Tag Archives: tiling

Thursday 17th December 2015 – ANYONE WOULD THINK …

… that it was me doing the tiling today, not Terry. Half an hour after lunch I was well out of it – two trips to Terry’s van and back with some stuff for here had finished me off. And back here, I was crashed out on the sofa at 18:00 and in bed by 19:15.

I’ve clearly seen better days – that’s for sure.

But a lot of this could be put down to the efforts that I had made during my nocturnal ramblings. I’d started off with something like a huge contemporary discussion about the qualities of different Roman emperors – and I can’t remember now with whom I was having this discussion. But from there I drove back (it’s good, this time-travel lark) to Stoke on Trent. None of the usual Clayhead characters out in an appearance unfortunately, but I do remember at a roundabout (it might have been one of the newish ones at Longton) I was confused by the exits, took the wrong one, and ended up on the road to Tunstall (a fictitious road of course but one that has featured on my travels before). It then occurred to me that there was one of these old-time sweet shops (just like there is in Longton) somewhere on this road and so I kept my eyes open for it. I ended up walking through this decrepit shopping centre-type of place to try to find it, to the accompaniment of jeers from several people lounging around – and what was that all about?
But back home I ended up chaperoning a young Shirley Temple-type of girl (as if I’d ever be asked to chaperone anyone of the female sex?) who was taking part in a singing competition that was to last all of the weekend. I asked her what would happen if she had to wait right at the end of the competition before it was her turn to sing, to which she replied that there were tons of things that we could do while we were waiting – have a party, go to the zoo, read stories.

No wonder I was exhausted!

So after my blood sample and a painful breakfast, we went off to Pionsat and the bank. I need to build up the fighting fund with all of this going on. Shopping at Intermarche was next, and there we met Clare, Julie and Anne who were off to Clermont-Ferrand for a fun day out. I fuelled up Terry’s van, seeing as how I had some money for once, bought my stuff for lunch and then shot off to the house for the tiling

When we arrived, the batteries were fully-charged already and the water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load for the surplus charge was slowly rising. That tells you everything that you need to know about the weather that we have been having just recently.

We had a visitor too! In the jungle that is Lieneke’s field opposite my front door we had a sanglier – a wild boar. We couldn’t actually see it but we could hear it grunting away and see all of the shrubs and bushes moving around as it prowled its way around. Magnificent beasts, these sangliers – I remember being up on my scaffolding when I was pointing the eastern wall and watching those two herds approaching each other and the eventual confrontation.

And while Terry carried on with the tiling, I did some desultory tidying-up. But my heart wasn’t in it and I couldn’t even cut straight today. In some respects I was glad when Terry decided to call it a day.

We’re a long way from finishing (I like the “we” bit, don’t you?) but the most difficult bits have been done. And I know that I promised you all a photo but Terry closed up the house while I was outside washing off the tools, so you’ll have to wait until next time.

And now back here, I’m in bed having an early night but I dozed off for an hour, woke up, and now I can’t go back to sleep again.

This looks as if it’s going to become a regular feature. I wish it didn’t, though, and I could have a decent 8-hours sleep.

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Wednesday 16th December 2015 – I WENT BACK …

… to my house this morning. And what’s more, Terry came with me.

Terry has no work on at the moment and I’m not in much of a state to do much right now, and so I made an executive decision (an executive decision being one in which if it all goes wrong, the person making the decision is executed) that perhaps we should go and do the tiling in my shower room. It’ll give Terry something to do, it’ll help me catch up with work at the house, and so on and so forth.

So that was what we did.

But it didn’t work out quite like that – for the simple reason that my shower room is very small. There wasn’t room in there for both of us and so after five minutes in which we had done nothing but get in each other’s way, I left Terry to it.

And we’ll go back tomorrow and do some more too because by about 16:00 it was far too dark do do anything.

But while Terry was tiling, I was tidying up on the ground floor. And you can now actually see the floor in there, a huge pile of stuff has gone out into the lean-to, I’ve sorted out most of the tools that are in there and so on, and now there’s actually a pile of room to move about. If I can do as well tomorrow as I did today, it will be quite impressive.

Of course, we’d parked the van in the little lane at the back of my house to unload it as there was so much to do, and so of course, not having seen the farmer for months and months, it’s today that he decides to bring his cows to the field, so we have to move the van. You could have bet your mortgage on that, couldn’t you?

