Freezing week

And so all of a sudden it's Wednesday again and time for another update. How I did these every day I'm starting to wonder and I'm also beginning to ask whether I'll settle back into doing a daily update when the workers start back. We shall see. So I'm not feeling very inspired to type today so we'll just see how this goes. I started typing this with themes but actually it is going to work better, and quicker/easier for me, as a chronological update.

Monday

The main theme this week is definitely "ice". We had the slight smattering of snow over the weekend, not 80cm like was forecast (though certainly other places further north did get this volume) and this melted then froze on the first night and has continued to go through this cycle ever since.

Dipping below freezing, but not very far

A small icicle hanging from Sassy's cage

Very icy on the balcony

I've not yet risked these steps

So we'll begin with Monday morning and the icy scene that greeted me on the balcony when I went to feed and water Sassy. As you'd expect we're back to the freezing water bowl thing so I'm just swapping it out every morning. She seems happy enough though. The balcony was one solid sheet of ice and I must admit I've barely ventured out there at all so far, keeping myself limited to the not-so-slippy areas by the doors. I certainly have not gone down the back steps all week though I had a huge laugh when the puppies went down first and skidded the whole way. 

A wintry view down the patio

Raised beds with a good covering of snow

Frozen humanure covering

Rambo saying hello as I go for my daily picture

The sun attempting to break through the clouds

Super lovely dinner

Monday is a working day for both of us, as is Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday only I do paid work. All day we were stuck at our desks other than for breaks to do chores like feeding the birds and me getting my daily picture done from the front garden. I had to go out and do the humanure as well and when I got to it I found that the hay over the top was frozen solid. The composting material underneath was still loose, which is as it should be and shows that the hot stage of the reaction is well under way. The sun did try and come out, which prompted the curtains to be opened in Room 13, but most of the day it was overcast and dull and the fire did sterling work to keep us warm. After cancelling our Sunday Roast on Sunday because neither of us were really feeling up for a big feed A finished the slow cooked pork for Monday, and paired it with a lovely vegetable dish with baked eggs. It was superb. It's so nice to be trying new things out, and we do have a LOT of eggs to get through.

Tuesday

The frozen water bubbling through

Thelma eating A's nose

Louise caught mid "super excited moment"

Settling in front of the fire

I had a little lie in on Tuesday after A got up to get the kettle on as I hadn't slept well again. I eventually dragged myself out of bed and went to sort Sassy out and swap over her water etc. Unfortunately I forgot all my other morning chores, like cleaning the fires out, which was bad of me. While we were sat working away we suddenly heard a very strange sound and immediately panicked about rats but as we looked around we saw that Sassy's water bowl, stood on the side to defrost, was outgassing through a crack and fizzing. Very strange. It was quite warm in Room 13 by this point with the fire going well so the puppies were at least happy.

The clouds clearing away towards the South

Sassy skating around on the ice

I called Rambo from the window of Room 13

The puppies finally came sprinting over

They have started to love the snow

So long as the sun is out, of course

Even they will come out, if it is sunny

After a cloudy start it started to clear up and eventually it was a sunny day pretty much all day, which was great as we opened all the curtains to let the daylight in. All the animals were out and about, even Sassy skating around on the ice on the balcony. Rambo was doing rounds and I caught his attention from Room 13. I was looking out to see where the puppies were as they were barking and barking and I couldn't see them. I took a quick stroll across the patio and found them in the far bottom corner in the long undergrowth there and after calling them a few times they emerged looking very pleased with themselves. As I strolled back the birds made an appearance and started to peck around the dirt outside their house.

Looking back up to the house

Thelma and Louise playing with a stick

Louise always ends up getting bored and wandering off

The raised bed is really doing very well

It really had suddenly become a rather glorious day so I didn't rush back inside and stood watching as the puppies had a play and Rambo bounced around like a puppy, even though he really is too old for such larks. I realised that, with the sun now out, I really should clear off the snow from on top of the raised beds. I'd deliberately left it there while the temperature was so low as it actually acts as an insulator however with the sun providing heat I wanted to get the benefit. It didn't take long to scrape both sides clear, using some scrap rubber piping on the floor (after starting with my bare hands and getting really cold). The plants inside are looking remarkably healthy and once again I'm so happy with how well these raised beds are working.

Wood for the floor in Sassy's room

Just after lunch, as I was settling back down into work, there was a phone call from the lady at the builders yard. I didn't really do very well with her on the phone, sadly, as she used words I don't know however we got there in the end and so when about an hour later the truck drove along and beeped I was ready to open the gate and show him where we were unloading. It was the same chap who delivered the stuff for the insulation and again he helped me unload, which isn't really what delivery drivers do over here, but this time he had to lift it with me up the stairs. I gave him a little bonus when he left to pay for the extra time and effort.

