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Chanson de la Semaine

To avoid repeating myself on a weekly basis and lose the interest of our regular fan, I will point you towards Week 68 in the Archive for an explanation of why I am suddenly featuring a piece of music each week. Incidentally, the Archive Pics with a little audio icon on them are the ones which will have this little feature..beginning, of course, with Week 68.

I dug this one out of my archive the other week after finally getting my sound card to function correctly on the computer. This goes back many years to the Falklands war and is my take on the threat of conscription at the time. A little less elevated and more ego-centred than Elvis Costello's 'Shipbuilding' but an honest emotion nevertheless.. The song is - Poor Boys In The New Depression.

You've probably already seen a blue or yellow band at the top of the page asking if you want to run this program and showing a 'Run Active X' tab. Click on that and then click on 'Run' and a little CD player should open below the song title. Press Play, Stop or Whatever.

'Poor Boys In The New Depression'

Week 141
The Ever Growing wall

We finally finished the wall that backs onto our neighbour's garden and is the wall to the latest woodstore area. We had to complete the main area this week because we were picking up our wood supply and it had to be cut and stacked. More about that below. Anyway we're repairing the wall that used to form part of the bread oven and it has a nice curve to it that we're trying to recreate. Ideally this may be the barbeque area..or even a quiet place to read a book, when that time finally arrives. I've left some of the original pics in from the previous page so it's easier to see befores and afters.
The Winter Wood Storage

As I mentioned above we're were collecting our winter wood this week so we had to clear out the yard in order to stack the 8 trailer loads. We also needed space so that our neighbour, Roger could cut the logs with his seriously dangerous saw. That's it in pics three and four. The reason I haven't got any before pics of the mountain of wood is because, as soon as Roger turned up, he switched on the beast and it was all hands to the pumps. He cut ten stair of wood (approx 3.3 cubic metres of the stuff) in a little over 2 and a half hours. It took us a further hour to finish stacking. It does give us a nice rosy glow knowing that all the wood is cut and stacked. Last year we did it on a daily basis with the chainsaw. Not a bunch of laughs, believe me.
The Chimney Sweeping

Or Ramonage, as it's called in these here parts. We actually should clean our chimney every year but we neglected it last year so this year was the time. Fortunately the chimney pipe can be dismantled so we only have to clean one metre sections. The only longer bit is the flexible pipe at the top. Dead boring, I know, but a singular achievement for us. Our next task is to make a temporary fireguard so the kittens don't frazzle their noses.
Cats and Kittens

Sad as this may be, we couldn't post up a page without the latest round of cutesy chocobox kitten and mother snaps. Now all say 'Aaahhhh'
The Toolshed or Cellier

A couple of episodes ago I featured the re-roofing of the toolshed. That released a considerable amount of fifty year old accumulated chicken crap over all the stuff inside. It was bad enough finding anything before then but with the added bonus of agricultural diseases we decided it was time to completely empty it out and start again. So now newly shelved and organised it's a real temple in honour of the god of D.I.Y.