The brickies turned up today with a JCB and removed all the rubble. I am not sure where they removed it to. The digger just kept bombing off down the hill with buckets full of rubble. I just thought that it may not be a good idea to ask where they were dumping it. I will assume that somebody is having pot holes filled in a track and if there are any great mounds of rubble by the roadside somewhere then I shall deny all knowledge.
They also laid the gravel path round the extension and connected the drains from the new en suite so Pam can at last use her shiny new shower.
I was going to take a photo of Pam actually using her shower as i thought it would be more topical but Pam thought differently.
Everyone else that has worked on the extension has been really good and worked well but the brickies have caused a load of delays by not turning up when they should have even after promising faithfully that they would be here. The lads actually doing the work have been good but their boss seems to be juggling to many jobs with not enough men. When he took the job on he really needed the work but since then he has got other jobs. It is just live and learn though. We will not be using him again and I don't think that Duncan will be either.
Now that the brickies have finished, I wonder if they will be so tardy about sending the bill for the remaining money that we owe them. He certainly will not be getting the rest paid cash into his hot sweaty little hand.
Thursday
Today was a good day. Duncan finished today, except for a bit of guttering which he needs to get a bracket for. While we have enjoyed having Duncan and Hamish (not to mention Jock) up here, it is good that we are almost getting the house back to ourselves.
I was overcome by a sudden and uncharacteristic surge of generosity and gave Duncan a good bottle of Highland Park malt whisky (not my best Highland Park, I was not that much overcome). He has done a tremendous job and has been a pleasure to have around.
He is going to work across the road next so will still be fetching Jock up to play with Molly when she is off heat.
The only things left to do in the house now are a bit more painting and varnishing by Gavin and a couple of bits for the electricians to finish. There is still the other shower to fit in the old bathroom but that is a separate job which they will do in a few weeks.
The stone wall in the new lounge is looking surprisingly good since Hamish picked and pointed it.
It used to be the outside wall and when they first took the render off, I thought that it was a miricle that it had managed to stand up for 100 years. There were loose stones all over it and the stones had been laid in clay and not mortar. The clay had dried and most of it had fallen out so I think that it was just the render that had been holding the wall together. All OK now though.
It was pointed out to us by the building inspector that it would have been cheaper and easire to just knock down the wall and build a new one. This would have also given us an extra two feet in the small bedroom as the wall is three foot thick. It was however to late to change by the time he suggested it. It probably looks better to have the old stone wall as a feature anyway.
Buildbase delivered some timber today for me to make some chicken houses. I am to mean to buy them at the ridiculous prices that they cost if you buy them. I am sure that to pay for one of the pricey chicken houses, the chickens would havce to lay eggs every day for several decades. Chickens should really be kept in old wardrobes with wire mesh doors but Pam wants pretty hen houses. I can't promise very pretty but they may be better than old wardrobes.
Recently I have been thinking about getting a few geese. I had been wondering where I may be able to get hold of some and had checked the internet. Then this morning I was looking out of the kitchen window at the field full of geese a few hundred yards away and it suddenly dawned on me that there was a field full of geese a few hundred yards away. ( I have often noticed them but things do not always register with me in my old age.) Anyway, I thought that I would nip over and see if I could buy some. I got the wrong house first and the girl who lives there (another tenant of Evelyn from The Sands who seems to own half of Burray) said "Oh Dennis will not let you have any geese, he loves them all" but she directed me to the right house and I went to see what Dennis would say. There were no problems and Dennis agreed to sell me 4 goslings in spring. This is assuming that he manages to raise any.
Last year he only had 5 goslings and they all got taken one day by either Black backed gulls,Ravens or possibly Bonxies (Great Skuas).
I had not previously thought of airborne predators. I just thought, "no foxes, no badhers, no stoats, mink or weasels, a paradise for poultry". I shall have to remember to keep young birds under cover until they are big enough to look after themselves. The odd chick lost to a Hen Harrier I can put up with but I draw the line at feeding Black Backs or Bonxies.
In the evening another nice man came and fixed the heat pump. It had not been working since we got back after Christmas. it is all computer controlled and high tech so the instrument panel was saying that there was a refrigerant leak. Nobody believed this as it had been well leak tested when it was installed so we all had it down as a faulty sensor.
It turned out to be a refrigerant leak so one up for technology.
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