On our way to my house this morning, we went into Pionsat. I have a huge pile of used needles from my twice-daily anti-coagulant injections and I need to dispose of them. The pharmacy seemed to be the best place to start, and he gave me a couple of boxes to put them in and take them … to the dechetterie.

And so we did. And there at the Council tip at Pionsat, a woman worker took the box off me and put it in a much bigger box of the same shape and colour, to join many other smaller boxes in there. Apparently, it’s what you do around here. We also went to the Intermarché for some bread for lunch, and I met Nada there. I haven’t seen her for ages.

But back to the shower room, I stuck my head in once or twice to pass Terry tiles, or trim something down with the angle grinder, but I haven’t had a really good look in. I’m saving that for tomorrow because although it will be far from finished, it’ll be good for me to be surprised – pleasantly, I hope. I’ll post a couple of photos too if I remember, but I won’t be posting a photo of the ground floor because it is rather a mess, even with it being tidied up. There’s still too much rubbish in there, although I’ve nowhere else to put it and I need to make some extra room somewhere – anywhere!

On the way back here, we were pursued down the lanes by Liz whose last lesson of the day at Montlucon was cancelled. She’d seen some nice Christmas trees and so after a coffee, she and Terry nipped back up to St Gervais to do the necessary. After all, with little people being around, a Christmas tree is essential.

So I’m off to bed for an early night. I have a blood test in the morning and I need to be on form. And I hope that my blood count holds up because if it doesn’t, I can see me in Montlucon on Friday having another blood transfusion and I’m becoming rather fed up of them.

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Tuesday 28th July 2015 – I’VE HAD A BAD DAY TODAY

The alarm went off at 07:30 as usual, followed by the reminders at 07:45 and 08:00, but there was no way that I was able to leave my bed.

I ache just about everywhere – in places that I didn’t realise that I had places. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m far too old to go crawling around under cars the way that I did. Nice and leisurely, with a cup of coffee and a couple of biscuits every hour, I can manage that and I’m quite happy to do so. But working like I did yesterday, 9.5 hours non-stop without a pause, mauling some really heavy equipment about – I’m far too old for that.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. On a reasonable car where everything is there within reach, it’s quite easy. For example, with a Ford Cortina with a Pinto engine (of which there are dozens around here) the only time that you have to lie down is to take off the bottom pulley on the crankshaft. And that is that. The rest you can do standing up. With this blasted technological marvel of the 21st Century, you need to be up on top and on your back down below at the same time with three hands each.

And I have to do it all again when I need to re-assemble it.

But I can see now how it is that the vehicle has come here to be done. It’s quite simply that no-one else will touch it. And I can understand why.

But at least I had a nice concrete pad to lie down on after our efforts last year. Imagine trying to do this lying on damp gravel.

So I eventually crawled out of bed and I sat down in my chair and that was that. I couldn’t even move to make myself some food so I’ve just been nibbling on what I could reach.

Rosemary rang me up for a chat and instead, she had 90 minutes of me venting my spleen and letting off steam. Poor Rosemary. I just hope that I feel better tomorrow. I couldn’t even think about tiling today. And this is going to annoy me. I wanted to finish my tiling before I go away but Caliburn is parked up the road while this pile of scrap is parked in my drive and so I would have to carry all of the tiles and the sacks of cement 200 metres down here. There was no way that I was going to do that today and I probably won’t feel much like doing it tomorrow either. So it’s not just losing two days of work by working on this car, it’s also losing several other days while I recover from my exertions and no-one will ever think about that. I wish that I had never offered to do it now. It’s messed up all of my plans completely.

So starving, hungry, cold and fed up, and aching just about everywhere, I’m going back to bed. I hope that I have as much excitement as I did last night when I was once more back at school in Nantwich with a mini-traveller loaded with stuff and all kinds of people trying to peer in to see what there was. And an old girlfriend of mine, Ann, putting in an appearance too. Whatever was she doing here?

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Monday 4th May 2015 – HAPPY STAR WARS DAY

And it’s another day when I’ve been heavily sidetracked and not done anything like what I intended to do.

A late night last night, and I was on my travels too. A Mercedes 25-seater bus, a 407-type of thing, came down the lane and when he reached the junction he didn’t know which way to go, so he travelled straight on, right through my hedge (which I don’t actually have of course).

