Author Archives: nickjtj

Sorry, we were fantasising. If Tash had been wearing the hat-like-a-duck that I’ve been planning to make her (so she could swim unnoticed on the loch) the sea eagle might not have just flown low over her but grabbed the duck hat with her head inside. Anyway, it came and checked her out and sheContinue reading “She was plucked from the water…”

My apologies for yesterday’s truncated report; the problem was simple, they wanted money. If only WordPress had made that clear to start with instead of repeatedly telling me the photo files were too big. I’ve run this blog for over two years and only now used up my allocated, free, three gigabyte storage. So IContinue reading “The rest of last week’s account…”

Friday a week ago the car passed its MOT so I drove to Glasgow as I’d hoped to. I didn’t know when Tash would get there as she’d phoned in tears after it appeared everything was cancelled owing to severe flooding – she’d been in London too long and felt trapped. In the end sheContinue reading “Router in action…”

As threatened in a recent blog, I cannibalised the chunky shelves that the builders knocked together two and a half years ago, prising off two long pieces of timber to make uprights at the end of the bathroom shower. They were a bit too heavy and needed cutting longitudinally (ripping) as well as stepping theContinue reading “Back in the bathroom”

If you want a building report, look away now and come back in a week. Building work begins again tomorrow, but will be disrupted by the arrival of belongings from London, the drag of my common cold and, if the MOT smiles upon my Berlingo, going to Glasgow to collect Tash, grout and maybe Martin.Continue reading “One week away”

Tiling the shower room downstairs was something I wanted to do but really wanted to get right. In the workshop shower room I’d allowed the tiles’ adhesive bed to get too thick and this had created its own problems. Overall it’s fine but a couple of tiles are a bit uneven, a corner sticks outContinue reading “The facilities…”

Mon 24 Oct – A half day once I’d attended the wonderful national health service’s automatic, age-related scan of my aorta. Apparently it was as it should be despite the out of practice doctor leaning rather heavily on my solar plexus. All very quick. Tiling behind bath – mostly done apart from a few coursesContinue reading “Hospital half day”

Don’t ask me where a week goes. Poppy helped me lay the last three pieces of slate in the shower, clean up the joints, grout the shower room floor, fix the toilet and start tiling round the bath upstairs. Most of the slate cutting and grouting looks good but one piece of slate in theContinue reading “Grout and reflections”

My current work is split between the shower room down stairs and the bathroom upstairs. When one can’t be progressed I can usually get on with the other. On Monday, before David’s arrival I finished preparing the base for laying slate on the floor of the shower. I made it as even as I couldContinue reading “Bath, shower, shower, bath; slate and woodwork”

I could have titled this Goodbye Andy and Joy, hello Chris and Ali, but that might have been misleading as they came over from their site for just a day. With their house project advancing Ali measured and photographed rooms, while Chris and I headed for the wet hills. With a first design soon dueContinue reading “Will it ever set?”