More Destruction

Patience Readers! Enough of the clamouring for me to write more stuff! I've been away again from computer and from mains power for a couple of days so. we've not been able to post. Back no though and in the chair, so bringing you some more pictures of the destruction phase of this rebuild project in Roscommon. You can see that it's mainly about ceilings at the moment, all of which are a bit stained with damp, or worse, and all of which potentially cover hidden dangers lurking, like rotten joists and woodworm.

We have also picked up the Yorkie "Coco" from the Silverwoods. Coco is an 'entire' male and has been battling with similarly attired Westie Maxwell. Mum has always had a hankering for a Yorkie so it seemed the best solution to take Coco on this transfer window and try him out with us. I'm not sure I approve, and have been known to snarl and grump in the car but nobody listens to me anyway, so I suspect Coco will be staying. He got his own bed from Santa for us to take to Roscommon. The only problem is that he, a typical Yorkie, is so tiny and delicate featured that all the humans keep forgetting and calling him "she".

The jobs this week for the humans were some more ceiling wrecking - the back upstairs right hand bed room, the bathroom, the dining room and the living room. The first to were plaster board. The dining room has a bizarre combination of black painted tongue and groove board which seem to be sound and free from any rot or woodworm but this is 'skimmed' with a layer of very light 3-ply painted pale brown and now completely riddled with woodworm so that there is a complete layer of woodworm dust between it and the T+G board. The ply is cut into roughly 4 foot squares and once nailed up has had beading nailed along each of the joints, north-south and east-west. This was a dust-mask job for the workers and all the windows open.

As well as all this ceiling bashing, Mum had at some of the bathroom stuff and we pulled out the sink, pedestal, toilet bowl, cistern and the olde plastic pale blue medicine cabinet / toothbrush panel the style of which Mum can remember from when she was little and living at Steak-Lady's house. To remove the sink, Dad had to hack saw through the copper pipes but this should have been no problem - the place has been unoccupied 15 years and was disconnected from mains water according to local legend, using a Water Board JCB because the aul' fella was in dispute with them over an unpaid fee. Anyone spot where this is going yet? So, we tidied up the day's rubble and retreated to the caravan for a coffee leaving the range going like the clappers, a full load of anthracite in its fire basket.

Returning to the house after dark Dad could hear the dripping of water onto the kitchen floor. With the torch, he found this as coming through from above, the newly gutted bathroom.Mum and Dad could also hear the copper tank attached to the range boiling a bit excitedly. We'd heard odd gurglings before but had thought this was just residual water in what we imagined would be the internal spiral-pipe (inside the tank)re-adjusting. Obviously not. The boiling water was now bubbling out of the sawn pipes upstairs and dribbling through to downstairs. Thank Heavens this is all while we are gutted, so there are no ceilings to sag and collapse. Dad put the Curver bucket under the end. The bubbling copper was alarming enough to stop us wanting to eat anywhere near the tank, so we retreated to the caravan resolving to check on the boiling scenario hourly and to proceed with the put-off removal of the tank as soon as it was cold (in the morning).

We took a day off house-bashing on Thursday to deliver on an invitation to English neice, Mads to bring her down to Silverwoods for the day to meet them and to play with all the Christmas toys and games with the children. Mads (20) is doing a University course on Hotel Management at Birmingham University and as part of this, has a work placement at Dunboyne Castle where she now has 35 days or o left of the year's placement. This was a bit of a day for the driving - it's a 2 hour drive across from Roscommon to Dunboyne, then another hour down to Silverwoods in Co Laois. Same again in the evening. But Mads fell in quickly with the Silverwoods and their children and thoroughly enjoyed her day building Thomas Tank Engine railway tracks, having gun battles with big showy "Air Blaster" machine guns firing foam bullets,playing Ludo, Snakes and Ladders, Connect 4 and "Guess Who". She was also well fed and plied with wine. Silverwoods loved Mads and she loved them. Just a shame they didn't get together nearer the start of the placement year.

