gave Chris a run through of all the little quirks of his digger, like that all the controls are the opposite way round to a normal digger.  I could see Chris looking more and more dubious as he went on and when Dave left saying to give him a ring if the tracks came off, Chris looked even more troubled.  Well, within two minutes one of the tracks had come off and that was that.  A quick discussion led to the decision to try and hire a digger as we'd get nowhere fast if we had to keep putting the tracks back on.  Bless him, it was really kind of Dave to lend it to us, but because the first bit was on quite rough ground, it just wouldn't have worked and so he came and took it back again.  Bearing in mind that it was now about 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning, I think we did quite well to get a digger delivered.  We do know the people from the hire shop quite well and have always got on well with them, so that probably helped.  Bob always gets me to do the ringing for these things because he thinks I can get away with being cheeky!  So, the digger arrived at about 11.30 and by the time we'd had a cuppa and a chat with the driver (having just had a cuppa and a chat with the lad who delivered the stone), it wasn't worth starting anything before lunch!  I'd forgotten how much time you spend socialising when you're having deliveries.

The hired digger suited Chris very well and he soon got
on with spreading out all the hardcore we'd accumulated to
help fill in the dip along the hedge.

There we are, he is happy in his work.

I had a go at a bit of bucket work - takes a lot of thinking about
you know.  I'm sure it'd soon become second nature and
you'd do it without thinking about it, but not in the 10 minute
session I had!

None of us had thought about a membrane to put between the soil
and stone so we had a hunt round and found enough roof breather
membrane, hessian, old tarpaulins and builders bags to lay out (having
stabbed them with a garden fork to allow drainage).  By the end of Saturday
the site was cleared and we'd laid some of the membranes and spread some
of the stone.

I was working and Bob was out on Sunday, so we left Chris to it
and he finished spreading, levelling and compacting the stone
and started on the path down from the workshop.  This will be
how Bob gets his motorbikes up and down eventually, but we
ran out of stone.

We can now park side by side and reverse in.  Our visitors should
be pleased about that, it's surprising how many people ask us to
reverse their cars out!  Behind the cars we will store the trailer and
also build another log store.  It all looks a bit new and harsh just now,
but once we've sorted the edges out and the stone has mellowed a
bit it should look fine.  We will also lay the hedge to thicken it up so
it should be more hidden from the track.

Ancient herb-stones and elephants

Next border's finished!  Yep, we've finished the building part of the terraced herb border and here it is.  Towards the top are little stone walls going across just to stop the soil all sliding downhill.  We now need to get some ericaceous compost and horse muck to put in the top two sections for the blueberries.  Then the next bit is going to be a bit rockery-like for the rosemary, etc and, surprisingly,  the bottom bit has turned out to be quite good soil.  There used to be a path up the side of the house with a little wall to the side and the bit this side of it ended up being a real dumping ground for us.  Because we used what is now the lounge as our builders yard/workshop, it was handy just to empty the last bit of mortar or plaster outside the door.  We used old sacks of cement that had gone hard as steps for quite a while and all sorts of other bits of stone and wood got dumped on the pile, so all that had to be cleared.  Once we'd built the walls we forked over the soil in the bottom bit and found all sorts of bits of metal, toys bits of clothes and bottles (a really sweet little bottle which is in almost perfect condition as well as broken bits of a bottle with Castle Hotel, Oswestry on the side - shame that was broken).  So we weren't the first to dump stuff there.  
Buried under the middle of the bed was the remains of the old wall so we managed to get some sizeable stones out including this one which took absolutely ages to get out as it was buried quite deep.  We could just have left it because I'm sure herbs don't need that much depth for their roots, but once we started we had to finish and I'm glad we did.  It's a bit difficult to see from this picture, but it is a perfectly triangular wedge shape and is bigger than it looks.  We've always thought some standing stones would be nice in the garden and so we decided to stand it where it was (rather than lugging it around!) and I'm now calling it our ancient herb-stone - I don't think there is really such a thing, but it sounds quite authentic!  Not quite Stonehenge, but it looks quite good.

Last week we went to see some friends the other side of Oswestry who said they had a bit of timber Bob may be interested in.  Well, yes, but not really just a bit!  They had some very straight Ash which will be perfect for legs for things and some nice straight Cherry.  So we ended up with a trailer and boot full. They have planted an orchard of heritage fruit trees and so we had a tour trying the various apples straight off the trees - when they said they'd get a bag so we could take some home I thought they meant a carrier bag, but they meant a farm sack!  So we ended up with a kitchen full of apples and I spent the afternoon peeling and cooking them for the freezer.  I also made some juice from each type and we had a juice tasting session which was interesting - all very different.  The courgettes went into a courgette cake and some apples went into a crumble-pie.  The wood is in a pile and Bob was amazed at how beautifully it split - just like in the books!   This week we went back to get some more wood (they are trying to clear a shed so they can concrete the floor) and ended up with more apples!  I get the feeling they are a bit overwhelmed by how much fruit they have and are quite glad to give some away so they don't have to peel and stew it!

