… in my shower room wall. 48mm in diameter, 18 inches from the floor and almost (but not quite) all the way through to the outside, dear Liza, dear Liza.
. I took advantage of the absolutely beautiful summer’s day to power up the mega-SDS drill and carve a hole through to the outside to act as the air vent for the composting toilet – something that is quite important for not for nothing is this place known as Pooh Corner.
And if you were around a year or so ago when I took months to drill the hole through from the lean-to into the house, it took just four hours to end up a mere 9 centimetres from the outside wall … "and it’ll probably take you another year to do the rest" – ed.
So why didn’t I carry on and finish it?
The answer is simple. The core drills that I use for punching my way through stone are about 15 cms long and I have three extensions – a 6cm one, a 40cm one and a 60cm one – giving me 21cms, 55cms and 75cms respectively.
With the 60cm one and the core drill it would make short work of the 55cm walls but it is so heavy and awkward that I start off with the small one, then graduate to the middle one, and then I finish off with the larger one.
But damn and blast! Would you believe it (well, knowing me, you probably would), the 40mm extension is jammed solid into the chuck and try as I might, can I heck as like move it? .I was there for a good hour or so trying to extricate it from the chuck and no luck at all.
Never mind for now, though.
I’m still impressed that I can run a 1400-watt SDS drill for four hours punching my way through blocks of Grès de Lapeize without even a hiccup. And with the fridge working too. And as well as having electrically-heated hot water to wash in afterwards.
That’s despite all of the doubters and prophets of doom that I had when I first started this project back in 1999.
And despite all of the criticisms that I’ve had to bear, from people whom I thought were friends but behind my back were having a nice little laugh at my expense with their friends in “a certain newsgroup”.
As you know, that was something that angered me intensely, as I have said before … "and at great length too" – ed.
Anyway, enough of me ranting.
By 18:00 I called it a day in the shower room and went outside. With the weedkiller that Liz gave me and the pressure sprayer that I bought on Saturday, I attacked the weeds again for an hour and a half.
They are looking quite sad after my last effort but we are promised sunshine until tomorrow night and so a second helping won’t go amiss.
I forgot to tell you about last night’s dream as well. I was in the EU offices in a long corridor with hordes of people trying to get through a turnstile into the inner sanctum of the building and it was taking hours. But there were two office of member states, Ireland being one of them and I can’t remember the other, and they had access through the rear of their offices into the interior of the building. I knew all of the girls who worked there so grabbing my friend, we went through the Irish Permanent Representation offices into the main part of the building, much to his surprise, the surprise of the girls there and the surprise of everyone else.
From there I was in an exam and I needed to remember the proportion of energy in the UK (at least I think that it was in the UK) generated by coal. I’d taken some papers with me into the exam and they had notes upon them (contrary to the rules) and I spent a few anxious moments looking through the papers, not finding what I wanted and wondering if it was indeed 18% or some other figure.
