I follwed Claire step for step as if we were in a mine field and our lives depended on it, well actually lives DID depend on it!

The builders are back. Well that's Martin and a couple of chums that he works with, but they are 'The Builders' and like all good builders they have spent the best part of the day un-building, if there s such a word, which there really ought to be because that was exactly what they were doing, un-building. To be precise they un-built several stud walls that were put up, I guess once again in the seventies, which were making appalling use of the space. The toilet and shower were just nasty and had a municipal bath look about them. It was with a sense of duty that we instructed Martin to remove the obscenity of a shower and as he pulled off the tiles on the wall so came the plaster quickly culminating in the exposure of what was to be very damp brick work behind.

There are many who take a little glee in proclaiming "You see, you never know what problems you'll find with an old property do you?" or (after a sharp in-take of breath) "Are you sure? Mark my words you'll watch your costs rise, no, best stick with a modern place if you ask me" And there is nothing more irritating than these wise old sages being correct. So on Monday Martin returns to climb up on my roof and see if he can workout what the problem is.

It is the area of exposed brick in the centre of the photo that is causing the problem and the dampness seems to have spread under the plaster behind the toilet too. On the plus side (I suppose) it was a good job that we initiated this work load as we would never had found out about this issue and it would have carried on quietly, secretly breaking down the bricks integrity.
You might also note that the floor is in no way level, the left side being about two inches higher than the right, yet another problem for Marin to sort. This is strange as the actual concrete that the floor tiles are laid on appears perfectly level. The wall to the right has also had all it's tiles and plaster removed and the exposed wall is dry but shows an interesting mix of building materials, design and method. There is a feel about the wall of history, probably several different builders making repairs or extending the height of the building.

The black lines going across it are where wooden battens had been built in, probably to give the owner the ability to screw something into the wall. However one of the battens had completely disintegrated and is now just an empty hole. I feel that there are still more surprises to unfold here and perhaps some more interesting discoveries too!

Yesterday evening myself and Claire went cycling. I am getting fatter, quite clearly now, and so with my bad knee slowing me down I urgently need to get back to regular bike rides again. I am seeing the specialist at the moment and have had a snooze in the MRI machine this afternoon. I really don't know how I manage to nod off in this machine as it is like laying inside a massive tin can in the middle of a metal work shop with every lathe and drill turned on full power. In short it is a VERY, VERY noisy machine and you are in it for some 25 minutes. But they seduce you with some headphones and the lathe sound is very monotonous and I'm listening to Jeremy Vine on Radio 2 so frankly I think it was quite understandable that I should 'nod off'.

The last time I went for an MRI scan they gave me a locker to put ANYTHING MAGNETIC into and so I diligently off loaded my phone, my wallet, my car keys, belt and even my trousers as they had a zip, locking it all securely in the said locker. I walked out and was shown to the scanner where I lay in the required position, they started to slide me into this whirring beast and as they did so I became aware that my left man boob appeared to be growing, quite rapidly, and even more strangely it felt like it was trying to lift me up. It was at this point that my little, rather simple, mind became aware of the cause of this rather odd feeling and I shouted out to the lady to stop the machine.
When she approached me I put my hand into my breast pocket and took out the locker key that I had absent mindedly dropped in after locking my stuff away. I mean what is the point of giving me a metal locker key after making me remove all things magnetic?

Anyway, Claire and I went out on our bikes and having cycled only about half a mile out of the village we became aware of tiny stones moving on the road, then, whilst still cycling, I thought that these were big spiders, but a lot of them. So we stopped and stared at the road surface.....  Hop.  Hop, hop.  A small, nay, tiny frog (or toad) took a little leap, then I saw another and another, and another. There were hundreds of tiny frogs a leaping and a frogging across the road. They were about the size of a penny and as we looked it became evident that many, many had not made the journey as little squashed grape like splodges decorated the road for as far as you could see. We cycled on with caution.

A dead one of them......!

 Our return journey was not so easy however. We had purposely gone out to take photos of what looked like and indeed turned out to be an excellent sunset. This unfortunately meant that we were returning in the dusk light. Now thee appeared to be twice the amount of these frogs but half the light with which to see them. If we had any heart or soul at all cycling was simply not an option, no we would have to proceed on foot with caution. We dis-mounted and with Claire in the lead (with her young eyes trained on the road ahead) we walked on very cautiously. "Frog at 2 o'clock" Claire would shout as a small hopping motion drew her attention. Then "aghh" as a frog tried to jump under her wheel.

We have never witnessed such an exodus of frogs before.
As we gingerly took each tender step I became aware that Claire was walking on tippy toe to minimise the danger of squashing them under foot. And so this strange spectacle went on, two people walking their bikes along the road at a snails pace on the flattest of roads, the front one on her tip-toe as if she was walking on egg shells with the 50 year old man pushing his bike in the exact path that she was walking just inches behind, wheels almost touching as if they were negotiating a mine field. This went on for near on a quarter of a mile and the real shame was not what the odd car that drove past us must have thought, for surely they could only have labelled us as simpletons, but more that each and every car that came past took out a squadron of these leaping beasties undoing all the work that we were putting in to protecting them!
Every time a car came near we found that we were walking nearer the middle of the road to try to protect them, but all we were really doing was protecting those that we could see in the half light. The truth is that on the other side of the road they were quickly becoming frog smoothies.

So we took our photos of the sunset and saw some Deer wade through a field of Wheat too and when we finally got home we did one last task, more to allay our feelings of guilt than for any other reason, we both discreetly checked the soles of our shoes..... Phewwww, all clear.

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