THE NEW BALUSTRADE

The balustrade is now in place on the front of the house.  Stuart and his team worked in the pouring rain to erect the structure at the weekend and did a first rate job.  It is stainless steel with toughened glass. Very glassy ... sorry ... classy!

I was across the road at a neighbour's tonight and returned home just as the sun was setting at 9:35 pm.  Not having time to grab my camera I took these photos with my iPhone.

What is not seen is the colours of the spectrum as it caught the edge of the glass.  I will need to work on that!  Also the feel of the handrail is silky smooth - lovely!

SLABS 'N' SUNFLOWERS

The weather today was absolutely glorious - hot, hot, hot - so it was out to the garden to get on with some autumn jobs.

Iain has taken a break from solving the world's ... Scotland's ... energy crisis and spent the whole afternoon digging away a bank of earth and then laying slabs behind the garage. It really is the last "landscaping" job to do.

I planted these sunflowers late June as it was so wet and cold all through May and early June. I did not think they would flower ... but they did!

This gives the basic idea of how the garden has shaped up. That is the kiddie's park in the centre distance.

And this sums up the total bean crop harvest. Like the potatoes ... it is a not-to-be-repeated exercise!

FINI

The house is now finished! Well ... the main outside and structural work is now complete. Tonight the men finished laying the paving slabs for the driveway. We are mindful that we have had some very cold weather the last 2 years and as a result there is ice on the driveway; it is simply a fact of life! So we laid slabs that are rough in texture to help with slipping and secondly we did not opt for full paving as the only possible way to navigate from down the driveway (on an icy slope) is to walk on the stones or "chuckies" as they call them in this part of the world.

The is the garage opening at the top of the driveway. The door is a remote control up and over arrangement - the best invention after the washing machine!

This is the view looking down the driveway from the garage door to the street, i.e. the entrance to the garage along the east side of the house.

The arrows point to a helicopter that was hovering overhead all the time the men were working. What was it doing? A bank robbery? A car chase?

The only good thing about the noise of the every-present helicopter (which is a sinister sort of thing to my way of thinking) was that the noise of its blades drowned out the noise of these guys with their Black and Decker concrete slab cutting machine!

THE POTATO PATCH

What is it that they say ? The closer you get to finishing a job, the longer it takes!

Every week we think we are finished. Today men arrived. Materials arrived. (Many a day has passed when there has been one or t'other but never both.) After two men for one hour did some work this morning they were off: "We have not got our tools. They were taken by a friend."

Hey-ho! It is the beginning of a 3 day weekend. I am not holding my breath when they say "Back tomorrow!"

Meanwhile, here is Himself laying out the drills for planting potatoes in the back garden. The previous owner had it has a potato patch and after much de-compacting - after Davie's digger compacted it in the garage excavation - Iain has it prepared for planting.

There is probably one day's work for 3 plastereres left to do. They are Polish lads and show good workmanship. While we wait for their return equipment and mess are everywhere! Our neighbours are still talking to us but, as we all agree, it is long past time this job was finished!

CADDER HEARS THE PIPES A CALLING

There is nothing like the bagpipes to an event a sense of occasion... and none more so than at a wedding. Iain and I were invited to a wedding in the north of Glasgow - Cadder Church, Bishopbriggs - and Iain's role was to pipe in the guests at the church as well as the reception in the Eagle Lodge, Bishopbriggs. It was the wedding of the fellow who has been doing a phenomenal amount of work on our house; he of the digger and the tractor-trailer borrowed from his mate's Toarrance farm!

While he had his pipes going at Burns Night this is the first time he has given them a real work-out since his accident 9 months ago. He has now got his lungs going again and is building up his stamina for playing tunes on the big pipes (as opposed to the electronic ones).

After the church ceremony he played at the entrance of the Eagle Lodge to welcome to the guests to the reception. As the groom has associations with the Mull of Kintyre, Iain has been practicing Paul McCartney's famous tune of the same name. It is not one he normally plays and was able to memorize it in the past week. (Oh ... that I could that!)

Cava bubbly with strawberries greeted the guests at the entrance. The Eagle Lodge is an old haunt of Iain's. He recalls "the happiest days of his life ... before I was married" when he used to play rugby for Lenzie Rugby Club in the 1960s! This was their watering hole - a real trip down memory lane for him!

We met lots of interesting people at the wedding, as one does! This fellow heading into the pub works on the building sites with the groom and spent a lot of time working on our house. You could have knocked me over with a feather when, during the singing of the hymns during the church ceremony, I could hear a wonderfully clear baritone voice behind me. Finally on the second hymn I turned and saw that it was this fellow who had the wonderful voice!

TOODLE LOO

Midst the large flakes of snow falling this morning a vehicle arrived to take away the chemical toilet that has graced the front of our house all winter. This was for the use of the various builders and workmen who have been our 'guests' for the last 3 months.

It had become a rather fetching garden feature on this street where all the houses look the same. It even had its own rakish angle perched 'neath the front-of-house window... like the Leaning Tower of Pisa... or should that be Pee-sa?

