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.

Christmas begins

Sunday late afternoon and we had both forgotten about doing this blog until just now. I've got a few pictures, and looking through them I can see a few things have gone on, so it's worth while getting this one as quickly as I can. The thing I'm struggling with is the titles, however I don't want to do a chronological one.

Putting up the tree

Because of the struggle with the titles I'm going to begin this update at the end with something we just finished; we have put up our Christmas Tree!

That's a pretty cool sword, huh

A getting the baubles hung right

I was in charge of tinsel

All done and very happy

Now those of you who think you know me well will be surprised at this as I'm supposedly a well known grinch however that isn't strictly the case. What I dislike is being forced into doing something whether I want to or not and this isn't what has happened here; we both agreed that we didn't need to have a tree and then both came to the conclusion that it would be lovely to have one after all. A bought one which proved too small so we went to get another one on Friday and seeing as today is the 6th, and traditionally this is when the tree can be errected, we set ourselves to doing it, after lunch, and had a lot of fun in the process. We think we need some more lights so that is now on the list to be picked up early next week and we're also short a couple of presents that the postman is bringing us.

Vegetables

We have been out in the vegetable garden a couple of times this week to tidy up (the little caterpillars keep coming back, and they keep getting given to the chickens) and small as the vegetable patch is (this year just ending was very much of an experimental nature) we've got some good stuff going on.

Onions and a few rogue potatoes

A tiny cauliflower is growing

Awesome cabbage

First on Thursday A was out pottering around as she likes to do and she went into the garden and called me down from the office where I was working, telling me to get the camera. She had found that there were some extra potatoes, obviously left over in there after we harvested, that have re-seeded themselves and have now pushed shoots up above the surface. The onions, planted after we pulled the last lot, have also been growing well and we've been eating the leaves in champ potatoes and other dishes for the past week or two. There is one very small cauliflower coming on looking really well formed and finally there is some really awesome looking cabbage. Brilliant stuff and I can't wait to eat it.

Hopefully these will taste awesome

Talking of which we are having some of the broccoli (not that much has come up yet; the caterpillars really did get a good munch of these) in our Sunday Roast. There are quite a lot of very small florets growing which could provide us with more in a few weeks I hope. The raised bed has continued to prove its worth and the plants in there are now huge. I'm particularly looking forward to the Swede.

Various tidyings

We've had a good week of tidying and readying ourselves more for the hoped for snowfall. Both inside and out we're making progress. It's a pleasure at the end of the week to look back over everything that has been done and see how much nicer it is now things are tidy.

Now Thomas can get back in his home

Wood store temporarily co-opted for car stuff

First of all on Thursday lunch time we both went down into the garage area to give it a good clean and tidy. After a few days of putting Thomas in there the pile of wood from the oak tree pushed him out however the forecast is for some pretty freezing days in the next week or so and we wanted to get him back inside again. We shifted all the wood from the garage into the wood store, along with the laycorn boxes which eventually will be put into the other room as storage, We then swept out and finally shifted Thomas's back box first of all into the garage and then, in a burst of energy, right the way through into the wood room.

Freezer getting full

At the same time as all this A was also clearing the small freezer (that I brought back last time full of steaks) which has started to ice up very badly and bringing the food from it to put into the new chest freezer which has now been plugged in and is working well. She also reorganised the freezer in Room 13 so we have things we don't need as much (like the preserved stews in pots) down in the chest freezer. It's plenty big enough for us and will soon have even more stuff in it after I make my new pasta sauce, though you'll have to wait for next update to hear about that.

She's back at that chainsawing again

A whole pile of wood

Stacked the brush into the green building

Friday and Saturday was largely about chainsawing for A. She was determined to get through everything that was piled on the patio so we could finally clear that of leaves and twigs and other rubbish. She worked like a trooper and was so very close to finishing on Friday she got started on Saturday morning first thing while I was out shopping and when I came back she was all but done, Typically, after we had cleared away all of the brush into the green building, we found some more of the tea tree that I had chopped last week and pushed onto the front grass so there's still a bit more to do yet however it'll only take half an hour and will be an ideal task for one lunch next week.

A sweeping the old bottles out of the trailer

Usmivka smiling as Special One lights the bonfire

Hitching a ride the local way

The fire burns down

Space for potatoes has now been cleared

Trailer fits fine in its long term parking spot

As part of this push to clear the patio I decided that I would move the trailers from where they have been parked. The old trailer was still full of bottles pulled out of the bottle room (now the gardening room) by A while I was not here. I hitched it up and back it over to the big pile of metal and old windows next to the garden and started to load the old metal in on top of the glass. My initial idea was to leave this to empty the next day (today) however when I got it down to the dump point, where we're going to dig out of the pond next year, I realised I wouldn't really be able to lift and unhitch the trailer as full as it was so A and I worked together and really quickly had all the rubbish removed. Today I got round to finishing off the job and was assisted by Usmivka and the Special One. They came over to ask if they could have the old metal fencing that has been piled down there since last year to which I gladly said "YES!" as the only reason I had kept it was to give to them. They helped me to load the trailer with wood for a bonfire then we went back down and got the metal chainlink onto the trailer and took it up to their yard where they unloaded it into a corner; I don't know if they are going to weigh it in. After this I removed everything else that was left in this area and now we are ready to build the vertical potato planters. This won't be done til early spring but it's great to see how much space we actually do have there.

