Rain, Rain, Rain

I asked the other week why we British always talk about the weather.  Well, after the rain of the last week I think I can now answer the question - it's because the weather is so b****y awful.  April and May were bad enough but I think we all thought that the heatwave at the end of May heralded the start of summer.  Wrong!  I have managed to get a small amount of work done outside, but nowhere near as much as I had hoped.  Right now the rain has eased but it's all muddy underfoot in my garden builder's yard and everywhere is dripping.

What I have achieved is to make a deep concrete plinth (right) on which to mount a cast iron lamp-post, and I've laid a concrete foundation for the wall beside the back gate, together with some block work where the wall itself will be buried in the slope of the garden (no point in burying good faced limestone!).  Although they seem small, these two structures together consumed a whole one tonne bag of ballast!  There is just the small matter of the wall itself to be built, plus 14 yards of foundation and retaining wall for the garden beside the house.

Mind you, I have been very busy on other things in the last ten days.  We had a church 1950's party which had to be held inside as it was so cold (quite apart from the occasional shower) and we've spent some time looking after our dear 17 month grandson.  Firstly we took him (without his parents) to a large family do in London where the sheer numbers could have fazed him, but he survived remarkably well and we returned home as proud grandparents (although we also acknowledge our age and consequent tiredness).  Then we looked after him for a whole day at our house, when he was cheerful, fun and communicative (and we got even more tired!).  He has reached a reasoning point, where he can work out a problem for himself.  For instance, he has been known to push a chair to the kitchen work top so that he can climb up onto the work top!  The other day he stood near our front door and then at me and asked to be picked up.  It then became obvious that he only wanted to be higher so that he (or I) could open the front door as he knew the latch was well out of his reach.

I have also recently received direct from the publishers a copy of a new Haynes Manual called "Period Property - care and repair of old houses".  This was especially good because it was free: it contains some photos of the limecrete floor in this house.  Then the author, Ian Rock, came to see this house as he was so interested by this blog and wanted to see what had been done to the house. [Edit - they now have a website http://www.period-house.com/]