April 11th

The day of the oak beams: 5 man job - well technically- 4 men and a lady (scrap that) 4 men and me! The trusty3, Tony, and Dad's old uni buddy Phil- fresh over from Canada just to help us (you just can't get reliable english staff). Not too complex a task once we got a system going- we rehearsed first with a bit of 2 x 2! up the stairs, then it got tricky. First of all, we had to lift the heavy beams up onto the tower in the bedroom,whilst trying to not knock anyone off the tower whilst rotating the beam, then also trying to not let the beam come crashing down on Pop's head ( he's busy on the ground trying to balance a beam on a stick to push it up to us- circus acts with plates on sticks springs to mind as he's dancing around trying to keep it on the wood and centred before you remind yourself to focus!) then lift again in the hope that it'll just slide down into the tailor made niches... which they did eventually with some persuasion(some gentle- some not so much). The thing that freaked me out today was Phil and Tony jumping from the tower, out onto the scaffolding and onto pieces of wood that weren't yet fastened to the roof like spider monkeys!yeesh! someone get those boys some bananas! and someone pass me a D-R-I-N-K!! The afternoon was great- armed with a hammer and a bucket of nails I went round nailing the rafters that were placed for the vaukted ceilings into place. Come home time, and the clouds drawing nearer- we decide to cover up the oak beams to protect them by batoning on some membrane onto the roof- unfortunately- timing slightly off and we carried out the procedure in a galer with hailstones-NICE! membrane flying everywhere while we struggled to pin it down long enough to attach it. succeeded in the end- complete with a nice juicy whack of the hammer on my nail- typical! Can I go home please?!