I started doing this diary in June. If you haven't been following have a look at the Cast of Characters which gives a quick low down on the essential day to day characters who are mentioned here...it will make more sense if you do.

     

I was up late this morning because of not getting to sleep till after 6.00am but at least the fire stayed in. Kitty had possibly been trying to wake me for a while because she had done a shit in the shower which I couldn't quite face dealing with immediately. Anyway, plenty coffee later I did deal with it and all the morning tasks and I was just off to do some kindling when Lorna appeared at her bedroom window, seems she'd had a lie-in as well so it didn't matter that I was late. It wouldn't have mattered anyway come to think of it as she was stringing the wire more efficiently by herself anyway, leaving me free to do other things. The first thing was to dig a channel beween the new ditch and the existing one, not easy given the newtork of roots and crap to dig through and having to stand in deep muddy water that was perilously close to the top of my wellies, but the satisfaction of that certain spadefull when all the water suddenly started gushing down was worth being splashed in the face with smelly mud. After that I moved some more of the scrap timbers from the ex-shack down to the barn to be broken up for kindling and then got it into my head to paint the saw bench I had made with timber treatment. I was just in the middle of doing that when the Raeburn guy appeared and we both stopped for a break to see if he could fix the riddler. Unfortunately he couldn't due to a lack of available spare parts and the fact that it can therefore only be done by welding. He was very nice though and replaced the stove top seal and only charged us for his petrol money. People are like that round here, if they can't fix it or can only do a temporary bodge they will charge amost nothing, the last Raeburn bodge we had done cost me about two quid, including travel. After he had gone I quickly finished off the saw bench as it was getting cold by then. After yesterdays freezing I had dressed in thermal long janes and a thermal vest and consequently spent most of the day sweating and wearing nothing extra except a t-shirt and the dungarees but at this point I did have to go and put more clothing on.

When I came indoors, where the fire had been on all day I was far too hot and had to strip down to the thermal underwear and still felt ridiculously sweaty and had to go have a bath. The bath was a necessity anyway as I had quite a lot of smelly ditch mud and timbercare on my face and up my arm. I've had an evening off the computer tonight, and instead I've been reading some new books which arived today from Michigan. I bought them at the festival and somehow they never got shipped until the 2nd of October. I got four and one of them I have finished already. I joined Lorna and a gang of kids for kiddie tea; Linda McCartney sausages, spaggetti hoops and chips, one of my favourite dinners and I've been reading ever since. Now I'm off to bed ........ with a book.

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