I woke up this morning to the most brilliant pink sky which made me think that the warnings about the 2nd imminent storm of the season could be right even though there was no wind or rain… it was eerily quiet out there, but boy have things changed in the last few hours – It’s blowing an absolute hooley & peeing down now!
We had a good journey home from our last adventure in the Outer Hebrides and, after a day of rest, I went back to work. Fortunately, I have only worked 11 hours over 3 days which means very short shifts, which I prefer.
Arriving home after one such shift, Pete was very pleased with himself as he had spoken to the roofer chap who did our guttering last year and had arranged for him to re-render our chimney (which we suspect has been the cause of damp in our new fireplace) & replace the horrible corrugated plastic roof of our sun room with proper tiles etc – a job Pete has wanted doing since we moved in…
The good news was, with the weather last weekend set fair, they were able to do the work over 3 days & almost straightaway.
As we found when we lived in a circa 200-year old stone cottage at Whitley Head, once you start removing roof tiles and the like, you often find other problems and this job was no exception with rotten wood & felt underneath the tiles… so, of course the job became a bit bigger than expected and naturally, the invoice for the work too – boo!
Anyway, they did a good job & we are pleased to have that piece of work out the way at last… but my God, they were a noisy bunch and left quite a mess behind them! Pete had to tell them to turn the radio down a few times – it’s a quiet village, especially on a weekend and they were here at 7.30am! He also had to ask them to reduce the volume of their swearing once or twice – our neighbours on one side & at the back of us are all in their 90s and might not have appreciated such colourful language or Radio 1’s Anthems! 🤣
I am not sure how they did it but there seemed to be bits of plastic everywhere after they finished the job and the sunroom itself, even though they had covers over the floor, looked like a bomb had gone off inside the plasterer’s bucket! Plaster dust & splodges all over!
In fairness, the boss William had them picking up as much debris as they could and they did say they would clean up the sunroom after the plastering, but we knew they would not do as adequate a job as we would do, so Pete declined their offer…
Despite the job being finished last Monday and Pete working on the cleaning all week (the main time-draining task being getting the windows, inside and out, cleaned so you can actually see out of them!) we finally managed to get all the furniture back in yesterday evening… which means at least the room (and kitchen where most of the furniture was being stored) is functional again which is just as well as Louise, Lee & the grandkids are coming tomorrow! All that needs doing in there now is painting the ceiling but we shall tackle that another time… as for the roof, we shall see how it fares come tomorrow morning once this storm has passed!
I went to see Mum last Sunday & spent a nice few hours with her… she was in good spirits so I took the opportunity to send this message to the family group from the both of us!
It was nice that the message garnered a response from all three of my brothers which is a rare thing indeed – thanks guys! It was great to hear from you all ❤️❤️❤️
Earlier in the week, after seeing an advert on Facebook, we headed off to a local sawmill and collected a load of wood for the fire which, although it might be my imagination, appears to be a lot warmer since we had the chimney done…
So that’s one emergency stockpile achieved… we also have enough beans & noodles in the cupboard to last us a few weeks, let alone 3-days, so Wes Streeting would be proud 🤣🤣🤣 I even checked the batteries still work in our radio and that we have spare batteries in the cupboard too – what is going on!? 🤣
We had a nice walk around the graveyard in Canonbie after our visit to the sawmill to see if we could find the one commonwealth war grave in there… it was a bit of a challenge to find as it isn’t the normal kind of war grave but we got there in the end… the poppy cross helped!
The autumn colours are amazing as ever, even though the weather was not great and the pictures don’t do it any justice. I hope the high winds this weekend don’t leave the trees bare!
Pete was sad to here another of his army buddies just passed away… rest in peace Roger (Spider) Johnston
Despite being as busy as ever, we are looking forward to the kids coming tomorrow for half-term. I have made Niamh a Halloween pumpkin gonk… hope she likes it!
We are also looking forward to our break in North Yorkshire next weekend (for fireworks & my birthday!) where I hope Pete will get a good rest again as…
…having thought that no news was good news regarding the tests he had to check out his heart, we were recently told there is a problem and that his quadruple heart bypass has failed 😞 Apparently, 3 of the 4 pipes they replaced are blocked which is why he sometimes has to take big gulps of air and what is causing his chest pains… he is on the waiting list to have an angiogram where they will look to put in stents so all he can do is take it as easy as possible (for anyone that knows him, you’ll know he finds this very, very difficult!) and wait for the appointment which we hope will be in November / December 🤞🤞🤞 Just one more thing to worry about, although we are both trying not to think about it too much!
Right, that’s it for now… I’m off to batten down the hatches a bit more! Stay safe out there 😊 ❤️
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