The route to see these friends takes you across country past the Old Racecourse and when we got to a little crossroads in the middle of nowhere it was all cordened off by police with police cars and flashing lights all over the place.  One of the policemen came over to explain that we couldn't get through because of 'that' (pointing to a little post box on a post).  He was obviously not impressed!  Apparently some youths had posted a firework and blown up the post box, but because all their calls are co-ordinated centrally in Worcester, the Bomb Squad from Birmingham had been alerted and were on their way and no-one was allowed near until they gave the all-clear.  He was really disgruntled about the waste of time, money and resources but said it was because the whole country was on heightened terrorist alert at the moment.  I guess they have to be careful, but a little post box in the middle of nowhere is not really likely to be a prime terrorist target for bringing the whole country to a standstill is it?

Yesterday we had a Green Deal Assessment.  Because we have solar tubes on the roof, we should be able to claim a payment from the Government for 7 years.  They just don't make it easy though - surprise, surprise.  You have to have this assessment done which to a degree I can understand - they have to be sure you actually have the product you're claiming for and also that you have done everything you can to make your home energy efficient.  For Building Control sign-off you have to get, and pay for, an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) which tells you how energy efficient your house is and how you could improve it.  Ours came out at a C which is as good as it could be for the type of house and much better than most of the old cottages you see for sale.  Now wouldn't you think we could have used that to support our claim for the Govt payout (especially as it was done by a Govt employee)?  Oh, no, no, no.  You have to have another one done, and pay for it again.  It's all people making money and just not a joined-up system at all.  So, we forked out again and the girl came and spent 2 hours measuring, photographing and questioning and when she sends her report, we can file that along with our solar tube installation certificate on some website and then, hopefully, get a bit of money back from it.  Watch this space!

We also had a visit yesterday from the lady who did our bat survey right back at the beginning of this project.  She was really excited to see the house finished as she was there when we started taking the roof off in the snow and doesn't usually get to see the finished property.  She was even more excited when we told her about the bat that has taken up residence under the eves of Bob's workshop.  She brought a colleague from the Small Mammals Conservation Group because they have discovered evidence of doormice near here which, again, they were very excited about.  She thought Ben might be interested in getting involved if he's around when they are doing their surveying - all good experience and I'm sure he will be interested.  They had a look at our bit of woodland behind the top barns and declared it perfect habitat for doormice, if they can find it.  So, anyway, one of our next projects now is to make and install some doormice boxes.  When we were knocking the hole through the wall for the stairs, we found a hoard of nibbled hazelnuts in the wall and wondered if it had been where building had stopped for the Winter and doormice had overwintered.  The nuts had a very round hole in one end which we thought was characterisitc of doormice.  I managed to find the shells to show the chap, but he said they were from woodmice which is a little disappointing.  Again though, they were really excited to think that those nuts were nearly 200 years old and he's going to send us some photos of a doormouse hazelnut so we know what to look out for.

A few days ago we had a visit from an elephant!  Can you believe it?  Well, actually, not quite.  Having seen a Hummingbird Hawk Moth a couple of weeks ago, Bob found an Elephant Hawk Moth caterpillar making its way up the drive - quite impressive I'm told, but it had run away before I got home from work.  We'll have to look out for the moth next year - they're pink I think!

As well as the apples we have been given, we
have quite a good fruit crop of our own.  This is a tiny
pear tree, but has loads of fruit.

and this is the plum which is so laden down that the chickens
can just help themselves from the ground which they are quite
happy about!

Gas finally runs out!

Don't worry, I'm not talking about some global crisis, but our never-ending bottled gas!  We, obviously, used bottled gas in the caravan to cook and heat water and a big bottle lasted 8-10 weeks - oh, I remember the joy of having a shower when it was due to run out and wondering if the hot water would last until the shampoo was rinsed off.  Did get caught out a couple of times, but whoever wasn't in the shower was at the ready with the spanner to change the bottles over double quick during the few days when it was due to run out.  So, when we moved into the house we took our bottled gas with us, but just for the hob on the cooker (there is no mains gas here) and I do prefer the 'turn-on-and-offableness' of a gas hob.  Friends and neighbours do the same and the concensus seemed to be that a bottle lasts about 18 months which didn't seem too bad.  Our bottle was part-used from the caravan and so we thought we'd get about a year out of it . . . . next week it will be three years since we moved into the house and it has only just run out!  AMAZING!  We didn't think it'd ever run out.  Recently, we've started using the whistling kettle we bought for on the woodburner instead of the electric kettle as I'm sure it's got to be cheaper.  I suppose we do most of our cooking on the woodburner through the Winter and so that is why the gas has lasted so long.