Naturally, I was furious, and buttonholed the driver, and his response was “it’s okay. I’ll buy you a srink and it will be fine”. I told him that I expected much more than a drink for the damage that he had caused, but he ran away.

After breakfast, I did all of the paperwork for Orange Telecom and then went into Pionsat to post it off. On the way back, I gave Caliburn a really good wash and soak. And I can see that I’m going to have to give his bodywork some attention in the near future.

From there, I could carry on with cleaning and grouting the beichstuhl, and once I’d done that, I started to fit the top. And that took a huge amount of work – much more than you might think. It needed considerable modification.

Cecile hadn’t been able to contact the telephone company about my line, but at lunchtime I noticed that Liz was on line, so she gallantly took up the cudgel. And with Liz and I exchanging messages on here and Liz passing them on to the technician on the phone, we finally worked out that the problem was in the Livebox, That’s no surprise as it’s quite flaky and nothing like as good as the previous one.

However, about 10 minutes after the call ended, the Livebox gave a peculiar squeak and Lo and Behold, the phone line came back.

That was the queue to catch up on a few outstanding phone calls and having been kept hanging on the line by a Danish computer company for no less than TWO HOURS, I called it a day.

So tomorrow, I’ll have to change my plans and go to Montlucon for this blasted Livebox. I wasn’t anticipating having to waste my time doing that.

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30th April 2015 – NOT ONLY DID I …

… finish the plasterboarding around where the beichstuhl will be, I have made further great progress today.

First though, I had a rummage around in the barn looking for plasterboard. I can see me being short of decent plasterboard for the shower room if I’m not careful, and around the beichstuhl will be a good place to use a few offcuts.

So once that had been done, I attacked the major task that needed to be done, and one which I am never happy when I have to do it.

tiling beichstuhl shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceWallpapering is a job that I detest, as you know, but one that I am never happy tackling, much as I enjoy it, because I’m rubbish at it, is tiling.

However, supposing that it all sticks to shere it’s supposed to, it hasn’t come out too badly. Thats mainly because I managed to make the consistency of the paste just about right, but also to the Rawlplug electric tile-cutter that I bought for peanuts from a car boot sale years ago. It’s cheap and basic, and the design could be improved in a million ways, but it cuts tiles a thousand times better and a thousand tiles quicker that I could ever do and it was well worth every penny that I paid for it.

I had fun cutting the hole for the breather pipe, but luckily it’s near the edge of a tile so I cheated with a deft little technique with the tile cutter

Now I know that I have said on a million occasions that I hate white, so why the white tiles? The answer is that when I lived with Laurence and her daughter Roxanne, and Roxanne’s school was making mosaics, a friend of a friend gave me “some” waste tiles – “some” being enough to fill a Ford Escort estate. And there were plenty in there that were certainly serviceable, so I put them on one side for jobs such as this.

So that’s a nice job to finish off the week, as it’s Bank Holiday and so a day off tomorrow. No alarm, and no working either. I could do with a few more days like that.

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Wednesday 12th February 2014 – NOW IF ONLY …

… every othee tiling job that I have to do would come out as well as this one, I would be as happy as Larry.

grouting tiles head of stairs les guis virlet puy de dome franceThey set really nicely into the tiling cement yesterday and so this morning, first thing that I did was to grout the joints. And as you can see, it seems to have come out very well and I’m really pleased with this.

It looked even better at the end of the day when It had thoroughly dried and i brushed off all of the loose grouting and wiped it down with a damp cloth. As I said, I wish that all of my tiling would look like this when it’s finished.

So once that was out of the way I returned to the stairs. And now I have three treads all properly fitted and nailed in place. It took ages too as every length needs to be cut and shaped individually and some of these treads have 6 or 7 lengths in them, the ones that are going to be used as shelving. And a couple of lengths had to be cut lengthways too, one of them only 1.5 cms wide. but the circular saw saw to those. They needed filing and sanding down afterwards to make some nice smooth, straight edges.

I had to change a couple of rails too. I’m reshaping all of these to fit under the profile of the plasterboarding but with the chevrons, they are too deep and so foul the insulation. I’ve changed them for demi-chevrons.

So you see, I’ve not been idle at all today, even though I don’t have too much to show for it.

