And it was, too. Just like a mid-March morning, with a lovely fresh wind, the kind of wind that makes you glad to be out and about in it – a feeling that I can’t describe but I’m sure that you know what I mean.
So today, what did I do? The answer is “not as much as I hoped”. I had to fit some battens and counter-battens on the ceiling at the head of the stairs so that the tongue-and-grooving will have a proper support. That meant that there were of course gaps between the battens and as I have said before, no money spent on insulation is ever wasted and seeing as how I had a few leftover slabs of 20mm polystyrene insulation, I cut them up and filled in all the gaps.
But then I had a surprise. Just as I was cutting the last piece, Liz turned up. She had been to Pionsat and it’s a couple of years since she was last inside the house and so she came to inspect the works, having heard all about the progress here this last couple of months. Anyway, we ended up having a chat and a coffee for an hour or so.
After lunch, I started to fit the tongue-and-grooving on the ceiling. That’s not as easy as it sounds as it’s in three dimensions and each length needs to be cut in two pieces – one of 850mm and the other of about 1185mm.
I say “about”, because it needs to be trimmed at one end to follow the profile of the plasterboarding, and once that’s done, then the other end needs to be cut exactly to size to fit over the top of the corresponding piece of 850mm. Not only that, one of the pieces needs to be holed to take the light fitting and this is where Brain of Britain realised that he hasn’t left enough free cable to put the light exactly where he wants it, and so we’ll have to compromise on that.
Ahhh well
The final lengths need to be cut down the lengths as well to fit the width of the ceiling and it was while I was setting this up that Cécile rang.
“If it’s not convenient right now, just tell me”
“Don’t worry – it’s never not convenient for my friends to call”
And so after chatting to Cécile for 10 minutes, I cut the wood incorrectly.
So I took another length of 850mm and cut that incorrectly too.
I’ve owned my Ryobi plus One jigsaw since August 2008 and it’s taken me until now to realise that the blade isn’t in the centre of the tool – it’s offset to the left by a couple of mm (the strangest design fault I have ever encountered). That means that when you cut down a length so far with the aid of a guide, and then put the jigsaw at the far end to come back to where you left off, you will be a couple of mm out.
This will explain a few of my more bizarre woodworking efforts, and why the door into this room looks such a mess. And it’s taken until now for me to find out why.
But I’ve had some bad nights just recently – trouble sleeping and the like and I reckoned that it was catxhing up with me, so I knocked off and came up here where I crashed out for a couple of hours.
And tonight it’s warm and windy – just like March. I’m all confused.
