A good Day

Had a good today. A very good day.  After taking J to Sue’s we almost finished emptying the house ready to rent out as it is on the market already.

Then went to OC's to get a fabulous bacon and egg butty to share with K, along with four huge portions of different cakes to share at Gill's house. The cakes are homemade and are unbelievably good and too big to eat in one go without feeling ill!

We went to Gill's so I could play at dry-stone walling with Alix whilst K played with the girls.  K disappeared and played happily all day, though I got a hug and "I'm hungry" when Alix and I went in to eat dinner.  A bit of V's homemade soup and she was off again.

The wall seemed to go quite slowly before we ate, though it was big enough to sit behind and have a cup of coffee and a chat out of the wind. After some soup, cake and tea we finished getting the wall level and got a lot done. We removed some of the stones on the existing sections that weren't correct and by the end of the day we had just about got all the flats on and had put some top stones on as well. Before we started I had hoped to do more, but at the end of the day I was very pleased with what we had achieved.

The wall we are repairing is a double skin, using mainly sandstone. When the wall is at the desired height it should have been tapered up to allow a single flat stone to go across both skins to stop water going down the middle. In this area the flats then have top stones, roughly triangular or trapezoidal, to help shed water.

If you are interested, have a look at the Dry Stone Walling Society web site.

Unfortunately K and myself were enjoying ourselves so much neither of us drank enough and both have headaches and are exhausted! One of K's last comments before going to sleep was "Daddy, can we have a calmer day tomorrow?"

Apart from swimming and a couple of jobs at her grandparents, we may be able to manage that. I hope!

I like home schooling. J