"No, no," said the little pig. "By the hair of my chinny chin chin, I will not let you come in." "Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in," said the wolf. So he huffed and he puffed and he huffed and he puffed. But the house of bricks did not fall down. So why did the Norfolk people go and fill the walls with bleeding chunks of Flint?

I have found that I have a knack of taking a reasonably respectable room and ripping it apart to such a degree that it loses all identity and, if I am honest, gives the impression that a pound or so of Semtex has been used in the process.
Oh, dear, that'll get me on the MI5 'Sites to be monitored' Hit List won't it.

The problem is that I can't help myself, I feel if a job is worth doing then it is worth doing well. That's what I feel, but sadly the skill levels that I have simply don't support this noble mantra and as a result there are certain days when I am not proud at what expletives babble out of my mouth. Yesterday was a case in point when I took on the task of filling some pretty big holes in the walls where past 'craftsmen' have been at work.

 As you can see they are not small holes, nor are they what you might call neat. These old flint cottages are very pretty and fairly strong but their true weakness becomes apparent when one needs to make a small hole for a pipe or sum such thing.
The Flints will completely destroy a drill in an instant and so the best thing to do is to knock your way through, as if you were escaping from Alcatraz. As soon as you have managed to remove a single flint then you try stopping all of it's friends following. I reckon I could tear down one of these Flint buildings with my bare hands. The innate stability just tumbles away and the holes just get bigger and bigger. Before you know it you'll have a French Lorry driver pop out flashing his passport at you.
So these past masters have tried to squeeze two small pipes (as above, now removed they were originally in the tied cardboard tubes) and in doing so created a Grand Canyon through my abode.
 Is it any wonder that half of Norfolk's Churches have fallen down?

So having created this indoor quarry they pass their two pipes through, then they look at the hole and decided to do something about it, which for the most part seems to involve the ritual of stuffing a couple of bricks inside or even (as in the photo to the right) a plastic bag and a 1970's copy of Woman's Weekly! In short there is little in the way of an attempt to make good these caverns if indeed any attempt is made at all. So now I have inherited the problem and I have to do something to shore them up as even the smallest knock leads to you ending up with a small rock fall. I decided that I would cement them up and then finish with a layer of plaster.
I chose quick drying cements as I felt that would stop it oozing out before it cold dry.

MY they were not kidding when they said it would dry in 10 minutes as by the time I had mixed it, got up stairs and started to apply the stuff it was already hardening. It didn't help that it was the hottest day of the year and that the pipes made using a trowel difficult and so the mumblings of expletives commenced, even adding water did not prevent the cement from tipping over the point of in-usability.

So when today arrived and the need to skim the walls with the plaster I was, I have to admit, none to keen to start the job. I slapped the first bit of plaster on the wall, having followed all the preparation of surfaces instructions, and flop, it fell straight down on to the floor. Alison sensed a little tension from me, to say the least, and said it should be easy  it is just like putting icing on a cake. Bah, girls eh? No idea!
      So I presented her with the trowel and the 'icing' and allowed her the chance to show me how it is done.
Well, of course, I knew she would be a natural all along, as she slapped on plaster left right and centre. No one likes a smart arse do they.

We finished the worst of the walls, then I started on laying a hardboard floor over the floor boards which looked like they had been collected from the Titanic, Lusitania and the Bismark. A multitude of sizes, colours, woods it was astounding that such a small room could have so big a variety, some really did look like they had been at the bottom of the sea for a decade or two, but I had renovated what I could and replaced those that were beyond repair.
The floor itself curves to such a degree that it drops in height west to east by the height of the skirting board, some 3".

So this is where we are now, most of the holes you see here have been filled but there is still a tonne of tiles to be bought and put up and the floor has to be purchased and laid too.
All this has to be completed by next Wednesday as the plumber returns on that day to install the bathroom suite.
We have our work cut out for us, as they say.

They also say, "never mind it will all be worth it when it's all done". My experience is that the people who say such things are invariably NOT the ones that have got to do the actual work.

Our Web-Site is getting close to being live and as soon as it is up and running you will be told.
For now all our efforts are focused on getting this en-suite up and running ASAP.
     Oh and the garden too.



















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