I am a little bit pooped

but also a little bit pleased with myself.

I was rung this morning by my Sheffield clients to say not to bother trying to get in to see them as they hadn't managed to get to work themselves. So what's a girl to do? Well she fettles the bedroom so that just leaves the bathroom now for it's spring clean. Then what? I know lay the laminate floor what I bought yesterday. So the last few items transferred into both bedrooms. But the square Ikea table won't go into either room without removing the legs so it is balanced on the landing! Those two socks are waiting to meet their other halves! :)

The larger Ikea table cannot leave the room so I upended it and worked around it.

I then got to the point where I needed to cut some boards. Aagh Himself has taken his Jigsaw home, nextdoor doesn't have one, Bryan who probably has several is down at the boat. I am in the mood ...

So another visit to B&Q and buy a cheap £9 one plus the correct blades for cutting laminate. What a nice man.

I also had to remove the door. I did try to work around it but in the end it had to go. You really cannot clunk click laminate floor with a door in the way no matter how hard you try.

And there it is finished. I will ask someone nicely to do my skirtings. The rest of the stuff better wait to go in until the skirtings are done I suppose I couldn't face moving them again.

But though I say it myself who really oughtn't I am rather pleased with my going round the door jambs. A lot of grunt went into those. And one not quite right one used as a template for the one that worked.

right that's it going to make some supper as it is 8.30pm now and I am well and truly pooped. gonna sleep well tonight in my lovely clean sheets etc. Bliss.

Oh yes girls whilst doing this manly stuff I also managed to do two loads of washing!!!

Snow ? I think not

Admittedly this was taken at 2pm. It looked worse at my house so I whimped out of going to work. Well I only do a morning there on a Monday and it didn't seem worth the potential aggro. Instead I moved my study into Son's bedroom so I could give it it's annual clean. You think I am joking?



Checked weather conditions down at t'farm and then wandered down. Bryan had nipped out to Arnold Lavers so I missed him. I have designs on this item in Mels yard. It is going to be part of my front vent as a grille to stop the meeces getting in.



Bryan has been busy and I see the front bulkhead is cut and waiting.




as are a couple of the side panels






Looks a bit crowded around this corner. But the wiring is now looking tidy.




On the way home I had a moment and popped into B&Q and purchased some paint and some flooring. I also discovered that 4 packs of flooring on a trolley make it very unstable going over the sleeping policeman. A very nice couple helped me pick up everything before it got run over and helped load it into the Panda.

I have now painted most of the walls in the Study. They have needed doing since it stopped being son's bedroom way back when and the built in bed was removed. Blue above, pink and a bit battered below. I have kept one blue wall. Although it is a bit chipped however I like the colour. I have also (mainly because I am lazy) also kept it blue inside the window recess. Adds a bit of - I don't know what - and means I don't need to take down the venetian blind!

I have told small boy he is not allowed home for a while as I taken up residence in his bedroom which is lovely and clean. (It had it's annual at the weekend!) Oh the joys of all Tax Returns and Year Ends up to date. February and March are my quiet times. Bliss.

A man in a suit ...

A dry suit that is.




Today I thought I would go and help with the restoration of the Chesterfield Canal. I've not been since well before Xmas and then only sporadically. So I turn up on time at the Pub where I am told to meet as it is a long walk to the Lock to be played with today. We all hang around for about 3/4 of an hour waiting for the works van and caravan to turn up so that we can go in convoy locking gates behind us etc. We have divers, a pump but no pipes so we can't even get the pump working whilst waiting. Finally we discover that the Van and Caravan have made their own way to Bluebank Lock via a different route and have been waiting for us ... it was cold and good humour rapidly evaporating.

So the pipe is in the correct place so what is the hold up?


Aaah




The pump needs a jump start. Anyone any jump leads?

We needed to fetch water for our cups of tea as the man who fetched the caravan and works van didn't know where the tap was. I make a large tea pot of tea. We have lunch and as I have not done anything. There is nothing for me to do I go home again meeting these two characters on the long walk back to the car.





As I had discovered some ancient horse biscuits in one of my many layers. I broke them up and offered them around.






I think they enjoyed them. I was sitting on the bench for this photo and this was the third biscuit.

It wasn't a totally wasted day. One of the other volunteers is a plumber and I need one of those. He did the plumbing on the trip boat Seth Ellis so hopefully he will be able to do mine for me. Although mine will be a little bit more extensive.

Busy busy

So there was Bryan putting in my portholes when he had to stop at 12.30 and take the one he had put in out and replace it with the plywood again because unannounced the sand blaster man arrived to clean off the scale and he said there was the outside possibility the glass might break.

By the time I arrived at 2pm he stopped for a fag break and had done about 2/3rds. As you can see he still had the front section to do. I can't believe that steel is really that colour.



It was then all hands on deck to get the prepack undercoat on before the steel rusted.




Now about 5 minutes after I arrived my electrician also arrived. It is unheard of to see him in daylight and typically he couldn't do anything straight away. We had a good discussion about what we still needed to address. My funky headlight will take 6 weeks to order from Germany but he doesn't have to wait that long to drill the hole in the roof and fix a watertight socket as Mel promises him that when he welds on my hinge he wont melt the wires.





As the 12v wiring and the 240v wiring must never be in the same space Bryan has constructed little boxes in the 240v conduit for the 12v wiring to pass through safely. This only needs to happen for the pumps, my compost loo fan and the TV, aerial and speakers wires.


I do think that he has made himself a little too comfortable in my boat with his table for his kettle and that special little shelf for the radio!



Still they do say that British industry runs on Tea.

I've got my backside in WW!

what a surprise I got whilst reading my February Waterways World last night.

It's on page 88 two fat ladies for anyone who is interested.

Bored bored bored

Is now a good time to let you good folks know that I have a very very low boredom threshold?

All I could think of as I was oiling the boards in my solitary fashion was that I was bored bored bored of the boards!

By Sunday evening I will have done 8 I have just broken into the second tin to do the last 6th of the last board first coat best side. How annoying is that, that it couldn't quite stretch to that last little bit to be nice and tidy for maths purposes.

I got to thinking

about Cesca for whom this blog is a sort of memorial and thought you might like to see what she looked like.





This is a picture taken the year before she was killed. We got a grade 1 on this ride and I was really looking forward to doing it in 1997 in the Open category. But on the 7th July 1997 at 7pm it happened. My son was with me at the time and he was 7 years old. What a thing to witness at his age. I guess I don't much like 7's anymore.

We had a lot of fun together in the three years we had I just wish it could have gone on a bit longer.

RIP Cesca sweet dreams