I Woke up this morning to a minor heatwave – in fact it reached 11 degrees outside at one point – there was no snow anywhere and that weird golden thing was in the sky. Of course it didn’t hang about for all that long and it clouded over again.

Meanwhile I cracked on and in wow! whoopie! mode, I’ve finished all of the stairs. I fitted the rails for the final step at the top angle of the stairs down to the ground floor and then scrounged some wood to make the treads. After that it was a mega-clear-up and then I cut down the stringers for this builders’ staircase that I’m going to fit down to the ground.

I’d got it on my temporary workbench to assemble and I quickly learnt to throw away the instructions. It’s all very well following them if there are two of you but when you are on your own you need to think again. I drilled some screw holes in the sides where the treads would be, then laid one stringer flat on the workbench. I “invented” a small trestle of about the stairs’ width and put that over the top and put the other stringer on top. After that I inserted the treads, tacking them in with screws as I was going along, and when I reached the end, clamped it all together with my two large speed clamps.

By now it was dark but I was on a roll so I rigged up a light using the Ryobi flourescent light, and then turned the stair assembly over onto the other side, made sure the treads were correctly positioned, and then screwed them from that side. I turned it back over, tightened up the screws that I’d tacked in place, released the speed clamps, and that was that.

It took just 15 minutes, a spirit level, the drill with the drill bit, the drill with the screwdriver bit, a handful of screws and some packing pieces, and the stairs were installed.

And now I’ve knocked off work for the festive season.

It was pouring down with rain this evening but at about 21:00 it all went quiet. When I went downstairs for tea I discovered the reason. The temperature had dropped to 2 degrees and it was snowing like hell!

And talking of snowing, I’ve ordered Caliburn’s Christmas present and I’m spending more money on him that I spent on me! One new road-going tyre and two Michelin Alpine snow tyres. I’ll need them in this weather. I just hope that the weather holds off enough for me to get to Montlucon to have them fitted.

0

-2