Tuesday 6th October

Sunday 4th October  - do nothing day. But we did catch the BBC1 Young Chorister of the Year finals for the junior age group. Each chorister sang a well-known hymn with such beauty and conviction... if you didn't see it, do look it up on iplayer. 

Here are the junior and senior winners from 2015;

Their voices were such a contrast to the young singers performing a song from Matilda; 

The human voice is such a versatile instrument. 

Monday 5th October 

The plasterer was working hard all day putting the top coat of render on the outside of the extension. We chose 'parchment', and I'm really pleased. He hasn't yet done the left hand corner...

While I was out there I took a picture of one of the last few leaves on my witch hazel. You can see the beautiful way it is turning from green to bronze;

Tuesday 6th October 

We were up at 6, ready for the builders at 7 and the delivery of the screed at 7.30. This proved to be a large pile of dirty grey cementy looking stuff, tipped out into a heap on a thoughtfully placed plastic sheet.

One lad barrowed it round to the extension and shovelled it through the door. The othe man had the back-breaking job, on his hands and knees, of packing it in and smoothing it down by working a plank over and over the surface. It looked like very hard physical work.

We left them to it, and went out for the day! I did at least make them a cup of tea before I left.

Saturday 3rd October - easy day?

 It's been tremendously noisy all week; I can't remember but did I already say that I consider electric screw-drivers to be a fiendish invention? The electricians had two on the go all through Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday,  and then the builders added to, and continued the row for the rest of the week!

I seized a quiet hour today for checking through the finances and paying various bills... interrupted several times by a locksmith coming to measure up and then change the lock on on the front door. Somehow I managed to keep track of what I was doing (maybe?)

A locksmith? We left the builders with a key one day, and it appears to be 'misplaced'. They have agreed to pick up the bill, because BB and I are not keen to just have another spare cut at the cobblers. It just makes everything secure again.

We once changed the lock simply because a visitor accidentally took a key home with them and posted it back to our house, before we could arrange for them to send it via a friend. You could feel the key quite distinctly in the envelope. It's unlikely that someone would copy the key while it was enroute, but changing the lock ensured our peace of mind.

Anyway, I finished the paper work and we have a new lock.

The rest of the day was much more relaxing!

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My little tree has already discarded most of its leaves

I need to find the right place in the garden to plant it. I don't think it is enjoying living in that container. It was such a small spindly little thing when I got it last year and look at it now!

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It was lovely to meet friends at the Cowdray Farm Shop yesterday. It was warm and sunny, the cafes were good, and we had so much to talk about. We only see each other a couple of times a year so every meet-up is special.

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Thursday 1st October - Following a tree

and other random bits and pieces...

Here's my little witch hazel;

We moved it to the edge of the terrace so that I could watch the leaves change colour. They are turning so quickly that I can see a difference day by day.

However, the kitchen door and French windows from the house to the extension are being removed and the empty space temporarily boarded up as I type, so I won't be able to watch my tree any more! 

It will be an incentive for me to use an oxygen cylinder and go round from the front door, the only way in or out of the house for the next three weeks. More steps! Fresh air! That will be good for me.

Talking of steps, I succeeded in getting past 100,000 last month;

I needed to average 3,333 steps per day; a bit of an effort some days. Yesterday I let myself off with barely 2,000 steps, but I shall have to get back on track. I know it can be done...

July and August, the heatwave months, were just too hot to try for the target.

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I told Freddie, the younger electrician, that BestBeloved had rejected my idea of sticking eyes on the screw heads in the switch boxes. So he put them on, before his boss arrived. The Boss made no comment...

We're booked in for our covid vaccinations this afternoon... BB will have the flu one at the same time, but I've arranged to have them separately to give me time to get over the covid one first.

Tuesday 29th September - I promised pictures...

 The electricians have just gone home for today. Although it might seem as though they have left it all in a mess; look again; the cables are laid out ready to start straight away tomorrow morning.

The new kitchen door (the fridge-freezer should just fit in the corner);

The new kitchen window; (the sink will be underneath, with the dish washer beside it)

The new french windows; (the two central doors open outwards, the windows either side tilt inwards from the base or open inwards from hinges along the outer edges)

 

And The Big End Window! It is frosted glass as it looks over our neighbour's garden. The actual floor level in the extension once the insulation and screed have gone down will be level with the sill of the existing patio door, near as makes no difference. 

This is the back wall of the house. The patio doors will be removed and the space left open;

And the current kitchen door into the house; again the door will be removed and the space left open. The right hand side of the existing  kitchen will become a shower room and downstairs loo, leaving space for the boiler and washing machine (both out of sight in the corner) and the left hand side utility room/storage/kitchen overflow.

The plaster is also coming tomorrow to start covering the outside with render. We needed to choose the colour for the final coat so we took the colour chart outside and put it on the terrace. If you zoom in, you will see that we have marked the second and third colours down on the left hand side, 'parchment' and 'honeysuckle'. Final decision tomorrow...

I've started calling it the 'terrace' rather than the patio. I've always thought of a patio as being at ground level, but we've got a sort of raised platform, like paved decking. Whenever I go out there I feel as though I should be declaiming Shakespeare or singing an aria... If I get out there tomorrow I'll take a picture to show you what I mean.

Just one more thing; the electrician is incredibly neat; just look at the way all the cables are coiled symmetrically in the switch boxes, like pince-nez spectacles... 'I've got a thing about symmetry' he said...

BB has Strongly Dissuaded me from putting stickers of eyes (I have a reel of them) on the screw heads inside each loop of cable. 

  
 

Monday 28th September - a houseful

 Today we had six workmen on site. Suddenly the extension seemed very crowded.

At one end, two electricians were drilling and fixing supports for all the sockets and switches that we thought we might need, plus more that we hadn't realised we might need. It was so noisy!

At the other end the big end window was being installed. It is in three large, heavy panels of opaque fire-proof safety glass, because it forms the boundary wall. Each panel took four men lift each one into position. Between them they fill the top half of the end wall. 

We chose to have the glass rather than a cheaper and easier solid end wall to appease our elderly neighbours who were most upset at the thought that our extension would take the light from their garden.

That window has caused so much angst!

I don't think it will make any difference to their garden, but it does make our extension lovely. I  think it also makes what was our dining room brighter. So although I'm more than a bit miffed about the expense and delay, I reckon it has turned out for the best and will be worth the money.

I'll take pictures tomorrow; it's been a long and tiring day!

Saturday 26th September - lists

 A friend was asking me about the 'rules' for drawing the 10-minute journals. 

'Rules' ?

Make them up as you go along, sez I! 

I picked up the idea of 10-minute journalling on substack here from someone called Adam Ming, so can follow that link to see how he does it.

Anyway, here's today's, and I noted the time I started and finished. 

I have a timetable for builders and trades coming in next week... I think that's the first time I've had such a thing!

We'll notice the difference when the back door in the kitchen and patio doors in the dining room are taken out. The space will be boarded up while the dusty work of lining the walls with ply, to take the weight of the kitchen cabinets, and then plasterboard and finally the plastering. It's only for a couple of weeks (I hope).

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Some bloggers post their meal plans...

Here's what we had this week;

My writing seems to have become a scrawl...