Week Seventy-two

Week beginning 16th October 2023.

We have had our grandchildren here since Friday afternoon. We had a lovely weekend with them going for walks by the river, night-time walks to see the stars, a visit to the community orchard, ice-cream in Inveraray, a swim at the pool in Oban and dinner at the Tyndrum Inn.

The weather has been very kind to us which is just as well, since we don’t have the most comfortable accommodation for them if we were to have bad weather.

Caitlin was keen for us to unblock the drain following last weeks floods so Caitlin, Molly and Pete tooled up with a bucket for emptying the ditch a bit, so the water wouldn’t go over the top of Pete’s wellies, and a drainage rod to clear the block.

It took Pete and Molly quite a lot of effort to get the water level in the ditch down far enough for Pete to get in there with the drainage rod. Caitlin was our cheerleader for the day shouting, “You can do it,Pete”, and sure enough after a lot of pushing and shoving and twisting and turning the block was loosened and eventually cleared. We were all really pleased with our efforts and the bottom of our track is no longer flooded.

We have created an extra ‘bedroom’ in the mega-shed so that the children don’t have to be alone in the building at night but after our first night we realised that it was far too cold and so made some adaptions. We created a platform for the blow-up mattress using some of the remaining insulation and added a much thicker duvet and an extra blanket. It worked a treat and our second night was much more comfortable. Of course Niven and Caitlin were very cosy in the attic space which is so well insulated.

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It’s Monday morning and later today we will be joined by their parents, Eddie, Mary and their dog Grace.

Jef has arrived and is getting on with more plastering.

We’ve had breakfast and we have told the children to amuse themselves while we do some work. They are happy because we have given them our mobile wi-fi gadget so they can have some screen time to watch videos or play games.

We are fixing some of the cladding that Pete and Andrew cut on Friday. We are a bit slow to get started and it is taking us a bit of time to get up to speed because it has been quite a few months since we last did any of the cladding.

We have worked for a bit over an hour and have managed to get a few boards up but we’ll need to stop and tidy up so that we can dedicate our energies to spending time with the children and make some lunch.

We’ve had lunch and Jef says we need to do some preperation on the led striplight fixings so that he can plaster them in so we are rolling up sheets of newspaper and taping them in to protect the channels where the strips will go. It’s a bit of a tedious task but it is working well and with the two of us on the case it isn’t taking too long.

It’s late afternoon and Eddie, Mary and Grace have finally arrived. It’s so nice that Mary has come this time because she hasn’t been here since before we even started the foundations. She is certainly noticing a big change.

With Grace here we can add some dog walks to our activities and it will give us a chance to chat and catch up on what’s been happening in the last few weeks.

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It’s Tuesday morning and if we want the alcove/shelving built into the wall of the guest bedroom we need to get on with it as Jef will be ready to plaster that room soon.

Pete is at work today so Molly and Mary are taking on the task while Eddie spends time with Niven, Caitlin and Grace. The first thing that needs done is to empty the room of all the sanitary ware, shower screens and so on that are being stored there and move it to the master bedroom which is now fully plastered.

Molly spent some time designing and measuring out the plyboard ready to cut and so now Mary and Molly can get straight to the task of building the box.

We’ve had lunch and Eddie and Mary swap roles so that he can help Molly fit the box that Mary built. They are trying to work out how to fit the box without visible screws but time is running out and the light is fading.

Pete has finished for the day and comes to ‘help’ and suggests adding some extra timbers to secure the plasterboard around the opening. This is really slowing things down and we are all feeling under pressure. We have come to the conclusion that we will just need to screw the box to the wall studs and not worry about them showing. Sometimes you end up having to compromise when the pressure is on.

Molly has made a delicious meal and the six of us are squeezing into the caravan to have our dinner. It’s been a productive day and now that dinner is over we are off to take Grace for a walk.

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It’s a miserable rainy Wednesday morning and we’ve had a slow start. Eddie and Mary have decided to leave early as there is no point in hanging around indoors, given that there really isn’t much space for that.

The family have gone and Pete is working, although he isn’t feeling very well. Molly is tidying up the shed and dismantling the ‘bedroom’ we created in the mega-shed so that we can use our workspace again.