The copper tank was attacked Friday morning. Dad cut through the first pipe thinking this could only contain the dribble of water in the spiral pipe. Mum was there with the Curver bucket (10 litre) thinking all would be OK. In fact the water came out in a whoosh and kept on coming. Every time the bucket filled, Dad put his thumbs over the ends of the pipe to stop the flow while Mum emptied the bucket. 5, 6, 7 or more times this went on. Apparently there as no spiral pipe in the tank, and the pipes to/from the range must have had access to all the water in there, hence being able to boil it easily and cause it to bubble over upstairs. Ah well, all gone now, the tank hauled out (in the process collapsing through the woodworm infested shelf which had been (just about!)holding its corroded verdi-gris'd weight. The cupboard (hot press) is also gone and so i the last bit of plywood ceiling which had been above it.

All for now
Deefs

More things dogs know

This living with the Silverwoods is a learning experience for us dogs. We have rediscovered the fact that small children can be generally relied on to be walking around with toast in their hands. I quite like buttered toast although Haggis prefers to put it down on the floor and lick all the butter off it. Children can also be relied upon to drop crisps and other dog-edible bits and pieces around the house. It's a good place to be. Unfortunately this means that when it comes to real supper time we do not have a lot of appetite left and Dad gets a bit concerned that we are off our food. However, it is also true that while I'm messing around um-ing and ah-ing about whether to eat my 'normal' supper from the bowl, all Dad has to do to make me suddenly interested is to let the Yorkie Coco in to the room, and suddenly I am famished and pile through it.

Deefs

Eric

2 pics today which definitely need explanation. While Mum and Dad were over in Ireland, Haggis and I almost might have ended up with a little baby brother. Just down the road from the Silverwoods, lives a lady who breeds Yorkies and who is, in fact, the breeder of Steak Lady's "Rosie" dog. While they were there this lady happened to have a litter at 8 weeks old, with 2 unsold boys.

There was some inconclusive talk of Mum and Dad having one of them, and the Silverwoods having the other, to replace the aging "Chance" who is looking more and more ricketty every time they see him (He's believed to be about 17 now, but no-one knows for sure as he was discovered originally in a dustbin in Maidstone as a young dog, hence the name).

However, the plan, which involved the Siilverwoods bringing him over when they all meet at the narrowboat would have meant a very young pup having to stay alive through a week of chaotic narrow boating en-famille, not to mention the prospect of it pee-ing all over the hire boat. They had almost given up on the idea when, at the big family gathering for which "we" were over, Steak Lady arrived, heard about the pups, met and fell in love with one, despatched Steak-man to a cash point for the folding stuff and bought the little mite there and then. Job's a good 'un!

Mrs S may still have the other one.

Meanwhile, Mum and Dad sneak off last night yet again leaving us to the tender mercies of Angel B and Jim, off to the Wembley Arena to watch Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood. They come back bubbling with enthusiasm about how good it was. The pic is a very poor mobile phone shot in which the tiny distant stage means little but you may be able to make out SW (left) and Eric (right) on the big screens either side of the stage.

Have a great weekend.

Deefski

Stranger than Fiction

You couldn't make it up. Tonight on the Rec we meet two new dogs. Out being walked by a young lady, there's a biggish black and white Lhasa Apso who is apparently rather ancient and given to collapse at the back end, whereby the Mistress of the house has to be summoned in the car to come and collect everyone.

With these, on a lead is a tiny madly hairy black one, which Dad assumes is a Lhasa pup. He also assumes it's a bitch because "she" has a bright pink harness and pink lead. The lady laughs and says that, no, he's actually a boy, and the pink harness is from their ferret, because he slips his normal collar. He is not a Lhas, but a miniature Yorkie cross Lhasa. What's his name? "Bruiser". At this point Dad is laughing fit to bust because there never was a dog less like his name than this little mite.

Such niceties are lost on us, of course - we are happy to say a nice hello to anyone and we walk around with them for a while, pee-ing on the same tufts of grass etc, and eventually meeting, and introducing these new comers to our old chums Ben and Patch.

Funny old world
Deefski