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Tuesday 11th February 2014 – I DIDN’T FIND …

… my tile cutter today, but I found something else instead.

tiling window sill head of stairs les guis virlet puy de dome franceQuite a few years ago I was at a car boot sale at Hexham with Dave Boustead (whatever happened to him?) and amongst the objects that I picked up was an ancient Rawlplug electric tile-cutter, for a couple of quid if I remember correctly.

And this morning, we had bright blue skies and not a cloud in sight and fully-charged batteries by 11:00 and so after I’d put the second coat of varnish on the wood that I’ve been fitting, I wheeled out the tile cutter.

It needed cleaning and a little oiling and so on but to my surprise once I’d loaded it up with water we were off. I did a few test cuts and then set about the tiles.

There are loads of design faults with this machine – I can think of a hundred ways to improve it – but it did the job as I asked it to do and, to be honest, it cut them better than I could have done. So no complaints from me.

By lunchtime, they were all cut and cemented to the window sill. All they need now is to be grouted and I really do wish that I had done the window in here like this now.

This afternoon, I started on the definitive version of the stairs to the attic. When I built them in 2009 I was constrained by time and also by the width (60cms) of the wood that I had at hand. None of this now though. High time I did them properly using real wood and with real rails.

This means, in effect, removing the rails, cutting them down so that they fit behind the plasterboard that I’ll be fitting, and then cutting up floorboarding to 67cms which, apart fom giving me three strips to a length of 2m, fits perfectly upon the new rails.

It’s taking me ages to do this as you might expect, but it looks much better than scrap chipboard and the like, and takes my weight so much better..It’s looking much better already and there’s only one tread fitted so far.

With a brief interruption for rain (i had to fecth in the washing) I was well away when knocking off time came round.

I’m clearly enjoying myself.

And while I’m on the subject, the Xantrex charge controller in the barn, the one that packed up last autumn, has now miraculously sprung into life.

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Monday 10th February 2014 – I WISH I KNEW …

… where my tile cutter is. I could have finished the window surround today.

window surround stairs les guis virlet puy de dome franceAs you can see, I’ve done three of the sides with the offcuts of tongue-and-grooving from the ceiling. That meant fitting battens to the walls and routing the anenometer cable underneath. And then each piece of tongue-and-groowing had to be cut and shaped individually, and that took a while – until lunchtime in fact.

After lunch I put the first coat of varnish on all of the wood that I’ve fitted so far, and then we started the “hunt the tile cutter”.

Last time I had it, it was in Brussels and as you might remember, we fled Brussels in such haste that stuff was packed any old how. I spent all afternoon until long after knocking-off time looking through the barn and the lean-to and I’ve no idea where it might be.

But apart from that, I was on the move again during the night but I can’t for the life of me remember where I was and who I was with. And today, to give you some idea of howdark and depressing it all was, we had 12mm of rain and by 16:30 it was sleeting.

So tomorrow I’ll put the second coat of varnish on the wood and then play round two of “hunt the tile cutter”. It has to be here somewhere.

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Thursday 11th July 2013 – WELL, THE ANGLE GRINDER …

… idea worked just fine.

Mind you, I had to strip it down, remove the safety guard and the side handle, and fit a worn-down diamond disc. Then I could just about get the thing in the hole that I made.

Although it took ages to work out the best way to use it and how to control it, I managed to carve a deep groove into the head of this stubborn lump of ironstone.

The SDS drill, in the stationary position and with a chisel attachment, fitted some way into the hole (after I’d stripped all kinds of surplus stuff off the drill) and after several good poundings I knocked a lump off the rock.

And that was how I proceeded – cut a groove in a lump of rock with the angle grinder, pound away with the SDS chisel, and then use the core drill until it grounded out again.

hole in wall shower room les guis virlet puy de dome franceIt took ages too and then of course eventually the angle grinder and the chisel bottomed out and that was that.

But I did find a 500mm 22mm SDS drill and so I used that to punch a whole row of holes, rather like perforations, around the groove made by the core drill. And at about 16:30 this afternoon I broke through and that was that;

Now the pipe is in place, cemented in from the outside and with the filter fitted. It’s mostly filled from the inside but of course the air vent and fan won’t be fitted until the tiling is done.

While I was waiting for all the cement to dry, I had a little (yes, just a little) tidy up in what will be the bedroom and I found loads of stuff that I had been looking for. But now I’m whacked, and that is that.

But back to this morning.

Cécile and I were up early and loaded her car with all of the stuff she’s taking to her mother’s, which was uite a considerable amount.

