A long time coming....

Huge apology. It seems to have been an awfully long time since I last posted in here. The 28th, in fact so it's over 2 weeks. In my defence, we have been extremely busy, in part because of an invasion by the entire Silverwood tribe so that the day I'd normally have written to you we were tied up getting ready for that but it's still a rubbish level of service and I will accept any slaps on wrists which are coming.

Dad's mission for Monday 30th July was to head for Carrick on Shannon to buy wood for the door of the hot press (airing cupboard). C0S is hometown of Anna L, the lady from whom we bought the house, and who is fast becoming a firm friend. Actually we bought it from the Three Sisters, but Anna took the role of spokesman and it was with her that we seemed to be doing the negotiations and the business around buying the extra field to square off the property. Mum and Dad therefore decide to text Anna to say they are going to be in town, and arrange to meet Anna at Esquires coffee house for a coffee. From there they all adjourn back to Anna's so that M+D can have a look at the garden and admire the burgeoning crops of beans etc. Our own stuff, started late due to the house building and then held back by the rain, wet and chill, is all very backward and pathetic by comparison. "We will get there!", says Dad but we are all praying for some kind of a Summer to start. We give Anna a jar of our home made blackcurrant jam and she gives us a bag full of broad bean pods.

M+D nearly do not make the coffee appointment, when Wandering Wendy stays rather too long on the nest in the nettle patch and appears to be going broody but eventually, just as they've given up and got in the car, out she wanders and strolls round to the run asking to be let back into the run. In your own time, Wendy.... no rush.

Mornings are now  falling into the routine of pup and kittens. Dad and I are woken at 06:30 by the clamour from the kitchen and Dad gets up to release the gang into the backyard. While they chase about he gets a chance to mop up the inevitable pee and poo most of which is, admittedly, in the cat litter tray or on the pads and paper we have put down. This usually involves a bit of wiping floors with tissues held in one hand while batting away pup or kittens with the other. The kindergarten gets fed. Preparing the food is a bit interesting as the kitten Blue is quite good at climbing the whole height of a person, starting with a leap onto the back of a calf-muscle. Yowser!

With the kindergarten feeding happily, Dad can go release and feed chickens and let the rabbits out into their run. By now I have stretched and luxuriated enough and join him for the walk out to the bunnies. Back indoors we all settle down while Dad has a coffee, at which point I generally wander back upstairs and hop back onto the big bed with Mum, where no pups and kittens have yet ventured. Dad brings Mum a cup of tea at 0800 and the day proper begins when Mum comes down.

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