Bits and Pieces

The usual little flurry of photos to catch you up on some detailed bits.
1) An 'angle drill'. When the body of your power drill is too long to go in the gap between joists for those runs of lined up holes through which you can push pipes or cabling, hire a drill where the bit works at 90 degrees to the body. Then you can sneak the business end up between the joists and "work away" (as they say round here).
2) Some early signs of Spring. In the 2nd drive way up to the right hand side of the house is an old old stone wall, long since buried under a carpet of moss, soil and herbs. We don't use this drive way because it does not have a hard base and is pretty much just a farm field-gate, but it serves the cattle yard and then runs on down the hill towards where the peat cutting bogs for the farm were. Mum does, though, have designs on it and will create at some point in the future, a second vehicle access so we can swoop majestically in and out. The farm-field will be pushed back over the old wall and past the line of trees which run just East of the wall. It is along this bank and wall that Dad discovered a load of primroses were in bloom in the sunshine of Thursday afternoon.
3) Our new solid fuel stove has arrived but cannot be set up yet till we have a tiled floor, so is sitting there on its pallet, still in its plastic shroud to protect it till that day. It is a respected make (Stanley) and weighs a tonne (well, probably not quite, but it's a solid thing for sure.
4) Dad and Sparks treated themselves to a cement mixer. They have mixed enough concrete and cement by hand to know that they do not want to be mixing by hand to supply the Midnight Joker when he re-renders the end of the house. The many many other uses they will find for it mean that it's cheaper to buy than to hire one. It got assembled Monday and straight way used to mix the concrete which went into the 4 bits of shuttering around various windows. Simple. Shovel gravel or sand in, then cement, start it running (nice and quiet because it's electric) to mix these to an even grey colour, then add water from a bucket till the required consistency is reached (2-3 minutes). Tilt drum to pour mix into buckets and carry to place where needed. Brilliant.

Deefs