Chris died on Sunday March 22, 2009 of kidney failure, which has pretty much been in the post now for a number of years. Chris moved in of his own accord one Christmas eleven years ago and had been our buddy ever since. He came along on the adventure to France and nearly died of a car tranquilizer en route and lost half a tail sometime after. Nevertheless he's been a cheery little soul and seemed to thrive in the country air. We're going to miss him so much and the place is lonelier without him, but we're also glad his misery is over. And the latest reports are that he's hanging out with Frank. He couldn't have had a nicer reception.

The brickwork in the kitchen, above the beams, has been progressing and this is the latest. I've included some earlier shots of the same spot for comparison.

We've finished planing and sanding the beams in the Bathroom and Dining rooms. The support wood for the plaster board has been fixed in place and the wiring for the spots is complete. We're cutting the plaster boards as we speak, ready to fit them into the spaces between the beams.

This has been a source of great interest in the neighbourhood. No one could quite fathom what I was up to and finally the first of many asked. I told them it was a swimming pool and they were less surprised than when i owned up to it being a veg plot. It was the walkway around it and the dinky size that confused them. They're used to veg plots the size of cricket pitches. I did explain that I was only interested in growing a very limited amount of produce and namely the stuff that doesn't take up much space. The walkway was to allow planting and maintenance without actually walking on the soil. It was also a good way of using up the tiles that we ripped out of the upper floor. The first things to go in have been the raspberry and blackcurrant bushes and then the strawberries. In the strawberry patch we had to dig out a bolder the size of a mature pig, it was also full of assorted other stones and bolders, which was wierd cos the one alongside had about two small stones in all.

As is probably evident, we've been trying to concurrently carry on with jobs indoors and out. The weather has been largely instrumental in this but also we needed some kind of psychological boost. Indoor work has been slow and uneventful and it always looks like nothing's happening so we thought some big ground works would help. It also means that the mountains of hardcore and stone in the front of the house have begun to clear. Another little boost.
Anyway, we've always planned to have a patio out the back to carry on the level of the front of the house and to act as a step down from the french door. The size of this patio has been largely dependent on the amount of hardcore we have. Needless to say it's bloody huge.