Another Catch Up. Bye Bye Builders!

See below for the photo story.

Tuesday 8th December 2009

Gosh, I am all behind. It's been a bit of a mad week, with builders suddenly appearing, whizzing around like mad things to get things done. More of that in a bit. I have been mostly tree decorating, house sorting, rug making and papier mache pot making. Phew!

Buster and BlackJack shared the bed on Tuesday, that's a first:

Buster turned is head away - 'it's not happening'. lol.

Then later on, Sandy took over, but Buster gave up:

He definitely has a little smile on his face.

Martin the builder came and was appalled at how little the previous carpenter had done. He promised to get the 'locum' carpenters for Wednesday.

Wednesday, 9th December

On Wednesday, the carpenters appeared. 2 of them! They flew around at great speed and finished at 8.30 pm in the evening! I told them not to bother sweeping up as I felt they'd done enough.
We have skirting boards!
The now rather grand entrance to the spare middle part of the extension.
My room with skirting boards!

So, all is well there.

Thursday 10th December

On Thursday, Martin and Joe appeared to do the last little jobs. The guttering along the front of the extension fills with water so they had that job to do, plus little bits and bobs inside and the biggest job, Joe had to plaster a large hole left in the kitchen/diner ceiling. Martin disappeared to the dentist for 2 hours so they didn't quite finish outside. The kitchen floor was all plastered again! But I didn't care, and cleaned it by the end of the evening.

We have been determined to get Stanley out of the kitchen/diner while we had extra bodies to help. Jim had brought some wheels from the UK to help, as Stanley weighs a ton. Joe, Jim and Martin all lifted and heaved and I placed the wheels underneath and we managed to get it outside in the yard. Phew! You wouldn't believe the extra space we now have.

We removed as much from Stanley as we could to try and reduce the weight a bit.
What a mess!
Jim and I got it as far as the step on the wheels.
And here he is out in the yard. Poor old Stanley. He's done us good service and now he's going up into the barn.

The space left behind, now clean.

Jim still had to cap our chimney to stop the rain falling down the chimney and dropping streaks of black tar down the wall. He persuaded Martin to help him and together they did the job, much to Jim's relief.

It was a lovely, sunny day and Jim and I were amazed to see a narcissus flowering in the garden. I have never, ever had one flower in December before!

There's definitely something wrong somewhere!

Friday 11th December

Joe and Martin duly arrived this morning and sorted out the guttering and down pipe, plus a couple of other little outside jobs. Joe came in and said goodbye, he was away. Gosh, it was all a bit sad really!

After a short while Martin appeared to collect some money and he, too, said goodbye. Wow. 2 builders gone. For ever. One year to the day since they started. Even Martin wryly remarked that the 4 month job had gone on a bit longer than anticipated!!

Jim and I had a bit of a dance round the kitchen and a big celebratory hug!

We made lists of jobs to be done and set about some of them. My job is to sand and varnish the bare wood. We are keeping it natural, not painting it. I did the spare bedroom window sill and skirting boards and door surround. It looks better already.

I have also almost finished decorating the Christmas Tree but have to get some greenery inside too before my decorations are done.

I carried the paper we have to burn to the bonfire site this afternoon and the sky was amazing. Single orange clouds were passing overhead, so I ran to fetch my camera.

They looked almost as though they were on fire.

I then turned to the other direction and the sky there was a yellowy:


I went to the top of the Fairy Hill and took photos in all directions!

Please click on these to enlarge them and see the sky to its full effect.

Jim used up some left over cement yesterday to mend one of our steps in the garden. He forgot to cover it!

On the left, BlackJack prints, on the right, Buster prints!! We have our own walk of fame.

I'm sorry I haven't been visiting as many blogs as I would like, but as you can tell, it's been a bit chaotic here.

Wishing everyone a very happy weekend.