Would you believe
it?!! I promised a picture of the new car, but we have been so busy running
around in it that we haven’t even thought of taking a picture of it. Perhaps
next time…….!
The past few days
have been extremely busy and has had us running around like fleas in a fit.
When it came to tiling the floor of the fireplace so that the heating stove had
a nice level base, and an attractive one too, we found that the whole floor was
decidedly wonky and in fact sloped from right to left by about four
centimetres. So before the tiles could be laid, a cement floor had to be cast
and allowed to dry. Time was getting really tight as it is so cold that the
cement didn’t want to harden properly, but finally it was hard enough to lay
the tiles and then to grout them, and we still a had a day over for everything
to harden and set before the chimney-sweep arrived at 9.30 on Wednesday morning
and started his cleaning. What a horrible job! In spite of wearing goggles and
a full-fitting cap, double overalls and overshoes, he eventually came out from
behind the protective curtain that he had taped across the front of the
fireplace, completely covered in soot. Before he started, he had laid out
something that looked like an old eiderdown to protect the tiles and a part of
the floor and when he had finished, he stood in the middle of it and peeled off
goggles, cap, overalls and overshoes and dumped them all into the middle of the
‘eiderdown’, wrapped the whole thing into a bundle and carried it out to his
van. No mess. No fuss
The same afternoon
the stove was installed and again it was a one man job. The only part he needed
a bit of help with was getting the contraption into the house from the van. He
brought out a little trolley and manoevered it into place to catch the crated
stove as he pushed that out of the van then removed all the crating (Aha!
Kindling for the fire) and was about to drag all 160 kgs of cast iron up the
stairs by himself, but Neels and Pieter gave a push from behind and saved him
some effort. The installation was quite a big job and was not completed on
Wednesday but by Thursday afternoon, we had a lovely fire going and the
temperature in the house started to rise.
Also during this
week, Pieter decided that the workshop and laundry should share the big open
space that we had cleared under the house, but that they should be two separate
areas, divided by a wall. Then he proceeded to show us how dry walls are
constructed. Only, of course, this one is a super-duper wall with a kink in it
to make maximum use of the floor space, and to make things simpler for running
wires for lights etc. It is almost finished.
The materials that he used had to be delivered by truck and once again
it was a one-man operation. The truck was backed in next to the house and then
the driver operated a huge folded up crane to lift the boards off and into our
property. The whole consignment was plastic wrapped which was good as it was
raining when he arrived and the plaster board Pieter intended using would have
just dissolved if it had got wet. We are noticing vast differences in the
amount of manpower used to get work done here, compared to South Africa.
And.....so far, they have all cleaned up after themselves and taken their
rubbish away.
The weather has, at times, been cold, icy and freezing, but now and
again we have a brilliant sunny day which looks amazing and should feel warm
but is only an illusion. However we are not feeling the cold quite as much as
we have in previous years.
Perhaps we are
becoming acclimatized!!
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