Complementary activities

Today I've been making a hole in one wall, and filling in holes in another wall.

We are in a ridiculous situation with the cooker hood. On the kitchen-fitters advice we bought it, cheaply, on the internet. But since he didn't supply it, he's reluctant to fit it for us. He says the hole through the wall (70cm long) is something he can't do. Our plumber should do it, he says, as plumbers have the required long drills. Our plumber says a long drill won't do for a hole that needs to be 130mm diameter: it needs a special machine, which he can borrow, that cuts, from the outside, using high-pressure water. It's true, he says, that the water will spoil the plasterboard on the kitchen wall when it reaches it, and that, as the hole has to be cut from the outside, he can't do it easily. It's fifteen feet up the wall, and he'll need to find a farmer with a tractor and a forklift fitting, to get him high enough. His special machine has to be fastened to the wall before it can start cutting, and he can't work from a ladder. But we know from prior experience with the balcony that a large tractor won't fit down the lane beside the wall where the hole is to be cut, so it's a special narrow tractor that is needed - does one of our neighbours have one? Oh, and would the kitchen fitter please come back and mark precisely where the hole has to go?

I went up a ladder myself, removed a large stone that was conveniently just where the hole needs to go. True, this took a while as it had to be split up with a cold chisel to get it out. After that the rest of the masonry was only held in place with really soft lime mortar - the kind of stuff the man in the condemned cell needs, if he's to escape using only his fingernails - and I had a hole through and reasonably well supported (the rest of the wall didn't fall down) thanks to the large stone having been in the right place. The stones around it formed enough of an arch-shaped hole to stay in place.

This morning I'd fetched from the builders merchant two 35kg bags of white hydrated lime, which I hope will make a mortar that matches in colour and texture what has been used all round the farmhouse. I made a cement-free (lime and sand only) mortar and had a go at repointing part of the farmhouse wall. It has been attacked by either birds or insects - or more likely both - that have removed the pointing to a depth of five or six inches. The mortar seems to have worked pretty well, and I'll be able to judge the appearance tomorrow when it will be reasonably dry. However I've only done a small area and there is perhaps ten times as much still to do later. Fortunately (and curiously) all the worst areas are within easy reach of the ground. Low flying birds?

I also had a go at mortaring-in the metal frame of our electricity meter box, on the outside wall of the farmhouse. It is fairly agricultural anyway (I mean it is a large and ugly piece of galvanised ironwork) and it was also never very well installed from the start. Then successive electricians, fitting first a new earth, then replacing the meters, and finally putting in the three-phase cable for the barn, have made it a lot worse. It looks a lot more secure now. If I am able to get it completely watertight, I may be able to avoid the colonisation by hornets that seems to take place every other summer - a fine surprise when checking the mains trip switch or reading the meter.

Also put a coat of linseed oil on the balcony (and dripped all over the tiles by the pool, oh dear), and two coats on the hearth tiles. They are now dark and shiny (pictures to follow) and it should be possible to grout them tomorrow.

Leontine came to visit, and said she'd been kept awake by the cows. Yesterday her nephew's veal calves had been sold - they are raised outside in the fields around her house, and ours too, but with their mothers, the right way to do it. But the cows were very upset (Leontine said) and they still had milk, so they lowed all night. As they are all Salers cows, with impressive sharp horns, there's no chance of milking them even if anyone was inclined to try. This seemed rather a "Silence of the Lambs" moment for someone we'd always regarded as inured to agricultural life.