We are doing some research into which doors to order and making some final decisions about the kitchen design. Jef has also told us we should get hold of a dehumidifier to help dry out the plaster so Molly is researching hire companies.

It turns out that there are no dehumidifiers for hire near us because of the floods, one company lost all its equipment because their premisies were flooded and the others are all out on hire. It looks like our best option is to borrow or buy a dehumidifier.

Pete’s finished work fo the day but still not feeling too good, but we have decided to refit the inner sheets of Polycarbonate that are part of the extra windows we created in the mega-shed. We originally took them off to paint the gap between the inner and outer sheet orange but just never got round to putting the inner one back!

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Last night was pretty rough as there was a gale blowing and it kept us awake but luckily we haven’t suffered any damage. This time we are missing the deluge but the poor folks in north east Scotland are getting it this time. Is this how climate change is going to affect Scotland, monsoon style deluges, floods and storms?

Pete’s working today and needs to go to Oban on business so we have used the opportunity to arrange to go and see the kitchen company to choose our worktops and splashbacks.

This morning Molly is putting masking tape around a window and the front door ready for plastering.

The morning has passed quickly and Jef is getting on with the plastering, today is his last day on the job for this week and after that he only has another six or seven days to finish the house.

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It was another stormy night, but again not much rain thankfully.

It’s Friday already and Pete is back on the job. Today he is polishing the concrete floor in the guest shower room so that it is ready for Jef next week. It’s a hard job being down on his knees with the hand held stone polisher but it is an efficient machine and he gets the job done in a few two hour sessions.

Molly is in the bootroom covering the electricals to protect them from the mess that plastering makes. We are at a very messy stage in the build because both the plastering and the concrete polishing make a real mess.

Pete is off to pick up the two extra long larch posts he ordered from Loch Awe Hardwoods a local sawmill we found out about. Alistair has brought the pickup van because the posts are 4.8m long and it wouldn’t be safe to put them on our roof rack, and the weight would probably destroy the suspension.

That’s them back now with the posts, they look really good and straight and just right for the job. It’s a shame we didn’t know about the sawmill when we ordered all the cladding for the house as this sawmill is so close and it would have been much better to transport them just a few miles rather than all the way from Dunfermline, which is where our cladding came from.

That’s it for today. We are off to Glasgow on the bus to meet up with our good friends Nicky and Graham whom we haven’t seen since June, far too long.

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Just back from Glasgow where we had a wonderful day with Nicky and Graham. We went to the Street Level Gallery and saw a brilliant exhibition by Simon Murphy called ‘Govanhill‘. Pete says it’s the best photography exhibition he has been to in a very long time.

Simon Murphy lives in Govanhill and has spent years making this work, and it shows. The exhibition is a large collection of portraits of the people of Govanhill and it is amazing to see the diversity and individuality of the people of the area. Pete said it made him feel quite emotional to see such sensitive portraits and he felt like he recognised a lot of the people even though he has only been to Govanhill once and that was a very long time ago, so he can’t know them.

There are images that have the directness of the likes of Richard Avedon or Irving Penn, some reminiscent of Josef Koudelka, William Klein and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The exhibition really gets across what a vibrant and interesting place Govanhill is. The exhibition is well worth a visit.

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Molly is away on the bus to edinburgh to catch-up with her friend Yasmin and so they can go and see the Grayson Perry exhibition.

While they are off having fun Pete is starting to polish the space where the kitchen units will go, so the space will be ready for installing them in a few weeks time. It’s a much bigger job than in the guest shower room and has the disadvantage of already being plastered so he is having to be very careful.

He’s been testing how to go about this task without making a mess of the beautiful fresh plaster and has decided to grind it down dry. This has the disadvantage of creating a lot of dust but the advantage of not splattering the walls with cement sludge.

Five hard hours of grinding and polishing and Pete is done for the day. Most of the kitchen area has had a first pass with the polisher but it will need more work before it is ready for the kitchen units.

Molly will be back later tonight and Pete is off to rejoin the badminton group after the summer break for a bit of fun and exercise.