Been a couple of windy days and a slightly stormy night forecast, with both rain and wind at the same time. I decided the frilly, decaying tarps had had it and replaced the two gable ends today in anticipation of said storm.
While taking down the old tarps, we found some tenants we hadn’t realised had moved in. Hundreds of ladybugs (or ladybirds as they’re called here) most of which seemed to be still alive, if somewhat sluggish. We tried to disturb them as little as possible and gave them a new tarp.
Meanwhile Nora and I keep working on these bloody windows. I’m less excited about them now. They’re taking a long time. Still, I remind myself it’s a huge job and one that only has to be done once. At least once in this 25 or 30 years.
In unrelated news, I got some plumbing experience when the recent deep frost took out the power shower. The relief valve, turns out, is not designed to be frozen. Who’s have thought. So now it relieves the system full time instead of just in emergencies. Antony says I can just blank it off. It’s mainly there in case of hard water furring up the shower head to the point where it won’t run, but we have quite soft water, so I’m not worried about it.
In the next month or so I need to install a hot water cylinder and enough plumbing to get the heat exchanger in my masonry heater hooked up in early April. This’ll be an adventure. Plumbing with push-fit plastic bits is one thing. Plumbing with pipe welding is quite another.