Tiling and Rain (again)

Things moving right along now, amazing what you can get done if you actually get off your arse and do stuff!

I had an amazing run of luck with tile numbers. It’s difficult trying to cover a floor with bits and pieces of leftover tiles from other projects and cheap ebay finds. I worked out a reasonably sensible way to use exactly as many as I had of the bit white ones, and was left with a fairly random shape and no idea what to do with it.

First I used some grey granitey-looking ones to fill in the gaps around the edge, and then I used the same ones to fill in under the sink (I don’t want to do too much fancy mosaic in places it won’t be seen, after all) but they didn’t quite fill the space. So I was casting about for what to fill in with, happened upon some strips of 5mm cube stone which filled in gaps such that three widths filled the space perfectly. AND THEN I had exactly, to the single cube, the right number of cube tiles.

After that, I was left with a small number of the granitey-looking tiles and no idea what to do with them. Some messing about and staring at the floor suggested a continuation of the border I’d put round the white ones, making a frame around an area in front of the sink, which would (appealingly) cordon off a bit of floor to do a smallish scale mosaic in. And guess what, I had exactly enough of the tiles to do the border.

My luck with quantities didn’t extend as far as adhesive mixing, though, I keep mixing twice as much as I need. So since I had broken up the last of the dark tiles from the other end of the building for mosaic and had them ready to go, I quickly sketched a swirly shape (can never go wrong with a swirly shape) and pasted it up with a bit of the adhesive. This was my first crazy-paving mosaic done at speed (trying not to let the stuff harden before I’d stuck them down) and I’m pretty pleased with the initial results. Tomorrow I’ll break up the leftover tiles from the bathroom at Cherry Tree Cottage and fill in the rest of it.

Elmo, meanwhile, got a very long way toward finishing the trench for the electricity, which should be in within another week or so. The trench has a tendency to fill up with water in the rain storms we’ve been having all too frequently (Todmorden flooded again yesterday, though not as badly) but it does seem to drain quickly, which is a blessing.

Having earned it thoroughly, Elmo enjoyed a lie-in on Sunday morning.

And Alec enjoyed a nap on the couch. He also earned his sleep, by making a lot of progress on organising the middle shed in order to use it to store all the stuff in the bottom shed while we investigate its roof, which is almost sure to be the most rotten of them all.

Eating dinner outside is one of my favourite activities up there. I think I might even do it in winter, if I can pile on enough fleeces and still move my arms enough to get the fork to my mouth.

As we were cleaning up to leave yesterday, the heavens rather opened and for about half an hour we sat and watched an almost unbelievable deluge fall from the sky. The stone steps ran like weirs and small lakes formed in every bit of low ground. Elmo gallantly swapped buckets until all of them were full from the downspout, which did not take long. We really need to sort out a proper water collection system.