We have started building another garden wall - it's never-ending!  We have started on the herb bed which is in front of the lounge windows, so we wanted that bit of wall to look good which meant using some really big stones - it does grow quickly that way though!  We're still managing to use stone we have lying around, but they are getting smaller and more awkward in shape - you just can't help using the easiest ones first.

This border will be terraced within itself to make it go down the slope.  If we can get our heads round it properly, it should work quite well because we can have different soil conditions in each bit to suit different plants - stoney and free-draining for the mediterranean-type herbs, normal for others and acidic at the top where we will plant the two blueberry bushes which are currently in pots.  Once the herbs and blueberries are planted out, we'll be able to put something solid down outside the lounge - maybe cobbles or maybe we'll have to bite the bullet and actually buy something.  We've got so used to having all sorts of materials lying around and thinking of ways to use them that it seems very odd to have to contemplate going out and buying something . . . . maybe we'll come up with a plan to save us the trauma!  While we were building this wall, I noticed a very strange (and quite large) insect hovering over the sweet peas just behind Bob.  It had a big long body and a very long nose and, apparently, no wings?  Weird!  Bob turned and got a better look, but it flew off before I could get there to look at it properly.  We had a look in the book though and it would seem that it was a Hummingbird Hawk Moth which flies during the day.  It does have wings by the way, but it moves them so fast that you can hardly see them (hence the name I guess).  They are Summer visitors and some years are very scarce and others not - don't know if this is a rare year or an abundance year.

We just had a weekend in bonny Scotland visiting Laura who lives between Edinburgh and Glasgow.  It wasn't actually so bonny on Friday because it was piddling down, but the rest of the weekend was lovely and warm - I kept finding myself thinking 'You know, it could almost be Summer'  and then realising that it was actually still August!  We have had a very chilly couple of weeks haven't we?  We've had the fire lit a few times and Laura said she had to scrape ice off her car one morning!  We had a day in Edinburgh and took an open-top bus tour to introduce us to the sights although Laura did a pretty good job of pointing things out to us too.  We had a lovely couple of hours in the Botanic Gardens in the sun and then a quick run around the museum before closing time.  You know, there are quite a lot of tartan, cashmere and whiskey shops in Edinburgh!

On the way home we passed a couple of convoys of Police minibuses just before the motorway gets to England.  We were a bit worried that they were on their way to close the border before the election in a couple of weeks and had to try to overtake them (at about 71mph!).  We made it back across the border just in time though - phew!  Before we went, a chap in the pub told us to look out for a special woodland on the way up the M6 which we had never noticed before.  Apparently, in the war a German plane crashed into a hillside killing the pilot and after the war his widow managed to buy the piece of land where he'd come down.  She planted a woodland in the shape of a heart to mark the spot - how romantic.  I don't know if that is true, but going north on the M6 about a mile before J38 you can definitely see a heart-shaped woodland on the steep hillside to your right - have a look if you're ever passing.

Ta dah!

So, here's the first bit of terracing finished.  This is taken from our bedroom window and actually makes it look a lot smaller than it really is - the wall at the front is about chest high.  We didn't have to add any extra soil because the stuff Bob dug out at the back for the little retaining wall brought the level about right.  We did add a trailer full of horse muck though and the chickens enjoyed helping us mix that in!

