An autumnal meal for a day that feels like autumn. Heavy showers from just after lunch onwards, and fairly strong winds. Lots of tiny apples as windfalls – small partly due to drought, and party due to having codling moth grubs in them. Fortunately, the grubs only inhabit the core, and the rest of the apple is safe to use. Still, it took a fair number of apples to make one seven-inch deep pie.
The puff pastry, of course, is bought. While I’m OK at an oil-based shortcrust, puff stuff is beyond me.
Half the house now reeks of solvent! By yesterday lunchtime the last of the demolition and stripping out was done. Yesterday afternoon was a primer coat on the floor, followed by a coat of “Black Jack” liquid damp-proof membrane, which reeks! Harry came back for an hour this morning, despite it being a Bank Holiday weekend, to apply the second coat. Kitchen and back bog windows fully open for ventilation … I’m tempted to put the heating on!
Tuesday should see the pipework and electrics run in, and a start on building the stud wall, and battening out of the walls, which will then have insulation fitted before plasterboarding. It’s going slower than I’d hoped – but the end result should be a lot less damp and a lot better insulated.
Having got up early, expecting the bathroom company to arrive for the back bog, I got a phone call just after 8 to say that they’d been held up on their last job, and would not now be arriving until 9am tomorrow. Bugger!
My paypal card has arrived. However, my TSB card has cracked, so I won’t be able to use it in a cash machine. More bugger! A new one has been ordered on-line, and they say 5 working days .
It’s starting to feel like autumn. The Deacons Pears are just about ready (I had one for lunch yesterday), and the overnight temperatures have dropped – it was down to 9C. For the first time in nearly three months the central heating had come on for me to get up to – at least, in the bathroom and kitchen (I think the warmth from the back of the fridge temporarily in the back room next to my armchair meant it wasn’t needed there).
The project of converting the downstairs loo (or “back bog” as it is commonly known) into a shower room starts on Monday. That means moving the fridge out of its cubbyhole, as the wall next to it will be demolished. I got that done before the fridge was filled up with today’s Waitrose delivery.
The fridge has not been moved since it was delivered in 2014 (cleaning is not my strongest point). Among the predictable spider webs and general grot I discovered a garden board for Louis Stephen standing in the 2015 General Election, which had never been collected! The fridge has taken up temporary residence next to my armchair, but will be allowed to settle for a few hours before I plug it back in.
Gah! No actual rain, of course, but overnight the humidity went from the just under 60% that it’s been for many days to rather over 70%.
Rapid changes in humidity play hob with my dodgy back: walking is a bit of a struggle, and the dishwasher (that ran overnight) will just have to remain loaded with clean stuff, as I can’t really bend to get at it. The forecast is for it to be much the same tomorrow, but by then I should be starting to adapt.
In other news, I spoke to the pharmacist at Spring Gardens medical centre this morning. He has prescribed a different statin, as I’d stopped taking simvastatin in December 2025 (the dose had been doubled to 40mg in July, and I’d had muscle aches and weaknesses from October onwards). Cholesterol has apparently shot up to about 6 … for comparison, it was 6.7 in 2012, down to 3.4 in the summer of 2014 after I started statins. After some discussion he will also prescribe an alternative to ibuprofen to manage my dodgy back, as ibuprofen is contra-indicated due to suspected slight impairment of my kidney function.
I’ve just got my first credit card! Not because I want one, and I very much doubt whether I’ll ever use it as such, but as proof that I’m “over 18”. Apple in particular has started enforcing proof of age, and VPNs and TOR don’t seem to get round that. I don’t have a driving licence and my passport is long expired (I’m not physically up to long journeys any more), and things like the OAP Bus Pass – although recognised as voter ID – are not recognised as official documents. At least a credit card doesn’t cost anything if I don’t use it, and I won’t, as I’m so used to typing my (memorised) debit card number into things.
Intermittently quite cloudy. The plastic eclipse lens cover seemed to create all kinds of reflections between it and the actual lens, so pix were rather variable! This was taken near the start of the eclipse, about 1930, and shows just about everything …
The little air conditioner is doing a reasonable job – 9 or 10 degrees C below outside is about all it can manage, as it’s a single-hose model. It’s the difference (for me) between being “pleasantly warm”, and “feeling unwell”.
I’m not naturally a “morning person”, and it’s rather frustrating that the only time to work on the garden steps is before about 1130. After that, it’s direct sunlight and very high temperatures, which are a no-no for me. After having needed an ambulance for heatstroke last year, I’m being extremely cautious!
This is the 3rd day, and the first two steps are now in, which is a good start. I’m hoping that it will be done by the end of the week … I’ve still got a massive amount of “stuff” to do to get ready for the work on the downstairs loo starting in under a fortnight, and heat pump installation starting in just under five weeks – the day after I get back from holiday