Hooray! It's away! Duncan arrived to build the wall in the sit-ootery in the back garden and finish the front steps. Gradually the jobs are finishing and the place is getting back to normal. Time to toast the beginning of the end of all the building work!

COLOUR AND CONSTRUCTION

This was the day the roofers were scheduled to put the tiles on the garage and porch roof and ... would you believe it ... the sun shone! We have had really dreary weather for about 2 weeks and today we had a good few hours of afternoon sunshine.

So for the first time I got out with the camera and took a few shots of the new structure. I am really pleased with the look of the building(s). The asymmetrical roof of the garage means that it is not so imposing a building for our neighbour. I feel it puts the weight of the building in our side which is where it should be.

There you can see the adjoining porch leading to the garage. I have already found that it functions as a larder or 'cool room' for big cooking pots, vases of fresh flowers. I can now see the line of the roof in respect to the house roof. Again, the building is low and so it is deceptive as to the square footage of room inside (which is much bigger that I had imagined). We will be able to get a car in the garage and have room for Iain's workshop.

And so with the spring weather today all the good folk in the neighbourhood were out having an end-of-winter inspection of their gardens. Yes, there has been frost damage but amazingly some plants and trees have actually survived!

These are the crocuses that grow along the little garden between us and our (very patient and tolerant) neighbours on the east side of our house. I derive enormous pleasure from seeing the little dabs of colour that these flowers bring at this time of year! We know that it will be another 8 weeks before the trees turn green but these are the first ... well, the second after snowdrops ... to inject colour into the greyness of our winter climate!

M'AIDE

Feminie intuition? I believe in it ... in fact, I believe in it more and more as I get older!

As Garrison Keiller says in his Lake Wobegon monologues "It was a quiet day today ... at least it was quiet until ..." and off he goes telling of the local happenings in his mid-West America Small Town.

Well, it was a quiet day today. I decided to stay in as I had a sore throat and my eye infection has returned (though not so badly). Whenever there are men working on the house I am aware that someone ought to be around in case of an accident. Today, the men were laying batons on the roof in preparation for the roof tiles to be put on tomorrow

At midday Davie opened the back door, sticks his head in and I see he is holding his hand dripping blood.

"@***!@@***" "I've done it again!" Several months ago he drove a power drill through his left palm when attaching a wing mirror on to his car. Today, he was holding a plank and his mate drove a nail, using a power nail puncher ... through the same place! A very neat hole was pouring blood from his very dirty hand.

Well ... could I find a clean basin (catching drips in the loft space) or the First Aid Kit (in the Black Hole in the loft space)? Could I find the Dettol (like all bottles and substances they are all kept up high out of reach of the grandchildren)?!

Never mind. Tip the bread dough out of the only clean bowl I could find, get the bag of cotton wool that I use for my sore eyes and a packet of Band-Aids, well, actually Elastoplast Band-Aids if you know what I mean.

We cleaned it up and he went back to the hospital where he went with his first injury. All turned out OK - skewered on muscle; he got off lightly! (I remember the days when I worked on an eye ward and I had a patient who had exactly the same injury but it went into his eyeball. He lost the eye.)

So ... a resolution: [1] get the First Aid stuff organised and keep it handy [2] always follow my instincts!

DAVIE'S DIGGER

Work has stepped up these past 2 days. Joiners, bricklayers and all the rest of the squad have been out putting on the roof of both the garage and of the porch. Today doors and windows went in.

Davie arrived first thing with a small digger to level off the garden area. After reversing it off his trailer he chugged it into the front opening of the garage, then ... left wheel ... and drove it out through the door that leads to the garden ... as you do!

The gaffer has spent the day checking where to dig, where to dump the dirt and then he and Davie's sister (!!!) have been shoveling more of the stuff that is piled outside the front door.

TOP O' THE WALLS

After 4 weeks of cold and wet weather with occasional dry spells in between the workmen have now finished the walls of the garage and connecting porch.

Today was a glorious sunny spring day so everybody and his dog was out! As our garden i.e. construction site, was quiet I walked around and took some photos. Everything is coming on just fine. It has, however, turned out to be a lot more work (digging, materials etc) than anticipated.

The squinty (green) toilet for the workmen gives the front of our house a certain novel character. Add to that are the orange builder's bags that arrive by truck and are then unloaded by crane. Last Thursday night we had a gale from the southwest which brought with it great gusts of wind causing these bags and other material loose on the site to go careening down the street or into neighbours' gardens. I was out there tying blue plastic sheeting on to scaffolding. (This comes from my days of tying down sails on the deck to keep them from flapping or flying away!)

The roof trusses go on tomorrow. Soon we will have a place to put a car ... called a garage ... which, in the past, was mostly used as a storeroom for sailbags, boat engines, rope, yacht varnish, oars, not to mention IKEA boxes, bags of coal, bits of timber ... etc, etc etc!