Then on Saturday we had to deliver a garden bench that Bob had made to someone just outside Shrewsbury (actually Prince William's helicopter instructor don't you know!) and a couple of miles from there is the yard where we got the untreated railway sleepers for the big retaining wall round the extension.  So much nicer than the ones that ooze creosote whenever the sun shines.  We had three left and thought they'd work for the back of this border and so we got another one while we were close by.  And here's the finished wall.  Bob is drilling all the way through both sleepers (they're quite hard you know) and then we knocked lengths of reinforcing bar through and into the ground below.  We have also planted some plants as you can see, although they look a bit sparse just now.  Unless you've got hundreds of pounds to spend on lots of plants including some bigger mature shrubs it is always going to look a bit bare for the first couple of years I suppose.  We had bought some shrubs a few months ago in readiness - mostly for Winter interest like a Sweet Box and a Japanese Holly (which is the spike of green in the foreground).  There was also a white Buddlejah for the butterflies and another mystery shrub with very little detail on the label except that the leaves turn bright red in Autumn/Winter which will be the reason we bought it.  When I googled it though it turns out to grow 1.5m high and 2m wide . . . . oh . . . . . . and it likes acidic soil . . . . . oh!  Nothing about that on the label and as we live on the edge of a limestone quarry, the soil's hardly likely to be acidic and it would completely dominate this border.  So, quick rethink and we've decided it can eventually replace the blackcurrants which are planted on an awkward slope at the edge of the path.  We'll have to dig a big hole and fork through lots of ericaceaous compost and if it grows as big as it says it will be a really useful way to fill a very awkward spot.  We went to the garden centre yesterday and got a tall grass to go in the back corner which will look quite pretty, some light orange Crocosmia, a white Campanula to trail over the front and some yellow daisy things.  I'm most excited about the Bergamont we bought - it's used to flavour Earl Grey tea, but if you eat the petals they have the most amazing intense, sweet flavour and the flowers are a lovely dark red and bees and butterflies absolutely love it (it is also known a Bee Balm) so tick, tick, tick!  From our existing border we are going to move a Wych Hazel and a Potentilla which really aren't happy and we'll split all sorts of things like Rudbekia, Penstemon and Euphorbia.  I've also got lots of bits of Thyme and Sedum to plant in the wall.  I also sprinkled loads of seeds from our Mexican Daisy into a seed tray and there are loads of little seedlings coming through - trouble is, I haven't a clue if they're weeds or the little daisies.  Those daisies are amazing and bush out and trail with tonnes of tiny daisy flowers that start off pink and then turn white.  Normally they flower from early Spring until the first harsh frosts, but because we had such a mild Winter last year ours has flowered non-stop since March 2013!

Well, we're off to a barbeque on Wednesday evening and I red in the paper today that snow is forecast - admittedly that is in the highlands and unlikely to reach Shropshire, but ground frost is a real possibility.  Must remember to take a jumper!

More weeding!

Yes, more weeding has been done, but this time I imported some help!  Carol and Graham came briefly so that Graham could do a bit more to his rocking chair.  It's really coming on and all the bits are shaped and all the joints are cut and have been tested.  Now, Graham's a precision engineer and Bob has reverted to his old precision ways now he's making furniture (things in an old house can't be done with that much precision) so you won't be surprised to know that one of the joints was so tight that they couldn't pull it apart again and Bob has blisters on his hands from the effort!  Anyway, Graham has gone away with sanding homework and if he has time to do that they can start guleing it together next time they come.

So, while they were doing that Carol and I did some garden jobs.  Bob and I have just about finished the stone wall for our forst bit of terracing and so behind it were all the reject stones that didn't get used so we sorted them and moved them to their appropriate places and then pulled all the weeds out.  Now it's ready to have a dose of well-rotted horse muck and some topsoil from our mountain (the one we had to move to lay the lawn).  Course, since we laid the lawn, the mountain of soil had grown its own forest of lush weeds. 

 At least they stopped the chickens from spreading the soil all over the place and so we do still have some left.  So that was another job to do.  That was actually quite good fun because the weeds were big and thick, but because the soil was quite loose they came up easily and it was quite satisfying.  So, good job done.  That's the finished wall behind Carol, ready to backfill with soil and plant.

Last weekend we had a working party to Mum and Dad's.  To make things more manageable in their garden they have taken out the hedge and wanted to put a fence in, so Carol, Graham, Bob and I launched ourselves at the task.  Mum and Dad had done all the planning and got the timber roughly cut to size and with its first coat of fence treatment and the posts and rails were already in.  So over the two days we nailed the boards on cut the top level and put all the top pieces on and gave it another coat of treatment.  We also re-treated their two little sheds, made a new handle for one and dug over the border that had got well and truly trampled in the process.  It ended up a bit like that old program 'Ground Force' as Mum took the opportunity to do some inside jobs and we ended up racing against the clock to get the border dug, stones picked out, raked and swept up before Mum came out to offer a cup of tea at 3.30 (she didn't know we were doing that bit so we wanted to surprise her with a job finished)!  It was actually quite good fun and everyone worked well together and around each other and we got a satisfying amount done.  There were quite a lot of people walking past when Carol and I were nailing the boards on (Bob, Graham and Dad were doing the more technical 'boy jobs' like cutting joints on the top rail).  I think people were quite surprised to see 'girls' doing that sort of thing.  One elderly lady looked quite horrified as she asked her friend if that was 'ladies doing fencing'!  Oh, if only she knew . . . fencing, roofing, building, underpinning, demolition (and barely a broken nail in the whole time!).

We're off to the proverbial p***-up in a brewery tonight.  Stonehouse brewery where we buy our beer from are having a bit of a do to raise money for charity.  They have a couple of local bands playing (I think some of the lads that work there are in a band), a hog roast and beer - naturally.  Should be good I think - they've sold 160 tickets - just a shame I have to work tomorrow!