Thirty Four
The early part of the week is rather full of cakes… There’s a Horrid Henry cake for a little girl, and we start work on a 60th cake for two friends. However, Tuesday night is enlivened by watching a badger in the garden… we have learnt that they like apples, so I roughly chop an apple up and put it out with the peanuts, dried fruit and Madeira cake remains (yes, I know, sounds like a fab meal for a human). Very soon a badger appears and, as the utility room door isn’t shut properly, I open it a fraction and listen to him eating. Fantastic chomping and slurping noises! I push the door open further as he seems unconcerned and before long I’m standing in an open doorway watching a badger thoroughly enjoying his dinner only ten feet away. Amazing!
I have a good plan for Valentine’s Day. It goes something like this:
1. Get home very early (before Guy comes round) and wrap presents.
2. See Tree Surgeon (coming at 4.30) with Guy.
3. Guy goes home to get dog, or walks dog.
4. I put roses, champagne and pressies in the shed and light a candle or two. It will be romantic.
5. Guy returns, lovely evening in the cosy shed, nice surprise.
What actually happens is this:
1. It’s bloody freezing.
2. Guy gets home before I do.
3. The tree surgeon fails to turn up.
4. I don’t wrap very much.
5. We stay indoors.
6. I drink all the champagne that I’ve given to Guy.
On Friday I pick up the floor nailer (again) – apparently the piston broke on the last one. I say we were a little pistoned off… I also collect the big floor sander and a little whizzy one for the edges. In the evening there are TWO badgers feeding together…
On Saturday we have to take up all the floorboards we’ve laid down and nail them in place. Luckily they fit back pretty much the same, so there’s only minimal cutting and adjusting. This time the nailer does its stuff, and Guy does the nailing while I re-arrange floorboards.
It’s amazingly quick and it only takes us an hour to do half the front room floor. Hooray! By lunchtime we’ve done all the front room and over half the storage area. In the afternoon we whiz off to the local parish hall to see the plans for its refurbishment. We don’t change, and are by far the muckiest people there. Still, they seem pleased to see us, whatever state we’re in. They should have seen us when we were plastering… We go back and finish nailing the floors, then decide to fill all the holes. We saved sawdust from last week, so now we mix it with glue until it is the consistency of trout pate then push it into the holes. Lots of holes, and not just where we’ve had to screw… where machinery was once pinned? Who knows… Once we’ve finished with that, Guy goes off to a gig and I do cake stuff.
On Sunday we start sanding.
Guy does the big butch stuff and I do the little whizzy edge thing.
Both jobs are knackering on our backs… We have face masks and ear defenders. Although I think I got the short straw there… My ear defenders are attached to the chain saw helmet, so I have to wear the helmet too. Still, as I keep whacking my head on the wall, it is actually A Jolly Good Idea.
We rough sand it all across the grain which takes all the old varnish off, then rough sand it with the grain, then medium sand it, then fine sand it… it takes all day. We sweep between the sandings, do a final sweep and then hoover the whole floor. Then we put a coat of varnish on it. The floor is a really pretty, well, maple colour. Probably just as well as it’s maple.
Progress. The floor is nailed down, sanded and varnished once. And it is STUNNING!
Hours worked: Sort of 9-5 and then 9-6 at the weekend. We ache.
Pressies: I gave Guy a wicker dog basket for Valentine’s day (can’t count the champagne as I drank it) and he gave me two CDs and a book called ‘Far From The Sodding Crowd’ which is the follow up to ‘Bollocks To Alton Towers’ which found us the brilliant Lawnmower Museum. We’re off to Devon for a few days in March, and I’m already keen to visit the Paperweight Museum…
Purchases: Floor Vanish, face masks and a BIG brush.
Plan: Paint the walls, try to get Wyn the Wire back to hook up lights and electrics.
Drink: After all that champagne on Valentine’s night I have cut out drink completely. Until today. Well, the floor needed celebrating…
The ‘oh bugger’ moment of the week. The hire shop didn’t give us the right bag for the small sander to collect the dust. We tried it without (too messy) so had to bodge a bag together using our best Blue Peter techniques with string, brute force and duct tape. Well, if it’s good enough for Apollo 13…
Tip of the week: Wear a crash helmet for edge sanding. Damned Fine Thing.
Compliment of the week: Sheelagh (used to be in Guy’s office) visited to pick up a cake and admired our handiwork. She said ‘you’ve obviously had someone in to do it’ and was hugely impressed that we hadn’t.
Insult of the week: Derek the Dab called round on Sunday afternoon with a trout for me, and to see progress. He admired the floorboards and I said proudly ‘what about our plastering?’. He had a look and said ‘yes, well, it’s a shed’. I’m not really insulted. Much.
