Week Thirteen
This week feels a bit like it’s going to be a ‘nothing happening’ week because the surround needs to happen next and Gareth the Wood is away at Butlins….
On Monday I set to work staining the ceiling. Again. I know that it took 3 ½ hours on Saturday, so Karen at work (thank you again Karen) does my late turn at the office for me and I whiz home to get cracking. It doesn’t seem to take so long as the first coat (soaks in less) but then I am somewhat thwarted by Dave the Miller turning up with the new surround corners. Which is fine, but he does rather like to natter…. 45 minutes later he finally trundles off, and I get back to the staining…. However, the good news is that he ADMIRES the cabin and says we’re doing A Good Job. Praise indeed!
On Tuesday the last coat of stain goes on – HOORAY! And a second coat on the stable door end wall and the window wall. I ceremonially dump my cheap trousers and T shirt because they are now entirely able to stand up by themselves. I decide it really would be useful to move the electrics on, and phone Wyn the Wire. No reply, so I email him instead asking if he could come and do something at the weekend….
On Wednesday morning I meet a very bedraggled and bewildered lost dog in the lanes on my way to work, pick her up and pop her in the car, ring the number on her tag and go meet her owner to hand her over. The owner is delighted to find that Shirley (bedraggled dog) is alive and well – apparently she’s 14 years old, prone to fits, and the owner thought she’d wandered off to die. She insists I have £10 to buy myself a bunch of flowers – I pick flowers from the garden and buy sloe gin instead – and will raise a glass to Shirley until I finish the bottle. Once at work, I find that there is a distinct smell of stale pee. Naturally I blame the temp sitting next to me until (some hours later) I figure out it’s me – Shirley must have been wiffier than I thought! Karen lends me some ‘lemon body spray’ and I douse myself liberally, probably much to the relief of everyone in the office, though they’re far too polite to say… After work I finish the stable door wall and the window wall and whiz up to Guy’s house to find his electricity off and his freezer defrosted. I plan to repaint his sitting room (the one where the new log burner was installed and the walls are a weird shade of ‘soot’) so get cracking. The paint is exactly the same colour as the previous paint. Which would be A Good Thing if we hadn’t already decided it was A Horrible Colour. So I stop.
Back home, I decide to play with the fairy lights in the cabin. The plan is to have lights and ivy trailing across the rafters. The fake ivy looks revolting, but the lights look FAB! I don’t know whether they’ll give enough light, so I lob them over the rafters very roughly and wait for it to get dark. Later on I go back out to see what it looks like – FANTASTIC!!! The lights need to be a little better arranged and they will look BRILLIANT. I am now really excited!
OK, so now for the seriously unpleasant news this week. On Wednesday I have an email from Wyn the Wire to say sorry, he can’t do any electrics at the weekend, Janice’s (wife’s) younger sister has been murdered by her boyfriend who has gone on the run from the police. BLOODY HELL. This is the sort of thing that doesn’t happen to ordinary people. BLOODY HELL. There’s not much else to say really, except BLOODY HELL. There is no way I’m going to get another electrician when Wyn has done so much work already and in the greater scheme of things it doesn’t matter when the pool gets finished, so I’ll wait until he’s ready to continue.
On Thursday I take Guy’s car to work so that I can collect more tongue and groove after work. Work gets really busy, the woodmerchants closes and I drive home with an empty car…. In the evening I meet up with Anna in town for a free concert as part of the Cardiff Festival – good meal, good concert – certainly beats putting woodstain on ceilings!
On Friday I take Guy’s car to work again and collect as much T&G as I can fit in the car. Once home I play with the fairy lights - they look GORGEOUS!
On Monday I set to work staining the ceiling. Again. I know that it took 3 ½ hours on Saturday, so Karen at work (thank you again Karen) does my late turn at the office for me and I whiz home to get cracking. It doesn’t seem to take so long as the first coat (soaks in less) but then I am somewhat thwarted by Dave the Miller turning up with the new surround corners. Which is fine, but he does rather like to natter…. 45 minutes later he finally trundles off, and I get back to the staining…. However, the good news is that he ADMIRES the cabin and says we’re doing A Good Job. Praise indeed!
On Tuesday the last coat of stain goes on – HOORAY! And a second coat on the stable door end wall and the window wall. I ceremonially dump my cheap trousers and T shirt because they are now entirely able to stand up by themselves. I decide it really would be useful to move the electrics on, and phone Wyn the Wire. No reply, so I email him instead asking if he could come and do something at the weekend….
On Wednesday morning I meet a very bedraggled and bewildered lost dog in the lanes on my way to work, pick her up and pop her in the car, ring the number on her tag and go meet her owner to hand her over. The owner is delighted to find that Shirley (bedraggled dog) is alive and well – apparently she’s 14 years old, prone to fits, and the owner thought she’d wandered off to die. She insists I have £10 to buy myself a bunch of flowers – I pick flowers from the garden and buy sloe gin instead – and will raise a glass to Shirley until I finish the bottle. Once at work, I find that there is a distinct smell of stale pee. Naturally I blame the temp sitting next to me until (some hours later) I figure out it’s me – Shirley must have been wiffier than I thought! Karen lends me some ‘lemon body spray’ and I douse myself liberally, probably much to the relief of everyone in the office, though they’re far too polite to say… After work I finish the stable door wall and the window wall and whiz up to Guy’s house to find his electricity off and his freezer defrosted. I plan to repaint his sitting room (the one where the new log burner was installed and the walls are a weird shade of ‘soot’) so get cracking. The paint is exactly the same colour as the previous paint. Which would be A Good Thing if we hadn’t already decided it was A Horrible Colour. So I stop.