I then ran her into St Gervais d’Auvergne to post a letter at the Post Office, where we ran into the guy who runs the sawmill. It’s always closed in July and August while he does the harvest, but he did mention that he had a workman down at the mill just then.

Upon hearing that news, I took full advantage and came back with a load of demi-chevrons.

A really good investment, Caliburn’s roofrack.

So now Cécile has left the area, probably for good, and I’m back here making rapid progress now in the shower room.

What’s going to happen next to jam a spanner in the works?

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Saturday 26th February 2011 – I haven’t been here long today.

This morning I went to the dechetterie and threw another huge pile of stuff away. Much of it wasn’t really worth anything at all but there was some stuff that was rather significant in my past and it was surprisingly difficult to hurl it into the waiting jaws of a huge digger that was about to carry it off into the incinerator.

While I was there Terry rang me and asked me to pick up a three-phase circuit breaker. And I was halfway to the tile shop before I realised that I was supposed to be going to the electrician’s. Anyway, to cut a long story short … “thank you” – ed … they didn’t have one in and needed to order it. Could I come back this afternoon?

So after lunch and a little desultory sanding down of woodwork and polyfilla in the second half of the living room, I went out to pick up the circuit breaker. Terry rang again and asked me to pick up three packets of tiling cement and so this time I did indeed go to the tile shop where I had a lengthy chat with the owner while the minions searched for the cement.

On the way back the canal bridge was all closed off and there were loads of police cars about – whether someone had thrown themselves in the canal I don’t really know but the circulation was difficult to say the least and it was about 18:30 when I returned home.

It’s Saturday night of course and so once the rugby had finished we hit the streets. Up to Schuman where we found a decent Italian restaurant. My penne al arrabiata was the best I had ever eaten and everyone else thoroughly enjoyed their meal. A pint in the James Joyce rounded off the evening perfectly and then we came back home – at about 11:15.

What an enjoyable day!

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Tuesday 15th February 2011 – I’ve been falling asleep here.

Yes, it’s only 22:25 and I’m worn out. I’m clearly working too hard.

So what did we do today? Terry has spent all day in the toilet – but that’s nothing t do with Liz’s cooking of course.He’s been tiling. It’s not easy for firstly there isn’t much room to move around and secondly, there are too many crooks and nannies (“as well as nooks and crannies” – ed) in there and they all need to be tiled. And so for most of the day we have been without … err … bathroom facilities which has been something of an inconvenience, if you pardon the expression. This evening though, there’s a toilet connected to the wastepipe with a bucket of water for flushing, and that will have to do.

Liz finished off painting the bathroom while I washed down the walls at the inner side of the living room and then I painted that part of the ceiling with two coats of paint. Following that, we sanded down and painted all of the woodwork in that bit. We are doing the living room in halves because it’s so big, and using the “other half” of the living room as a place to store the tools.

Once all the woodwork was painted we had a go at sanding down the wooden flooring in there. It seems like at one time there’s been one of those rubber-backed carpets on there and the rubber back has melted, staining the wood. So on our hands and knees, we scrubbed away at the damaged part of the floor with 80-grain sandpaper. And you have no idea just how tiring that can be.

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Monday 14th February 2011 – AND SO …

… having decided upon a new plan for the apartment, we cracked on with our work today.

Terry started off in the toilet this morning. He ripped the toilet and the sink out of the WC and ripped all of the tiles off the wall in there. Liz finished off the painting in the bathroom while I washed down the walls and part of the ceiling in the living room.

While Terry was tiling the WC floor, Liz and I went to the tiling place in Schaerbeek and bought some wall tiles for in there. We saw some nice glass mosaic tiles that would make a pretty border like we did in the bathroom and so we added them to the list of shopping. We may as well make this apartment into a place of which we can be very proud.

Mind you, whether the bank balance can afford it is another matter completely. But I’m not going to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar. I need to concentrate on the long-term ciew and keep on going.

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Thursday 10th February 2011 – I was going to have an early night …

… seeing as how everyone else has retired, but I wrote up my blog and then the computer crashed before it could be published. But never mind – it can’t be helped.

So we are (or were) off to bed early because we have been busy little beavers today. While Terry was sorting out the electrics in the third bedroom I was filling in holes in the bathroom for Liz (who reminded me a short while ago that I have missed one). And while Liz started off the painting in there I cleaned up the half of the terrace that we stripped of tiles. It’s now ready for tiling when I buy the bitumen underseal.