UNDER SEIGE

It has been a long week of diggers excavating earth from the back garden in order to prepare the ditch for laying the foundations for the garage and porch. It has turned out to be a bigger job than was estimated; 50 % more earth had to be dug and then hauled away in Davie's tractor. Added to this it has been raining so it is very muddy. Tough going for the digger.

How do we get into the front door? The same way we get aboard the boat ... or get to the shops at Mallaig Pier... a ladder. Not a problem for us. Here is himself coming home having gone to get some batons to enable the digger to right itself as it is, presently, tipped over stuck in the mud. As I say, it's been a long day. All will be sorted tomorrow.

Himself has 2 pairs of welly boots these days: building site and countryside. We can't move without boots just now.

The current wearing apparel at the front door. The back door is out of commission. There is a sea of mud and great ditches full of water right outside the door.

The back step looking out to the garden.

The digger is off to the right, looking a bit like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Anyone who has ever had their boat stuck on a reef or go aground knows that it is possible to get it off; it just takes a lot of block and tackle to winch it of off. These fellas are trying to pull the digger out with a long cable hitched to the tractor.

The good news is that the sun came out today and the days are starting to get longer!

Time to pack it in for today. Tomorrow's another day!

DIGGERS

Got a Wake-Up call this morning with an orange light flashing outside the window. It was Davie arriving in his tractor. The orange light sits on top of the cab. 8 am - it was just getting light and fairly livened up the street. Usually it is very quiet with just the school kids heading off about 8:30 am and the occasional car heading off to work.

Here he is hauling away his first load of topsoil away from the back garden. He takes it up to a farm nearby. Hopefully someone will make good use of it for their garden.

A pink sunrise and it turned out to be a lovely spring-like day. Iain and I marked out the curve for the edge of the sitootery - Glasgow word for place where you "sit oot [out]".

By the end of the day about 4 tons of earth had been removed. It's a narrow driveway up the side of the house and Davie did well to reverse his trailer up there each time it had to be loaded up. By 4 o'clock it was getting dark and cold - time to call it a day.

HOUSE CONSTRUCTION: PHASE 2 BEGINS

Phase 2 has started: Davie arrived with his digger. Using the tractor from the farm he rolled up the street at first light and off-loaded the digger which is going to level the garage and clear a concreted area plus part of the garden in the back yard.

Toys for the boys; they just love driving this equipment!

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The garage is being demolished and a new garage, wider and longer, is to be built in its place. It will be joined to the house by a connecting porch.

The garage is gone and excavation of the back lawn and garden area begins. This drying green is going to be halved and an sit-ootery (place to sit out) built in its place.

The recent snow is thawing so that means work can begin; the brick-layer and builders are scheduled. Hopefully all will continue ... until the next Big Freeze.

BIG BOYS' LEGO Part 2 and 3

The upstairs and downstairs have now been joined up! So today is a Red Letter Day! Hooray! For the first part of this construction refer to Part 1 (yesterday's post). Part 3 should finish everything tomorrow!

These lads call the structure 'Fred Astaire'! It is certainly is turning out to be some feature ... you enter the hallway from the front door and .... Wow!

I came back from Anne B's house, having helped her with a sewing chore, bearing a bottle of wine. Time to crack it open for a swally!

Tomorrow we turn the corner ... and in more ways than one! The lads are still glued to the video as they work their way down the levels, packing and adjusting as they go along making sure that everything is going to be OK for the landing to be inserted before the last step is secured.

Part 3

Two days later and everything is basically finished. It turned out to be quite a lot of work mainly because of the checking and aligning at every step of the way. I get the feeling these lads who put it together (with Iain supervising) are used to getting out the Black and Decker whiz-bang equipment and bang, br-r-r-r, kachunk ... the job is done. "A different mind-set" sez one!

BIG BOYS' LEGO Part 1

The house renovation continues at a better pace. I think because there was a school holiday this past week workmen arrived in pairs, rather than on their own, so more projects were achieved.

The upstairs is finished and the downstairs is finished. It is now time to erect the staircase and place it in the opening in the hall ceiling, the space where Iain fell.

We bought the stairs off the internet* . It arrived in 2 crates from Italy 5 months ago. Having opened the crates, the bags of bolts, treads and spindles have been stored under Iain's bed and in the bedroom. The living room has now been turned into an assembly area.

Think of it as Big Boy's' Lego. Or as the young lad helping said "Lego for Smart People". Actually I have to admit the hardest part of all of this is trying to figure out how to work the video which gives the instructions for assembly! It is well done however. No language is used, just demonstration of screws, screwdrivers, drills etc.

Once finished we will be able to unpack our possessions and place them on shelves and in cupboards both upstairs where we have a room set aside for storage and downstairs in the room which Iain will now vacate as he is taking over the upstairs rooms.

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Website reference for make and model of supplier, Albini & Fontanot, Rimini, Italy: www.stairplace.co.uk/stairs/dc/modular/dcModularF.html