Rain Rain go away come back again another day

Mike the roofer said to day " I bet when I put the last slate on...the sun will come out"  He's probably right.  The roof is likely to take another 6-8 weeks, so that takes us into March/April...spring time.   I asked him today if hes getting rusty rather than tanned up on the roof.  Roofers are usually shirts off, baking against the sun scorching on the slates and turning a lovely golden brown colour.  My roofers are wrapped up in wet weather gear, waterproof trousers, 3 layers of padded and rainproof jackets, wooly hats and thick gloves... poor buggers..   Every evening they unpeel their soaking wet outer clothing and hang them  on dryers around Stanley ready for the morning.

Not today though.   Stanley is not working, and the house is starting to cool down.  Its not freezing but its certainly colder inside than it has been.   He ran out of heating oil on Monday evening .  Just as my pan of potatos on the  stove top reached the boil, he coughed spluttered wheezed and then turned himself off.   Stevie went out side and syphoned 40 litres out of the oil tank at the other side of the house using a peice of garden hosepipe and decanted it into  the oil tank that runs Stanley.  That kept us going for a day or so, until I could phone the oil company and order 500 litres to be delivered asap.  By Fri they told me .. today is Wednesday... I only have to survive tonight and tomorrow in this igloo.  500 litres cost me just over £330.00 , bloody expensive !  but its our only form of heating at the present, so we have to have it.

our oil being delivered by tanker

We have decided to have multi fuel burners fitted in some of the ground floor rooms.  They use either solid fuel or logs for fuel. 

Solid fuel refers to various types of solid material that are used as fuel to produce energy  and provide heating .  eg: wood, charcoal, peat, coal, pellets.  

Our current thought is to have 3 burners and one open fire.  The open fire will be in the drawing room.  We have a beautiful black and white streaked marble fire place and i can just imagine a roaring fire set in there.  The dining room and snug will have the multi fuel burners and the servants kitchen at the far end of the house has got a big ingle nook all ready for a log burner so we will have one in there as well.  This room will be used as my office but can always be changed at a later date to another use. If is nice and cosy with a log burner, it could be adapted easily to something else in the future.

His nibs is away again, so I am spending the evenings painting the gun room.  Now all the mildew mould and slime has been cleaned off I have painted the stone walls with exterior masonary paint, and its looking half decent in there.  Needs about 3-4 coats until it is a good even cover.

I am also varnishing all the doors in the house.  The previous owner had all the origonal panelled doors dipped and stripped, but this has left the wood pale and bleached out, so i am bringing  back the colour and the grain with a light satin varnish.  the transformation is amazing.  The doors i have done already look so different!  the wood is now a lovely warm antique pine,  and the door knobs, are the  origonal  big white ceramic ones.   I have noticed on a few of the doors they are black bakalite knobs, so need to get old fashioned white ones to match the others . Quite a few still to do..I think at the last count we have 23 big  old  pine doors to varnish , plus the big oak gothic  one at the front door, and 2 rear exterior doors !!!

His nibs is away at work,  somewhere in Aberdeen  ... bored, cooped  in his  plush  hotel room probably.  But at least he will be warmer than I am here .... and he can have a lovely deep bubble bath.. 

xxx Love you Stevie xxx

x

JO