I feel this is going to be a short blog post. Although we’ve been working particularly hard, our energies have been put into a very small number of repetitive jobs.

For me, it’s been never ending plastering. After initially being disappointed with my plastering efforts, Chris has lowered his expections and allowed me to continue (given that it’s only the undercoat).

Plastering is amazingly exhausting. From lugging round the heavy mixture to constantly bending and refilling the hawk (not the bird, the big metal yray you load with plaster in order to scrap it onto the wall with the float), to reaching up and above with the weight on your arms. Plasters must be very fit.

With a day off this weekend to take some of our siblings and nephews kayaking, we managed to get a good amount done in a long evening together. I worked my way up the stairs, plastering up to what I could reach, and then continued round the corner to the bedroom on the weekend. With a sudden heatwave reaching us, we’re having to be particularly careful to cover the wet plaster with hessian so it doesn’t dry out too quickly.

Chris on the other hand has been focusing on electrics. Having finished off the downstairs toilet and sink, he moved on to attaching sockets, switches and lights. With the electrician booked in for next Friday to connect everything up we have a hard deadline to get all the electrical works finished.

Along with our main jobs we fixed a few of the contractor’s mistakes. Chris removed the plasterboard that had been attached over the top of the plaster, knocked off the old plaster and reattached the board.

With my last hour on the weekend I managed to rebuild some of the wall the contractors dismantled during the plumbing installation.

Outside one of my favourite flowers has returned, a purple columbine with green-tipped petals. I’m glad to see our piles of building waste haven’t smothered it. Though there’s still the risk it gets swallowed by the sinkhole, which still seems to be getting steadily larger…