Saturday

Since Matt has had another go at them it’s time to try the manifolds for the new plumbing.

Bugger! Still leaking. Nowhere near as much but can’t have constant dripping so it’s back to the drawing board (YouTube). Before we get into that (and since we can’t go on a Sunday) it’s off to Intermarche. Heavens, I know it’s not far but I’m exhausted today and just the walk back with the shopping has wiped me out.

Back at the house and (after a few minutes watching The Serpent – which is brilliant FYI), since I can’t help I’m off to go plant the shallot bulbs we just bought. Since the water is quite literally on and off right now I can only have what has come out of the dehumidifier, hopefully I can give them a good water tomorrow.

€1.89 for a few sprigs of mint for this afternoon’s Mojitos. I need to get planting some mint. So I get on with the planting while Matt is still busy with the plumbing. Not a bad effort considering. First tray is for Matt: 24 cabbage, 12 sweetcorn; then, 24 sugar snap peas; French climbing beans, early peas; lambs lettuce, spinach; runner beans; then the long trays, radishes and chillies. Job done.

• 

• 

Hmm.. now not sure where I am going to put them. Window in our room isn’t doing to work. The shutters open in and we’d have to constantly move everything. The shutters to one of the windows in the blue room at the top of the stairs are open, but what can I put things on? After a quick look around the room I realised that while the side tables were too small there was a bit of wood(ish) stuff. Temporary table it is, nails up to prevent scratching the new tables. They can live in our bedroom for now – chilies want heat and hopefully will be a reminder to water the others.

Ooops.. forgot why I started doing this. Mint! Having used all the standard trays I had a hunt around. Mint green tub, mint. Over this now but that should be a good enough reminder.

Matt’s made Pete’s red curry for dinner so time to relax, play nine holes of golf with the kids, have a shower and watch some TV. Quick blog update and it is definitely well past bedtime, my fingers are moving so slowly you can’t imagine. Off to bed for me.

[10 April 2021]

Sunday

Woke up about an hour before we should have been getting on a plane to go to Lanzarote for Lee and Vicky’s wedding. Of course that’s not happening now but we do need to change our flights before it would have left. Matt’s many efforts to find suitable reward flights was a bust so resorted to calling them. Thankfully seems that we can get a voucher for the voucher. It’s all massively over complicated and boring but we got it sorted eventually.

After a bit of catching up on Holby, it was time to get up. The weather today is pretty dismal. Lots of rain and generally rubbish so doesn’t look like I’ll be able to plant the carrots and beetroot today. With this house however there’s never a shortage of things to do. Back to work on the kitchen.

Job 1: Put some new flooring over where we have replaced the joists. It’s certainly not as pretty as the old boards in this part of the room but we’ve managed to get it to the right height.

• 

• 

Job 2: Finish the metalwork. This also required a bit of research as to how big a TV we can put in here and swing it out. That part is going to need some good re-enforcement as TVs are heavy, 2x 9mm and bracing should do the job. It might not look like much but we’re finally done and it’s possibly the first full job we have actually completed. Winning!

• 

• 

Clearly we deserve a treat so I made some brownies.

• 

• 

Break over and it’s on to Job 3 of the day: Insulation. Since it comes in sheets it should be much easier to use and manoeuvre than the rolls in the roof so we can safely work with them with significantly less PPE.

• 

• 

• 

Think Matt got bored about half way through. I carried on however and got a reasonable way through it and then mum rang. Good to catch up with her and speak to Steph and John but means I’m not yet finished and dinner is ready.

Can’t bear to leave yet another thing unfinished though so after dinner I’m back up the scaffolding to get the last bits measured, cut and fitted. Starting to look like some real progress. Just needs some joins taped and we are ready for the plasterboard. With that finally done I think I deserve a glass of wine.

• 

Matt’s been in the bathroom starting his haircut. I suspect I now know where mullets come from. Seems he can neither see nor reach the back of his head properly. I was tempted to leave him like this for a week or so but the idea of waking up laying next to a man with a mullet was too terrifying. Guess that makes Job 4: Haircut complete.

That’s more than enough for one day so I’m going to play a quick bit of golf while Matt tidies up all his hair. It’s already 11pm so quick episode of Resident Alien and time to update the blog before bed.

[11 April 2021]