Nothing today thank you

A few days of silence there.   The result of a huge amount of rain (marvellous) that prevented outdoor games. And an intermittent internet connection thanks to the storm.

But my beams in the kitchen are sparkling white. Five coats later.   And we have cleared out the wood shed.

The beams were going swimmingly, until I stood back and admired the effect.   And realised that it made all the white wood in between the wood look very dingy indeed.   So down to town to search for a halfway decent pot of paint that wouldn’t bankrupt me.   And back up the ladder I went.

And yesterday the rain let up enough for us to tackle the woodshed.   This is the lean to construction built onto the end of the stone farmhouse that holds wood. Well, we have two other places for wood – the barn and the cellar.   And this was always an eyesore. I can’t believe I didn’t take a Before Shot just so you could see how messy it was. Every off cut from every carpentry job, every chestnut fence post (wire and all) and every bit of scrap wood was lobbed in here.   Aesthetics didn’t come into it.

So yesterday it all came out.   The good bits were saved: I wheeled them down to the small stables on the first terrace below the road. David chain sawed all the fence posts (apart from a dozen which we have kept) and I even got in there and lifted all the pallets that serve as a floor and cleared away thirty years of accumulated mess.

I’m just thrilled I didn’t find any nests. Of the scary kind.

So today I shall tidy away the last of the mess. And stand back and admire our work. It feels like it is the last vestiges of our previous owners getting erased.   In a good way.

The excess wood is a gift to our neighbour Jean Daniel. He will burn anything. Nails and all.