Well, the new cats are settling in just marvellously. They're happy in their chicken coop and we let them out for a bit of a run each day. Which was just fine until Molly the enthusiastic spaniel came visiting and realised there were CATS to play with. Ruby disappeared into the shed and hid so spectacularly well that we locked her in, while Wooster went 25 foot up an oak tree and refused utterly to come down until 10pm when it was getting dark and Guy had to make a noise like a packet of food for about, ooh, 20 minutes. Wooster has now decided that Izzy, the ancient cat, will be his role model so he follows her around and is Brave when she's with him. Sooooo sweet...
The decorator has started oiling the oak. This would be the oak that both he and BOB thought didn't need oiling.
This is it before it is oiled:
And after:
As it gets done he admits it looks wonderful. And we have to diplomatically point out the bits he's missed...
It's just as frustrating as ever though - we get one electrician instead of 3 (but on the plus side it's our favourite chap who's been off for 5 weeks with a slipped disc. We hold the heavy lights up while he wires them - team effort, eh?). The light in the 'after' picture above is seriously heavy - about 14kg. It's from a copper mine and it's explosion proof. Every home should have a bombproof light.
In the sitting room we have two lights which we bought online as '1950s Eastern European factory lights'. The electrician points out that the bit just above the shade is, in fact, a prop shaft. Which could mean that somebody is recycling bits of old engines and then passing them off as retro vintage industrial chic... Whatever, they look absolutely fantastic and we love them!
The decorators (now two - yay!) continue to paint things in a weird order. We've given up trying to guess why they're painting what they're painting and we're just letting them get on with it.
We have a bath, with tiled walls.
Which would have been fine if the tiler hadn't stood on lumps of broken plaster IN THE NEW BATH. Bloody hell - do NONE of these trades respect ANYTHING?? I spent a good hour chipping tile adhesive off with my fingernails and then putting soft cloths inside it ahead of the next day's grouting. And then he removed all the cloths and splatted the NEW BATH with grout - this time it took me and Guy 40 minutes of chipping with a thumbnail to get the damned stuff off. We have told BOB that the tiler is no longer welcome on site. But he's due tomorrow and if he doesn't come we'll be a man down. He's due to be working outside grouting the patio - how much damage can he do? We will be watching you, mate...
Our outside loo is truly going to be gorgeous - it's now a 'loo cum log store'.
We will paint it. Just take a wild guess at the colour... and it will have tiles on the roof. Posh loo!
We have underfloor heating. This is A Good Thing as the concrete slab hasn't yet dried out enough to lay the wood floor which was due to go in, ooh, tomorrow. Sigh. We are still moving in a week tomorrow but we will be moving in onto concrete with its accompanying dust.
We've acid washed, rinsed and oiled the oak cladding on the music room - and it has an outside light.
We've got the beginnings of a chimney at the other end of the house...
and water in all the taps - proper working taps!! This is something of a novelty so we stood and turned them on and off until the novelty wore off...
We're still waging war on the rabbits too - now surrounding the flower beds with wire netting and putting up another of Richard's signs.
We are hopeful that Ruby will start catching rabbits soon - she's had two mice so far and, given that she's only out of the chicken coop for a couple of hours a day, that's a promising start!
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