Back home, I decide to play with the fairy lights in the cabin. The plan is to have lights and ivy trailing across the rafters. The fake ivy looks revolting, but the lights look FAB! I don’t know whether they’ll give enough light, so I lob them over the rafters very roughly and wait for it to get dark. Later on I go back out to see what it looks like – FANTASTIC!!! The lights need to be a little better arranged and they will look BRILLIANT. I am now really excited!
OK, so now for the seriously unpleasant news this week. On Wednesday I have an email from Wyn the Wire to say sorry, he can’t do any electrics at the weekend, Janice’s (wife’s) younger sister has been murdered by her boyfriend who has gone on the run from the police. BLOODY HELL. This is the sort of thing that doesn’t happen to ordinary people. BLOODY HELL. There’s not much else to say really, except BLOODY HELL. There is no way I’m going to get another electrician when Wyn has done so much work already and in the greater scheme of things it doesn’t matter when the pool gets finished, so I’ll wait until he’s ready to continue.
On Thursday I take Guy’s car to work so that I can collect more tongue and groove after work. Work gets really busy, the woodmerchants closes and I drive home with an empty car…. In the evening I meet up with Anna in town for a free concert as part of the Cardiff Festival – good meal, good concert – certainly beats putting woodstain on ceilings!
On Friday I take Guy’s car to work again and collect as much T&G as I can fit in the car. Once home I play with the fairy lights - they look GORGEOUS!
Saturday turns out to be a little more hectic than I had planned. Blunkett has been in the kennels, but they’re full this weekend, so I go to fetch her. She looks very forlorn and is absolutely delighted to see me – she hurtles round in circles, throws herself on her back and waves all her feet in the air. And she KEEPS TELLING ME HOW HAPPY SHE IS I HAVE RESCUED HER. Boy, Guy is going to have to go some to beat this welcome…. Blunkett and I go to Guy’s house and paint the walls in his soot filled sitting room with better coloured paint. Home again to stick Jablite in the stud wall (yes, Vincent, I know you said it wasn’t necessary but I thought if later on I thought it was necessary it would be a nuisance and it’s much easier to do it now than later…) Then I go to The Big Cheese (Caerphilly’s version of the Cardiff Festival) to do my stint on the stand for the Caerphilly Woodlands Trust – we are encouraging people to plant a tree for free and it’s exceedingly popular! I do two hours of chatting to people about trees (mostly winging it as I haven’t done my homework) and see someone unexpectedly from my office – Anne, whose new baby is just ONE WEEK OLD. Already she is out and about and both she and the baby are looking terrific. We both do the ‘EEK - What are YOU doing here’ thing and then her hubby says they’ll come and plant a tree. Excellent! Then it’s back to Guy’s for one more coat on the walls, home again to T&G the stud wall and stain it, dinner and BED. Phew.
Sunday is luckily more peaceful – I go to Guy’s to do more soot cleaning and end up sootier than the house. I put everything back where it should be and it looks CLEAN. Unlike me. I begin to wonder if my fingernails will ever be anything but black again…. Then I mow the grass, pick up the bits without gloves and my fingernails go from black to green. I look like Shrek …
On the cabin front, there’s not much to do – one more coat on the stud wall, a bit of tidying up, and now it’s all ready for Gareth the Wood to add the surround on Tuesday. The surround is currently spread out in the sitting room being oiled on a 6 hour cycle. The whole house stinks of oil! One teensy snag – I have to add the speed assembly to the metal pool walls before the surround goes on – more of those self-tapping screws that I DON’T LIKE. This time it goes through one layer then the whole assembly spins like crazy – I’ll have another crack at it on Monday!
Hours worked: All of them when I wasn’t asleep. I shan’t be upset if I never see woodstain again…
Achieved: CEILING IS FINISHED WOO HOO! Back of stud wall insulated and finished, just one more coat of stain needed. Fairy lights in place, surround being oiled.
Wine consumed: No wine, lots of sloe gin (but I have a whole new bottle to go at thanks to Shirley).
Purchases and pressies: Does more T&G count?
News update: They police have caught Janice’s sister’s murdering boyfriend. Good.
Cockup of the week: Dave the Miller (who delivered new corners at such length) did NOT deliver ‘plugs’ as agreed with Gareth the Wood. I will phone on Monday and see if they can be done FAST. I can see the surround being put off AGAIN. My nerves may not take it….
Update from Spain: Guy, for some reason known only to himself, put a bottle of wine in his melodeon case. And it broke. Result: one soggy melodeon and a trail of wine across the hotel foyer… Melodeon luckily not damaged apart from the smell of wine, still playable! That’ll teach him to smuggle wine out of restaurants…..
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