Wildlife update 1: On Saturday there were THREE badgers feeding together – really exciting!
Wildlife update 2: The robins aren’t really being ignored – we’re just terribly excited about the badgers. Anyway, robins are supposed to be hugely territorial, but we often have three in the feeding area of the garden all at once…
(Note the shed in the background…)
I have a good plan for Valentine’s Day. It goes something like this:
1. Get home very early (before Guy comes round) and wrap presents.
2. See Tree Surgeon (coming at 4.30) with Guy.
3. Guy goes home to get dog, or walks dog.
4. I put roses, champagne and pressies in the shed and light a candle or two. It will be romantic.
5. Guy returns, lovely evening in the cosy shed, nice surprise.
What actually happens is this:
1. It’s bloody freezing.
2. Guy gets home before I do.
3. The tree surgeon fails to turn up.
4. I don’t wrap very much.
5. We stay indoors.
6. I drink all the champagne that I’ve given to Guy.
On Friday I pick up the floor nailer (again) – apparently the piston broke on the last one. I say we were a little pistoned off… I also collect the big floor sander and a little whizzy one for the edges. In the evening there are TWO badgers feeding together…
On Saturday we have to take up all the floorboards we’ve laid down and nail them in place. Luckily they fit back pretty much the same, so there’s only minimal cutting and adjusting. This time the nailer does its stuff, and Guy does the nailing while I re-arrange floorboards.
It’s amazingly quick and it only takes us an hour to do half the front room floor. Hooray! By lunchtime we’ve done all the front room and over half the storage area. In the afternoon we whiz off to the local parish hall to see the plans for its refurbishment. We don’t change, and are by far the muckiest people there. Still, they seem pleased to see us, whatever state we’re in. They should have seen us when we were plastering… We go back and finish nailing the floors, then decide to fill all the holes. We saved sawdust from last week, so now we mix it with glue until it is the consistency of trout pate then push it into the holes. Lots of holes, and not just where we’ve had to screw… where machinery was once pinned? Who knows… Once we’ve finished with that, Guy goes off to a gig and I do cake stuff.
On Sunday we start sanding.
Guy does the big butch stuff and I do the little whizzy edge thing.
Both jobs are knackering on our backs… We have face masks and ear defenders. Although I think I got the short straw there… My ear defenders are attached to the chain saw helmet, so I have to wear the helmet too. Still, as I keep whacking my head on the wall, it is actually A Jolly Good Idea.
We rough sand it all across the grain which takes all the old varnish off, then rough sand it with the grain, then medium sand it, then fine sand it… it takes all day. We sweep between the sandings, do a final sweep and then hoover the whole floor. Then we put a coat of varnish on it. The floor is a really pretty, well, maple colour. Probably just as well as it’s maple.
Progress. The floor is nailed down, sanded and varnished once. And it is STUNNING!
Hours worked: Sort of 9-5 and then 9-6 at the weekend. We ache.
Pressies: I gave Guy a wicker dog basket for Valentine’s day (can’t count the champagne as I drank it) and he gave me two CDs and a book called ‘Far From The Sodding Crowd’ which is the follow up to ‘Bollocks To Alton Towers’ which found us the brilliant Lawnmower Museum. We’re off to Devon for a few days in March, and I’m already keen to visit the Paperweight Museum…
Purchases: Floor Vanish, face masks and a BIG brush.
Plan: Paint the walls, try to get Wyn the Wire back to hook up lights and electrics.
Drink: After all that champagne on Valentine’s night I have cut out drink completely. Until today. Well, the floor needed celebrating…
The ‘oh bugger’ moment of the week. The hire shop didn’t give us the right bag for the small sander to collect the dust. We tried it without (too messy) so had to bodge a bag together using our best Blue Peter techniques with string, brute force and duct tape. Well, if it’s good enough for Apollo 13…
Tip of the week: Wear a crash helmet for edge sanding. Damned Fine Thing.
Compliment of the week: Sheelagh (used to be in Guy’s office) visited to pick up a cake and admired our handiwork. She said ‘you’ve obviously had someone in to do it’ and was hugely impressed that we hadn’t.
Insult of the week: Derek the Dab called round on Sunday afternoon with a trout for me, and to see progress. He admired the floorboards and I said proudly ‘what about our plastering?’. He had a look and said ‘yes, well, it’s a shed’. I’m not really insulted. Much.
Wildlife update 1: On Saturday there were THREE badgers feeding together – really exciting!
Wildlife update 2: The robins aren’t really being ignored – we’re just terribly excited about the badgers. Anyway, robins are supposed to be hugely territorial, but we often have three in the feeding area of the garden all at once…
(Note the shed in the background…)
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