Since the last blog, we’ve managed to get some ceiling joists installed but there’s been almost a week’s worth of rain which has slowed things down enormously. It just seems to have rained and rained and rained. 
One good thing is that the ponds are full and another is that the days spent sheltering from the rain gave us the opportunity to interpret the Engineer’s drawings for the first floor walls and to push ahead with the order for the next batch of timber. This always seems to take about ten times longer than it should.
The Discovery also needed an MOT and we decided to use our friend Bob in Winchburgh. This entailed John taking a quick trip down to leave the Disco with him and a bus journey back (yes, John on a bus that is a first). This was a bit of a fuss but well worth it. Suse also managed to find all of the missing paperwork which was a big relief because it would have been so expensive to replace.
In between times, we went orienteering in Lochgilphead with the local club, ECKO and enjoyed ourselves enormously.
On Thursday night the temperature went below zero and stayed that way during Friday, only rising at dusk when it began to ….. rain.
On 2nd December it was back down to the Central Belt for the Lothian Life wine tasting and we took the opportunity to do more orienteering in Glasgow in STAG’s Park Races. Emma joined us for the day and seemed happy to have missed the rain for all three events (as we all were). We also caught up with Val and Ted Finch who have recently built a “Lowland Croft” with really impressive woodland planting which they have created from scratch. (Thanks for the lovely meal and the willow cuttings btw).
John came home on Monday with the newly legal Discovery while Suse stayed on for a few business meetings, returning on Thursday with the precious tape for the Roofshield and a lot of clean clothes. John had been fixing the panelvent on to the walls which are to be clad and on Friday we put on the Roofshield and taped it. We also had a go at covering the whole house with a tarpaulin but it started blowing a gale and chucking hailstones at us. We had to work from the corner which is floored, which meant we were working into the wind.
Andrew came to our rescue (what a star – again!) but even with our combined weights the tarp was too big to hold down. The lads tied hammers and roof racks to ropes (as you do) and threw them over the edge. Then Andrew and John went down to try to secure the ropes, leaving Suse alone, spreadeagled on the tarp, trying to be heavy. They also took the ladder away as it was sticking up into the tarp so Suse thought she was going to need flying lessons to get down. The wind was lifting the tarp and the battens and Suse up in the air and a couple of times it looked as though she was flying but without the lessons. After the ropes ripped out the eyelets a couple of times the lads had to resort to tying knots in the corners and tying it to trees.
At last John put up a ladder for Suse, who cleared off to the doctor to get some antibiotics for an infection, leaving John and Andrew in the fading light to tie things down as well as they could. Not a nice end to the day. And the forecast isn’t promising.
We need the OSB to get the rest of the floor down and then we will be able to fix the tarp better. The puddles are keeping it down in the wind but we don’t know how much weight it will take. Then we will put polythene across the windows and the remaining walls which are to be rendered and run away for Christmas.