Some cracks in the plaster behind the petchka

Protective and Reflective

Hoovering with Henry

Top corridor before and after

Sunday morning was once more our tidying morning and we set to with a will. First thing I did the washing up and cleaned the fires out and then we set ourselves onto the clearing. I was going outside to get the metal cleared (as per the previous paragraph) but before I went we had some things to do together inside. Some of the hooks had come off the curtains so we went round with the ladder and fixed them all up and then I also had found that the plaster is cracking slightly behind the radiator above the petchka in the living room so we've fitted a silver metal reflective thing to protect the wall, and give us that heat back into the room. It's making quite a difference. I then headed out and built the bonfire as discussed while A went through bedroom, living room, corridor and Room 13 with a hoover and got all the dust up. Finally I came in having completed everything outside and swept down the stairs and now we have a lovely clean living area once more.

Measure twice

Cut once

The wall fell away

Finally got it hung

Also sealed the hatchway to the garage

For the past few weeks we have been talking about how we would seal the kitchen downstairs from rats and also keep it slightly warmer and drier than it is at the moment. I decided to make a door out of the chipboard we had bought for the guest room double door failed experiment and so, while A was chopping wood on Friday, I got stuck into making a very simple door. It went very well right up until A had helped me to screw the hinges in and at this point the plaster and concrete split and fell away and the hinges collapsed. The mistake I had made was to use a hinge that was too small and therefore too close to the corner. I bought some new ones which were perfect the next day and got it hung quite quickly. Unfortunately it will not be rat proof at all however the difference it is making in temperature is quite noticeable. A mixed success.

U-bend fitted

A different angle on the stream in the orchard

Our hens are laying again

One other task got completed this week. If you remember last week A tided out the chicken house during the downpour and we found that the chimney was letting a lot of water fall inside and onto the chicken coop. We moved it to the other end of the building but I was still wanting to prevent water and snow getting in so I thought a bit and decided to use some of the spare pipes we have to put a U-bend in which will stop most of the rain falling. I climbed up and fitted it without any trouble and then got some shots of the orchard from this new angle. We went inside the chicken house to check out how it had gone and decided to pull the coop back over to its original position. We were very pleasantly surprised to find four eggs that had been laid on the hay in the corner, not in the nesting boxes. Our chickens are back laying again.

Loose bottles and two swords

Sorting the books into alphabetical order

All the books about specific composers

The other books, compendiums and dictionaries of music

Finally for this section after my initial abject failure to put hinges into a wall I got a bit annoyed and decided to sort out the new bookshelf we had bought. A had said she wanted to put the loose bottles, previously on the unit next to the record player, on there and so I moved them over and then as there was some space I figured the two swords we have which have been gathering dust on the sofa outside Room 13 would fit there nicely and so they did. I then brought up the Encyclopedia Britannica but when I tried to fit them in the shelves I found the gap was too small. I did, however, still have all the boxes of music books sent me by the kind man on twitter and so, with some help from A, we hauled these all up and I started sorting them out. There were a lot! In the end I got A-Z of composers into the bookshelf and all the remaining ones are unsorted on the ledge above the stairs. The entire second shelf of the bookcase is books about Mozart. Amazing.

Th'animals

An update from the Old School would just not be complete without some pictures of the animals, and maybe a video (or two, like today), however there is an unusual extra special bonus for you this week.

Sitting attentively as A gets their rice pudding ready

Cuddly Thelma (a rare sight)

First of all, Thelma and Louise have been having a ball as always. Thelma is a solid bundle of muscle and she runs and runs until she decides to fall asleep. Louise is less energetic when it comes to exercise but she's begun to get back into the habit of playing with Thelma on the top bank and chasing around loads. The one thing they do both have is a love for cuddling, Louise more than Thelma normally, and they've both grabbed multiple snoozes on our laps this week.

Louise saying hello to Rambo

Thelma pretending she didn't want the stick anyway

While we were putting the brush wood into the green building the dogs were all out playing. Thelma had stolen a stick from Rambo and was dragging it around, squeaking and growling and generally having a great time of it. Louise sniffed around for a while then asked to come into the green building with me wherein she legged it around for ages sniffing out rats. Eventually Thelma's fun ended when Rambo came over and found her with the stick and took it away from her. We can't tell him off for this as it was his stick and he is not allowed near theirs. It was a lovely thing, though of course she stopped making the crazy noises as soon as I got the camera ready to film her.

She's munching away at the green goodness

Gorgeous Sassy

Now she doesn't appear much in the blog because whenever I'm with her, which is every day as she feeds and I give her a quick groom, I don't have the camera with me. Today A fed her with some scraps from the veg for our Sunday roast and I got the camera and got some lovely pictures while she was munching. Just as I left she stretched out and hopped around for a bit but the camera was off and I missed it. She's still a lovely bunny rabbit and she even lets me pick her up a bit more. Soon we'll have her on the balcony I hope and then she can really begun part of the family.

Celebrations

And so I come to the end of this update. I've eaten dinner by now (a lovely Sunday Roast chicken that was superb) and now the fire is hot and we're going to settle down and watch some Sopranos.

Mulled wine for Christmas

I'll leave you with our refreshment while we were putting the Christmas tree up. I bought these mulled wine sachets while still in England earlier in the year and finally we've got to take them out and give them a go. I'm not a fan of wine but you cannot beat a mulled wine while putting the Christmas tree up.

Cheers for reading.