The Donated House

A few bits of sunshine have made it through, and been enough to tempt me out to do some work outdoors. I put the old glass doors from Antony’s demolished house onto the workshed. Still a few wall panels to go yet. But then, I’ve got a few doors lying around.

Spring *IS* coming. It IS!!!

Sal came round and helped me frame a floor for the new shed, which is incorporating the back and front of Antony’s old shed.

Then Catie and Simon came and helped me put the rest of it together.

And we managed to get the rafters up before I had to go down to Somerset to do morris dancing with youths. We shall speak no more of that…

Except to say that I came back with a drawhorse. In addition to morris dancing, they’d also been taught to split, shave and turn green wood into morris sticks. And I got given a drawhorse to look after. Jack liked it immediately.

A bit of sad news is that the bees are definitely dead. We checked on them a month or so ago, thinking they must be, as we hadn’t seen any for a long time. There were one or two still showing signs of life, so I put the lid back on and left them to it, but when we looked again they were definitely not alive. So we took their honey.

Not being in posession of all the extraction equipment, we had to turn to the internet for advice. It said to warm it to about 90 degrees and then rub the honey off with a spoon.

It was pretty labour intensive and very, very sticky, but it worked in the end and we have about four or five litres of honey to show for it.

As well as a few sticky patches on the surfaces, our clothes, the cats…

I am much relieved after a stressful few weeks awaiting my new planning proposal going to committee unexpectedly, but it’s been passed (unanimously) and I’m absolutely delighted to be able to leave that anxiety behind.

I’d like to thank all the lovely neighbours who lent support, or said nice things, as well as those who approached me directly with their concerns, because I really would like to be flexible and meet any reasonable requests. I know this project affects you, and I’d like it to affect you positively if it can.

So I’m off to the pub to celebrate, and feeling very cheerful indeed.

We decided it’s a team of sawhorses if they’re doing work and a herd if they’re just standing around. Anyway, we now have four, and they stack beautifully. I’ll make another two, I reckon, and that’ll make a proper herd.

Ian was pretty pleased with them, and rightly so.

Sarah-May made a saw-pony out of smaller bits, so it wouldn’t take too much space up on her boat. She’s gone back home now, which is a shame, it was lovely having her around.

I also managed to fit some of the metal drawer units under the worktop, so we can start making a proper job of organising stuff in the shed, which will free up space to build stuff with some of that reclaimed wood, which will make room for actually moving around freely up there, rather than having to step over and around piles of stuff.

Well, it’s been a surprisingly productive week, considering the weather. Sarah-May’s been here a lot, as she had an attack of iritis, had to dilate her eyes with drops, was therefore banned from driving and needed to stay in Tod, so we have had the pleasure of her company for much of the week.

When it snowed 6 inches a day or two ago, we decided to go buy two snow shovels and clear the steep bit of the road, which I’d slid down in a rather scary half-controlled skid a few days before. So we were shovelling away, and a guy walked up the hill and asked if we’d like help, so we said yes, and in return we took him home and gave him sticky toffee pudding. He turns out to be a new neighbour, been here a couple of months, and also turns out to be a quick study with the woodworking tools and keen to help us make stuff.

Here he is with the log sawhorse he built himself after we’d built the first one together. Then he and Sarah May went on to build a slightly sturdier, if less foldy-flat, version, as seen below, which we are going to build at least 6 of and they can stack out of the way until we need them. It was really good to just be working outdoors, getting lots done and not having to do it myself. I just pottered about organising the workshed a bit better.

Is the collective noun for sawhorses a herd or a team? We couldn’t decide.