Saturday 10th October - what I'm reading

 Charlie Fletcher - The Stone Heart trilogy. 

I can't remember what put me in mind of this; I read them about 10 years ago when I borrowed the first one from the year 6 library at one of the schools I was teaching in. It's at the top end of Yr 6, I would say, set in a parallel London where statues come to life, the evil ones and the good ones, and Jack and Edie have to somehow navigate this dangerous world and set things right. I've reread the first book, and am engrossed by the second. 

A Fortnight in September - R C Sherriff

It's about an ordinary family, mother, father, older son, a clerk, and the daughter working for a dressmaker, all still unmarried and living at home, and the youngest, still a schoolboy. They always take the same two weeks at the same boarding house every year in Bognor Regis. It's set in 1930

I'm finding this a slow read, probably because I'm impatient with the characters... they are stuck in their lives, and yet each wanting more... I'll persevere though, as I'm hoping they will unstick themselves from their tiny, closed lives... 

It's a bit like reading a Barbara Pym.

The Blue Castle - L M Montgomery

Romantic fiction, set in a fictional town based on Bala in the Muskoka region of Ontario, Canada, in around 1900. I enjoyed it; it's the sort of romance I could imagine LMMontgomery's Anne Shiley (Anne of Green Gables) writing! 

My Life on the Road - Gloria Steinem 

This is our Book Club pick. It's her autobiography.  I wasn't expecting to like this, but I'm fascinated by her life, and by the history of the various women's issues she was involved in. It's really making me think about these issues too.

Thursday 8th October - the day of the tackers

I never knew that plasterboard putter-uppers are known as tackers.

They were here all morning tacking away... then, just after lunch, we realised the world had gone quiet. 

'Perhaps they had stopped for lunch?'

No, everyone had gone!

Later two men from the building company came to collect the left over plasterboard and because 'the tackers never leave the place properly tidy'. The builders have very high standards.

The floor is now covered with screed so it is more or less at the final level. It will be a while before it is dry enough for the laminate flooring can be laid.

This is where I plan to sit and look out at the garden..

I wonder if the tackers noticed the eyes?

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!

....

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!

...

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.

...

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.

....

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.