Sun glinting above our village as it sinks

One of the little houses that is occupied

The ridge, contrasting darkly with the sun

Sparkling snow on the chimney

Sunflowers in our lovely vase

Towards the end of the day I noticed that the sun was going down and so I sprinted onto the roof terrace to get some pictures as the light slanted its way across the landscape. It was a magical view and I was up there for a while taking various photographs. I have been a bit slack in my photographing how the scenery is changing with the seasons and I was very pleased to be putting that right. What a lovely place, even when it is so cold. On the way down I finally got a picture of the lovely vase that we were given as a gift by the neighbours; A has picked some fake sunflowers to go in it and while she thinks she'll have to get a few more to finish it off I think it looks lovely.

Wednesday

Blue sky first thing this morning

Sassy hiding in the warm until her food was given her

The pond is again frozen solid

The ice shapes are visible on the front right corner

To the left the ice is wrinkled

And so we come to today. Last night was a terrible nights sleep for both of us for various reasons and it ended up with A taking herself off to the spare room for the last few hours. I think we both slept better after that which was good but I was the first one up and so I got to do all the chores, hopefully making up for missing out on them on Monday. When I fed Sassy she was hidden away inside her little warm cave, showing just how cold it is, and she stayed there until the food appeared. The birds were furious at how late they were let out (it had been a lie in) and came bursting out the door. The ducks are not going to be getting to swim any time soon, however, as the pond was completely frozen, with some interesting shapes and textures in evidence.

Washing being hung up to freeze

Ice on top of Sassy's hutch

I got the fire on, made brews, and then went and woke A up with a coffee. She got up pretty much straight away and we set ourselves to work. Breakfast today was soft boiled duck eggs again and they were amazing. The flood the other day had gotten into our just-washed clothes so I put them through a wash again this morning. When it finished A took them and hung them out to dry outside. Just now she's brought them in to finish on the airers and said they were frozen solid out there! It really has been cold, though.

Up the scaffold once again

Hoovering up the loose bits of floor, and rabbit poo

A getting her mix on

Filling the Sassy-dug holes

The big holes are filled, ready for the beams

With the wood finally delivered I am able to start work on Sassy's room which is really exciting for me. Of course now I realise just how much I could have done while I was waiting for the wood as today I've had to work on things that didn't even need it, but still. First of all I took down the light fittings that are in that room still and then I got the vacuum and picked up all the loose bits left by Sassy, and the rubble from where she'd dug holes, so that I could fill them cleanly. A is the master of mix so she got to making the terracol up for me to fill the holes with. Sadly I found that the SDS which I thought had been fixed actually hasn't been and it didn't work at all. Fortunately another of the mixing paddles fitted into my new hammer drill so we could use that. It was then a very quick job to slop the mix into the holes and smooth it roughly over. Tomorrow I hope I can get the first board down to see how well this is going to work.

The farmer driving his horse and cart down the lane

And so the rest of the day was taken up with working. I'll leave you with a photograph I took very hurriedly out of the window as the farmer went scooting past on his horse and cart; such a lovely wintry scene. Now I'm going to go and do a bit more planning for the first section of the model railway, something I've been spending about twenty minutes at least every evening sketching scale plans and working out how to do what I see in my mind. I can't wait to get started, but it'll be a few weeks before the first benchwork is created.

Insomnia strikes

Sunday afternoon (just about) and once again sat at the laptop tippy-tappying away. The main theme for the second half of this week is me struggling to sleep. The first night I didn't sleep was Wednesday and I had no really good excuse for this; I just woke up at 2am and then couldn't get back to sleep so went onto the sofa to read and that was me until that night. Then again last night I had a disturbed night but this time I had a good reason, which you shall see shortly. I'm going to do this as a chronological update as I'm feeling lazy.

Thursday

As I have said it was a very early start to the day on Thursday. I was awake from about 2am and by 4am gave up trying to sleep. I finished my book sat on the sofa, wrapped in the duvet but feeling comfortable. A got up just as I was getting to the end of the book and so we stayed sat on the sofa with our brews while I finished it. I can't wait for the weather to improve so we can go back to our morning brews sat on the balcony.

