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 first woke up when Clare came to collect her titles first thing in the morning. It was sometime between 9.00 and 9.30am and I didn't manage to do much more than grunt at her. Soon after that I heard David up in the field with his big headed sledge hammer and thought I'd better get up and see him about either doing the new posts at the top of the field or else lending us the sledge hammer to do it. I reckoned I had enough time to make coffee but when I tried to turn on the tap to fill the kettle it wouldn't move. Its been dripping and I've been turning it off harder and harder because I hate drips. Yes I know I should have fixed it by now but I hadn't got there yet.... last night I was actually reading all about O rings and glands and stuff and trying to figure out if I could do that myself. But anyway..... the point is as I tried to force the tap on it started dripping badly underneath and not from anywhere I could get a bucket under, I couldn't get anything bigger than a yoghurt carton under there and that filled up damn quick so I just had to switch the water off then. I got the book out again and tried to decide which of two things could be causing this and what supplies would therefore be required for fixing it and then I thought of getting David to come in and have a look at it, he seems to understand plumbing. By the time I'd done all that and put some clothes on though he was completely gone. Well, he wouldn't have had any plumbing stuff with him anyway so then I went to the barn and got a pipe wrench and a few adjustable spanners and looked at the book again and then I phoned a plumber. Ok, it felt like a defeat but it just looked like such a fiddly job and I knew I'd end up having to go into town and try to get hold of some obscure piece of plumbing equipment and I just didn't really have time for all that what with Petra coming and the rails to put up.

Petra arrived not long after that and we managed to arrive at a compromise that left the poster I had done last night substantially unchanged. I was less bothered about the thought of changing it than I was about the fact that the daylight hours were slipping away. So by midday we were able to start nailing up the rails around the training ring starting with the top rails in case we didn't finish it today although it quickly became clear that we almost certainly would manage at the rate we were going. There are 33 post with two rails on each. That's 132 nails between us and at an average of 20 to 30 blows to get them in that's about 1650 hammer blows each (not including knocking over the ones that had come through the other side of the post) and no wonder my shoulder hurts now. If I never see another 4 inch galvanised nail again in my life I shall be quite happy. However that is unlikely to happen as I have to go out and fix up a temporary gate there tomorrow. I spose I could use screws.

I came in after that and took off the outer layer of clothing and lay down in front of the fire in my long janes and the cat lay on top of me and we both fell asleep and when we woke up it was dark. The plumber had rung at some point to say he couldn't come till tomorrow evening and so I couldn't really have a bath, well not without a lot of running up and down the stairs emptying out the jar under the sink so I just stayed dirty, what's the point of getting clean when you're just intending to get dirty again the following day. So I haven't felt like doing much this evening but I have got the WIT poster turned into colour for WitWeb and done their minutes and agenda. And now I'm going to bed early...because I can.

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