It looks quite impressive from down here, and so indeed it ought to because although we started at about 09:00 this morning it was 19:00 when we finished!
The first bits were easy. Fitting the broken tiles to the edge of the roof and then trimming down with the angle grinder, and then fitting the demi-chevron that will support the edge tiles. No problem there.
The ridge tiles were another matter. We only had three and we needed six. There were two extra but one had a large lump missing and the other one had a hole in the top.
So we did the tour of builders’ merchants and considering that this is the most common tile in the whole area and almost every house has them, not a single builders’ merchant had any, or could tell us where to go for them.
But that gave me an idea and so I said to Terry “to the woods!”. Not too far away from where I live is a ruined building that had fallen down years ago and was totally abandoned. And taking our lives into our hands amongst decaying walls and fallen trees we managed to rescue three ridge tiles. I’ve seen better ridge tiles, I have to say, but what can you do?
Nailing them in was an issue as the central beam is … errr … rather thin but the other neighbour managed to find a 10-inch nail and we made do with a couple of transverse battens and some very long screws for the rest.
The pointing was uncomfortable but we managed it, but the real fun was reserved for the crown piece and the first of the edging pieces. I shudder to think how long we were messing around trying to get them to fit and I reckon that of the game of “twister” – the one where there is a couple of you on a mat trying to move your hands and feet into different positions – ever became an Olympic sport then Terry and I would win the gold medal judging by some of the contortions that we were doing. At one stage there were both of us lying on the roof nowhere near the ladders with Terry holding the crown piece in position with a screw in the screw hole and me swinging a hammer blind over my head and his head to hit that screw somewhere down the side of the roof where neither of us could see it.
But when that was done the rest was fairly easy. We reckoned that at about 17:00 we could knock off but seeing as how we weren’t far away then we may as well stay and cement everything in and have a day off tomorrow.
Yes, a day off tomorrow, and I’m having a lie-in. So you just watch some b@$t@rd spoil it by ringing me at 08:00!
