I'll never get rich

digging a ditch, will I?

This one:



It will (perhaps even tomorrow) contain a 100mm drainpipe, with a drain at the near end, so that rainwater from the just visible zinc downpipe can go a bit further away from the house next time it rains.

This took me all day. It was stony ground - indeed the biblical stuff, "where it had not much earth", and digging it out was quite a chore. I couldn't be too free with the pickaxe, as somewhere down in the earth there is an electrical cable and a water main for the swimming pool.

There's also quite ridge of bedrock, and tomorrow I will be getting out the big angle grinder and sledgehammer. But this was quite enough for today.

Ready for use

and come to that, I could use a shower: very hot here today.



I've now put up the (shortened) towel rail, made out of a bar from the manger previously in the barn, and the seat-cum-shelf, made out of a bit of the barn's original floorboards. And the woodwork has been painted so that it is difficult to see the multi-layered mouldings - these were needed to bring up the levels where the tiles finish round the window.

I also re-did the exceptionally robust oak & chestnut shelf (-cum-seat?) in the kitchen. Its blacksmith-made iron brackets would hold a good ton. I sanded down the surface, dug out the mismatching filler, plugged the multiple drilled holes with wooden pegs, stained them and re-filled with a better colour filler - et voila! Final finish is teak oil: it appeared to have been oiled previously and I felt pretty sure it wouldn't hold a varnish for long.



I've also panelled in the back of the cupboard under the sink, with an inspection hatch for the ball valves on the water manifolds. About the only thing left is to try to get the bathroom windows off their hinges and repair their corners and re-putty the glass.