Plumb Central

The weather turns beautifully warm and spring-like as befits the passing of the first day of spring, the 21st March. As I sit here typing away on Sunday morning at Silverwoods, the sun is shining and the 2 small children, R and M are playing reasonably nicely together out on the decking and the trampoline. The deck was subject to a major cleaning blitz yesterday when the whole family got roped in - the yard wall was painted white and the shed, decking furniture and railings were painted brown. The children, J-M, Em-J and a friend Emma were painted brown and white although the grown-ups managed to stay reasonably clean. The kitchen window is open and we can hear the little angelic voices of M and R as they occasionally break off bouncing up and down to "discuss" who should go and get shoes, hula hoops etc. and who can play with whose Nintendo. It's all very peaceful. Kissinger has been stood down.

Main achievements in all this warmth and and springlikeness were to get through the very last stages of prep for the plasterers who are in the house from next Tuesday. Any remaining gaps , ends or corners which needed it were plaster boarded or smeared with bonding (undercoat plaster). Sparks went into plumbing mode at the bottom of what is to be the airing cupboard (= "hot press" in Irish) connecting up all the pipe runs into 4 complicated looking arrays of brass T-junctions called manifolds. There is a manifold for the hot taps around the place, one for cold taps, one for the hot feed to radiators and one for the cooler return from radiators. These are assembled along with the central heating circulation pump and the power-shower pump in the base of the where the airing cupboard will be and the airing cupboard then built in stages as each bit of plumbing lost its need to be fully accessible.

By the end of the week the cupboard was built and plaster boarded and ready for the plasterers. Friday's final job was a massive tidy-up. Lots of Sparks's tools and bits are now finished with (reels of cable and so on) and can go back to Dublin in the van but, anyway, the floors need to be as clear as possible for the plasterers who don't want to be tripping over surplus junk while they are concentrating on the ceilings. While Sparks played plumber, Dad plaster boarding and also tried his hand at shuttering and concreting, but that's another story.

Deefs