Now you see it, now you don't

They've gone and changed their minds; the operation is deferred for ages (even 12 months possibly), so I will after all be able to get on with the tasks that I want to do this summer.  When I said it was bad timing, I honestly didn't really want this to happen.

All I need now is some half decent weather to let me make a start outside.  The walls, pointing, edge setts and flagstones will all take ages, and I'd like to tidy up and sow some grass seed as well.  Then there's refurbishing sash windows - perhaps I'll get a couple done if I'm lucky this year - and repairing some stucco work at the front (although it's actually cement so shouldn't be too difficult).

In the meantime there is some decorating inside to be done, but that's a job I hate - removing the black gunge that the doors are coated with.  Sanding it just gums up the sandpaper in 15 or 20 seconds, and a heat gun requires three hands as you get these sticky dead slugs on your scraper which have to removed with a sharp knife or else all you do is to spread it around.  The other hassle with the heat gun is having to remove the smoke detectors as they tend to get set off by it.  I've never had much luck with paint remover but perhaps I'll give it another go. 

Bad Timing

I know my brother needs my kidney (see link on previous entry), but in many ways this really is bad timing.  I now have less than six weeks to do a whole load of work in the garden in order to get it ready for my convalescence.

I rather like the idea of sitting out in the summer sun for six or eight weeks, drinking a little lemonade and watching the birds feeding.  The plants will be growing nicely with a gentle fragrance filling the air, while swifts will be wheeling in the sky above.  The alert among you will have noticed the possibly erroneous assumption in all this: what summer?  We're into spring and even that refuses to work this year.  I certainly cannot do any lime brickwork while it's so cold, and I don't even really want to do any concreting or cement work while we're likely to get a frost at night.

I took delivery today of some granite setts which will act as one edge for my paving.  The other long edge is alongside the house; part will be a concrete strip which will support my cast iron grilles where I don't want to pave up to the wall of the old house. Where the paving goes up to the wall of the new extension I will have a strip of self-compacting gravel against the wall of the house as I don't mind that going a bit higher (and I don't have enough grilles!).  There is no point is replicating the earlier errors (of high ground against a porous wall) which I have permanently eliminated by spending a considerable amount.

Once I have done the edges, I can lay the flagstones.  These are on order at my favourite reclamation yard, and I think I've got him down to the lowest possible price of £32/sq m, which isn't bad if you say it quickly - mind you it is for proper 30mm thick real stone, not some thin reconstituted stuff.  I must admit that does sound expensive until you think how much good carpet costs; this stone will be around long after the carpet has given up.

If I can get these done before the operation, I'll be pretty happy, but if I can also clear and lay some lawn I'll be even happier! So, I have work to do as soon as I can persuade myself that the weather is (a) warm enough for me to work, and (b) warm enough for concrete to set properly.

All Quiet on the North Western Frontier

The garden to the west and north of my house is still technically not a garden but a builder's yard.  I made some progress with walls etc in last year's dismal apology for a summer, but I really want to get some major fine weather jobs done.  These include stone facing on a long retaining wall, 10 m of setts laid, 25 sq m of limestone pavers, a fair bit of earth removal, clearing the rubble from the "lawn", planting the new lawn, painting 16 m of picture rail for the lounge and refurbishing some of the 7 sash windows.  (Recently I turned a window cleaner away on the grounds that the state of the windows meant that he would be likely to damage them!)  Even recently I have been too busy with accounts to do much so the garden has been quiet for the entire winter.

However, all these best laid plans really have "gang agley".  I have an operation provisionally booked for May 1st, and so whatever is not done in the next six weeks will not get done until July or August.

I have been running a blog about this potential operation which you might care to visit: http://diaryofakidneydonor.blogspot.co.uk/. If you know of any one who has done something similar then please point them to it - I'd love to have details of people's recent experiences of this.  One thing that surprises me is that the whole thing now is VERY emotional - I can hardly talk or write about it without welling up.  I think this can only increase!

I'm glad I never actually set a completion date; we set (and met) the "move-in" date in July 2011, but thereafter it's just one task after another.  'Er indoors is very patient!!