The nail finally fell off my damaged little finger

The girls indicating that they smell rats

I shifted all the wood again, but no rats were found

Sunny outside, lunch time cricket on the laptop

With our brews out the way I went to the office to start work while A got herself together to go for the weekly shop. She wasn't gone that long this week but in that time quite a lot happened. First of all went to put a load of washing on and managed to finally remove the nail from my little finger. Then when I was downstairs loading the machine the puppies went mad sniffing over the wood pile in the bottom corridor so once again I sealed it all off and shifted the wood to check but found nothing; I think they were just smelling the scent from the previous visitor that we killed. A got home just as I got upstairs after doing this so I helped her unload and the settled back to work. The weather was glorious and the washing I hung outside dried within a few hours.

Normal scissors cut the plastic fine

The fully assembled roof (from underneath)

At lunchtime, feeling a little burst of energy and also mindful of the weather forecast, I got myself together and pulled the corrugated plastic off the old front door that I had identified as being large enough for the purpose I had in mind; making a shelter for Sassy's toilet. The first step was to make the roof and I cut the plastic to size then fixed it into an overlapping shingle style roof using some wooden battens underneath. This ended up being very light, and a little short, so I put a final wooden lip on what will be the bottom of the sloping roof and then was done for the day. It's amazing what having almost no sleep does to your energy levels.

The rest of the day was working and eating and then sleeping; I got an early night, but not too early, and did sleep through very well in the end. I still don't really know why I couldn't sleep; I was feeling a bit cold-ified and congested so it could be that but also I was thinking a lot about various things around the house so it might just have been active mind. One good thing to come out of it was a discussion about my model railway and A suggested I fix up Sassy's room and, at least temporarily, put it into there. This makes so much sense (and I had actually wandered in there when I made a brew in the early house, while waiting for the kettle to boil, as the thought percolated in my mind) so that now has gone on the list to do.

Friday

After my relatively good nights sleep we were up and about not that late it was another relatively nice day, though the breeze was stronger than Thursday and had quite an edge to it.

Guide holes drilled and screws prepared

The roof has enough of a slope now

The toilet tray fits inside very nicely

Thelma shadowing the Special One along the top bank

I was straight outside with the parts for Sassy's toilet shelter and set about putting it together while I was feeling motivated. It didn't actually end up taking all that long and then A helped me to lift it into the cage and set it up over the top of the tray. The old tray was full of water from the rain the other day which is the reason we're making this. I cleaned it out, put fresh sawdust in, and then was done. It didn't take her long to go and check out her new toilet and she used it fine so the change didn't put her off at all. While I was out there the puppies were on the top bank playing and first the Little Lady walked past then the Special One came back with a load of wood on his back for fencing. The girls went and said hello both times and followed them along the fence as they went.

Eggs in cartons

Last update I did an amusing typo (pointed out to me by my dad) around the quantity of eggs that I had randomly scattered over my desk. A tidied them all up while I was out doing the shelter for Sassy so I got a quick picture to show; we are still getting either three or four every day so this collection is not really going down; I foresee some pickling of eggs in our future.

Looking over the village, with interesting clouds above

Water drains out of the burning drum

Thelma loves her new toy

Running back with it, she's intercepted by Louise

Stripey clouds in the distance

Louise "helping" A to dig out the bed

After lunch we headed into town to get A's card for her residency. When we got to the office there was no queue and the person ahead of us didn't take long to vacate the office. It was a very quick task after that, just sign a bit of paper and show the passport, and A is now officially official. We headed back via the hardware store (for more wood joiners, and a toy for Thelma) and Kaufland (for spices) before going back home. We had a huge pile of burning to be done and again mindful of the weather forecast this had to be burned straight away. The oil drum had water in it, however, so I got round to getting my metal drill bits and putting some drainage holes around the bottom. The water cleared very quickly and then the burn went OK. Thelma absolutely loved her new toy and brought it out with her for me to throw; A was out digging over the next section of the garden which she had started a bit on Thursday so I left her to it with the puppies and went in to rest, still feeling quite jaded from my bad sleep.

Underlit cloud bank

Peach clouds this evening

It wouldn't be a normal blog update if I didn't get out at least once to get photographs as the sun went down and so this time we have the sunset from Friday evening. It was pretty lovely, but very brief. The sun goes down behind the mountain during the winter and so by the time it has reached the correct angle to produce fireworks the actual sun is totally out of sight.

Saturday

Once again it was a swift start to getting things done on Saturday morning; the pattern of morning energy and making the most use of it being a good one.

