We don't feel strongly about many things when it comes to building materials however in the case of pebble-dash (or "harling" as its known up here) we utterly hate the stuff. Sincere apologies to those that have & love it but its just not our thing.That said, for years it was the only practical insulation available for use on stone walls up here, so in that sense its served its purpose. In the 21st we're now installing insulation on the inside, and its made of millions of glass bubbles (made by the Pyrex company). More of that on a later entry. (bet you can't wait!!!)
Anyhow, after 4 hours of brandishing a lump hammer yesterday
Me and Gareth managed to smash off most of the pebble-dash from the front of the house. The picture below shows some remaining harling on the right .... but the lovely original stone face appears for the first time in many many decades.
Both Steve & I had been dreading this job as it could have taken much much longer than it did, certainly not the few hours it did so consider ourselves very lucky. Just the 2 gable ends to go and a little at the back of the house and we're done !
Another milestone day tomorrow begins with the arrival of Robbie Readimix and his 38 tonne concrete wagon - its coming to offload a few cubic metres to create our foundations or footings.
Sadly (for Fred) he loses the hired digger and dumper tomorrow as all the digging & major earth moving is now complete. He loves his toys, but he's also been using them to level off the drive and surrounding ground, create some new steps up the side of the new extension and shifting more of the big boulders around.
Just to give you an idea of the amount of earth we've had to move, the shot above show the Cuppaster Quarry that we as crofters have access to. We've been allowed to put some in there, quite a bit actually. This can now be re-used by other local crofters who need earth to lay a track or fill holes for example.
Colour Charts ...
Now, with Steve down in Merseyside over the last week, Fred was in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up drawing the short and only straw to stand in as my surrogate "Man About The House" . As all ladies reading this will know, a woman always needs
someone in the vacinity to whom they can witter onto don't they? (even if it is only the dog ... although she's not here either!)
Under the circumstances - and to be fair - Mr Cheshire been a gem of a stand-in and has made me a fair few cuppas which has been impressive. However, in Chapter 1 of the important manual for all new couples "A Husbands Role" it clearly states that a husbands job is to listen intently, appear engaged and lend an interested ear as their wives twitter on about paint and colour charts.
I'm very disappointed to report that Mr Cheshire has clearly not read the manual and failed miserably on this task scoring "nil point"
by glazing over after a measly 9 seconds =(
Did I glaze when over he started talking about mortar plasticiser or bat straps? No !
Well, I was also sadly lacking in the Spiderman department yesterday ... (yep, thats Steve!)
What was 15inches from my feet in the bath MID SHOWER causing me to scream the house down?
Yep and it had 8 legs. Fred to the resuce again (previous glazing over forgiven at this point)
Well SOMEONE had to get the flaming thing out & it sure wasn't gonna be me ...
Hurry Home Spiderman ... the spiders have started appearing ... aaargh !!!
