Another hot sunny day
I’m going to have to keep it brief ‘cos it’s late and I’m tired. I’ve been at it all day putting together worktop number 2 in the kitchen area, and it’s surprising how much effort it needs. But I’m so motivated at the moment and that pushes me to get all the work done whereas in another world I might leave it for weeks or months or beyond.
Got started by about 10.30 after having popped next door with the photo I printed out for Mr. T with the snakes. Didn’t realise he wasn’t there, but Mrs. T was well impressed and gave me a huge punnet of strawberries for my trouble. Not a bad deal eh? A quick 10 minutes with a printer for a punnet of strawberries – this is the kind of casual bartering system that I could quite get into should I ever come across other serpent-killers who happen to run strawberry smallholdings.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with all the strawberries, and the 2 bags of walnuts I’ve now collected – answers on a carte-postale please. I’m off to Paris in 2 days and I need to empty the fridge and larder of perishables before I go, so I’m going to have to be inventive. I hate to see any kind of food waste so I need to find a recipe that includes broccoli and leeks and cheeses and tomatoes and mushrooms and eggs and strawberries before the week is out.
Worktop number 2 was harder than the first. I started by trying to pull-up some old floorboards underneath where it will sit in the hope that I could reclaim them for use elsewhere – but no, they have been nailed down with 2-inch (sorry 5cm) nails and any attempt at levering them up resulted in them splitting and being useless. So I just made the skeleton of a worktop over the mess that I’d made and that had to do.
I worked for 8 hours, by which time the basic shell was established and immovable (I like to make ‘em strong!). The hard bit is trying to plan everything with the available wood (and scrap wood) and trying to make everything as level as can be expected in this crooked house.
Anyway, all was done by 7.30 and I must say WHAT A RELIEF to have a worktop by the sink and cooker that doesn’t wobble or slope or is too small etc etc. It was a joy to cut my vegetables on it and prepare dinner this evening.
So I celebrated with a glass or two of wine, and then a fabulous thunderstorm broke in the evening sky which just set the evening off perfectly. There was a deliciously fresh wind blowing through the house and the sky was full of weird and wonderful shades of pink and blue and grey and purple and dark green an white and …. Or was that just the wine working. Whatever, it was so refreshing to have a thunderstorm thundering around the valley as I ate my Gordon Blue meal, and watching the sky light-up with sheet lightning everywhere. I felt ALIVE. (probably all the positively charges ions).
