Catching up

The usual collection of pics to catch you up on the stuff which doesn't really wrangle into a good blog story.
1) Mum attacks some loose plaster with the mini-Kango
2) Mum and Dad took advantage of the absence of Sparks on Monday night, after the anti-woodworm spraying job, to celebrate St Valentine's Day with this steak (half each!), chips, Prosecco 'fizz'. Maybe the strong chemical whiff of dieselly stuff coming off the spray added to the romantic sensory delights.
3) Sparks living up to his name, angle-grinding a big metal strap out of the new, bigger, kitchen window orifice.
4) Last thing Friday saw the boys putting back the stud walls which separate the landing and stair well from either bedroom.
5) Big brother to the "Paslode" nail gun which you have already seen. This one is nominally for firing masonry type pins into metal, concrete or masonry. In fact, however, this house goes in for very hard, brittle stone and modern concrete. For the geologically minded these are hard Lower (i.e. older) Carboniferous Sandstones and Limestones which come out of the soil in these parts, including some which are known as 'blue-stone' like the ones used in Stonehenge. There! What an educational blog this is! Stamp Man, former Geography Teacher, would be proud of us! This gun, which carries the brand "SPIT" gun, fires its masonry pins into this stuff and the tips tend to explode ripping out a small crater in the surface of the stone (and/or lintel)half an inch deep and an inch or so across, the stone shards buzzing round the room like ricochetting bullets. Safety goggles are a must. Unfortunately you don't end up with the thing successfully nailed up, so we've been reverting to good old fashioned wooden battens, drilled holes and screws.

Deefs