However there is a change of plans there. So many of the tiles are damaged that it’s not really feasible to reuse them and so I approached the President of the Residents’ Council with the idea that we replace them all with some more of the black tiles that we bought to do the edging. He’s in agreement and so I rang up the tile place to order some more. We must have a half-share in that shop now.

So after I had done that, Terry and I started on the floor-laying in the third bedroom and that took ages. Would you believe that it is the same patented system that I found when I bought the flooring to fit in the attic back at home, and how much anguish did I have with that?

Liz finished the first coat of her painting early and so she took over helping Terry while I piddled off for the tiles and a visit to Brico. I ended up at the Brico at the Place Bockstael where I found everything I needed but there was no place to park and there was no-one to cut the glass.

“Glass?” I hear you say. But yes. We decided that the shower screen that we will be fitting looks so nice that we will fit one on the window side. But as they don’t do one the correct size, we will have to make one out of glass and channelling.

But at Brico I encountered a situation that would have delighted Terry had he been there. An old lady was looking for light bulbs and the server there told her that they were in aisle 21 and she should p155 off and look for herself. Terry is continually being astonished by what passes for customer service here in Belgium. I did warn him about it.

Back home Liz and Terry had finished the flooring and so we started on the skirting board but ran out of time. Now we have 2 finished bedrooms (that I did a few years ago), an almost-finished third bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and toilet ( and they may well be done tomorrow) and which leaves us just the huge living room and the two balconies to do, as well as rewire the main fuse board.

No wonder that we are tired!

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Wednesday 9th February 2011 – We had a bit of good luck today …

…which is just as well, because regular readers of my rubbish will know that it’s been a long time since I’ve had any.

At the maison communale, there was just one person in front of me so I was in and out in a matter of minutes. After that of course I attended to the matter of getting myself deregistered and that didn’t take long either. we even had a friendly and helpful fonctionnaire, and that’s a first in Brussels, I can tell you.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Terry got on with grouting the floor of the bathroom and while he was finishing it off. Liz and I took all of the rubble downstairs and put it in the trailer, having first removed everything that everyone else has put in it. And I reckoned that we took out more than we put in.

Once that lot was emptied it was off to IKEA for lunch and a quick shopping expedition. We bought a housing to fit the dishwasher into the kitchen, a toilet seat (we are going for all kinds of luxury here, you know) and a few other bits and bobs. Next door at Brico we acquired a shower screen to fit at the side of the bath, and a new shower head with hose

From there it was back into the city and to this electrical shop that I had discovered the other day. A two-gang box and a handful of circuit-breakers and he asked for €109. Having been asked for €145 just for the box at Brico, I expected him to then ask for the money for the circuit breakers too but no – that was his all-in price and he even threw in a pile of cable connectors. This was a good deal by any standards.

At the tile shop, we picked up a few sacks of tile cement to do the terrace here, and Liz’s beady eyes spotted some tiles that were exactly the same colour as the basic colour scheme of the toilet. Of course it’s a shame to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar and so that’s something else we’ll be having to do. Not that I’m complaining – I want this place to be a credit to us all when it comes to be sold.

In other news, there’s a bookshop in Scottsdale Arizona that wants to pick a fight with me. And as you all know, I’m never one to fail to rise to a challenge and it’s been a while since I’ve mixed it in a good old argy-bargy. It’s also been a long time (8.5 years in fact) since I’ve been to Arizona and I’m itching to go for another holiday.

So watch this space..

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Friday 4th February 2011 – We are making some good progress right now

Terry has spent all day tiling in the bathroom and he’s making some splendid progress. It’s looking a world different that it did this time last week and I’m really impressed.

Liz and I spent all day in the third bedroom. We started off by putting the second coat of paint on the woodwork, and then carried on with the wallpapering. Liz kept on encouraging me when I was starting to flag, and we managed in the end to do all of it, even the fiddly bits that take all the time. It’s much better when you have someone to help to motivate you.

So not much to write about, but a great deal of work done. We are all thoroughly exhausted and I’m off to bed in a minute. But I don’t imagine I’ll get much sleep. There’s been a howling gale blowing here all day and some of the gusts are shaking the windows, making quite a noise. It’s been ages since I’ve seen a wind quite like this.

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