I called this "Shades of Grey"

All ready to do some insulating

I hate this job; it's always hard work

It was a really grey start to the day and much chillier than the previous days had been; the forecast was for some pretty horrendous weather to come in before the end of the day. I got myself all kitted out to do the fibreglassing, including the swimming goggles A had got me for Christmas, and got stuck in. It didn't actually take that long, maybe an hour, to do all of the remaining insulating for the corridor so I went downstairs and had what was a very unpleasant very cold shower to wash the fibres out of my hair. I stood by the fire in Room 13 to dry myself off and this worked OK. We'd had a text for an ekont delivery so we popped down to town around lunch time and picked it up then went to the builders merchant where we collected the metal joiners we'd ordered, and I ordered for delivery the wood with which we will line the floor in Sassy's Room. We took the girls with us and the lady was really pleased to see them. She also gave us some bread she had baked in memory of her grandfather, which was lovely.

Taking the picture in the pouring rain

And this is the photograph which I took

The alarm being set for 2pm to remind me about the daily photograph has proven itself over and over again as I don't notice the time or just clean forget to take it until I hear the phone buzzing. It was a bit more of a challenge to get a picture on Saturday as the rain was hammering down but we had picked up an umbrella in town the day before so I juggled everything and managed to prevent the camera getting wet. I got A to take a picture of the shennanigans which she did while staying dry inside Room 13. Wise girl.

A metal straight edge, and sharp stanley knife

Boards cut and marked up

After a very relaxing day from this point as it was getting dark I decided to go downstairs and cut up the plasterboard we needed to finish the corridor in the roof. I measured it all up and then took the tools and cut each board in place with the idea that this would make them lighter to carry upstairs rather than taking whole boards and cutting them in the roof. The risk with this was that I would make a mistake with the measurements but I just cut slightly large  just in case. Again it didn't take long to do this, and the light stayed good in that room longer than I expected. A had the fire going in the Living Room above and the puppies could hear me so were sat on the hatch trying to work out where I was.

Saturday night and Sunday morning

And so we get to last night. The weather had pretty much closed in while I was doing the boards and the wind was whipping and howling around really badly. I decided an early night was in order so I left A watching a film and tried to sleep.

Water through the landing windows

And more on the floor of the top corridor

The puddle I stood in, barefoot

Towels down, as well as the rug soaking up water

The wind howling around, rain lashing on the windows, and other noises kept me from dropping off too quickly but I was asleep by the time A came to bed and remained that way pretty well until 2am. I woke needing the toilet so got out of bed and was woken fully when I stood in a puddle of freezing cold water on the bedroom floor; it was leaking in around the balcony door and was quite deep and spreading fast. I woke A by putting the light on to see what was going on and we got towels and spread them around then A got straight back to sleep. I was not so fortunate and after an hour of listening to irregular thunder, and very regular heavy rain, I got up to check everything and wring out the towels. I found that while water was coming in around the windows in a fair few places, and through the back door as it always does, the actual walls were dry and the drainage was continuing to do an excellent job. I was not, however, able to get back to sleep after this as the noise in the bedroom was intense. I moved to the spare room which is on the other side of the house and therefore was sheltered and did get back to sleep and slept well there, if a little cold as the summer quilt is on there.

A light covering first thing

The toilet shelter is working well

Lots of standing water on the orchard

The Oak Tree shows its snow-load off

I woke once to a heavy fog and then was back to sleep and when I woke again I looked out and saw that the forecast hadn't lied and we had snow which was falling and settling despite the huge quantity of water that had been deposited over the previous 24 hours. I bounced up to see A and tell her and she was already up and about. We made brews, cleaned up some of the damp towels from the bedroom to put into the washing machine, draped the bedroom rug over an airer next to the fire in the living and generally got the place a bit cleaner. We have also put the dehumidifier in the bedroom where it is working well and drying it all out, including the curtains. It's better to do this than light the fire as we're actually removing the water, rather than leaving it there to condense again if we just lit the petchka.

Roof terrace corridor ready for plasterboarding

A cutting the boards while I put them up

All the boards we put up this morning

The main task for the day was to get the plasterboarding done in the corridor to the roof terrace. First of all we carried the cut sheets into the roof which was hard enough so stopped for breakfast and then I changed into my boiler suit and we started to fit them. Unfortunately we found that the construction up there is not square and so the lengths I had presumed on for between the horizontal joists were too long. This caused us to first hack away with a pad saw to get it to fit but then take stock, pause, measure and cut each one down to fit its space. We only ended up doing one side as it took longer than we planned and Sunday is our day of rest. The rest of the boards are still up there waiting for another time, maybe next week.

On Monday we'll (weather permitting) have the boards and beams I have ordered to floor Sassy's room so that will then go to the top of the list, me being selfish and all that. I've decided that I'm going to put the floor down before scraping the walls and doing other work in there as it'll be easier to clean than having to sweep with a hugely dusty floor, and also will be flat and so safer for ladders. We'll see. That's it for now, I'm going to have a doze then eat then it is bed time. Sundays are so relaxing.