FRIDAY

 Today was a good day.

The fireplace installation company advised yesterday that they would arrive between 7AM and 9AM so I got up earlier than usual and rolled up some carpets, moved furniture and moved my car out onto the road.

They turned up at 7.50 so that was OK. I've been waiting for these jokers to turn up for 3 months now after an initial inspection - see: HERE

They replaced the chimney flue and rope seals on the main one in the lounge ,which was good as this is the one that failed the test and had a 'Don't Use!' sticker on it. The head Office had cocked up again and hadn't told them about the repairs needed on the second wood-burner in the other lounge. This one passed its test but needs new tiles. The repairmen didn't have the right materials in their van so this has to be scheduled for later. The head honcho did say that I won't be charged mileage for the second time. Quite frankly I don't care as long as they get their arses into gear and do the job.

"Can I use the main one?" I asked.

"Yes, give it a day for the new seals to dry and then go for it" they said.

That would have been quite handy a few months back when we had a cold snap and I was turning an oil column heater on in the evenings. It's now quite warm.

At 5pm the temperature in the roof was showing as 35 and in the house 23. There's no way I'm going to light up a wood-burner.

***************

While the fireplace jokers were here the builders returned to finish off the concrete steps at the front  of the house. They had been held up last week and the week before by rain. It's looking good now and a final tidy up should have them to a standard that The Old Girl will approve of.

The main idea was to reinforce the supports to the front deck and the old railway sleeper retaining wall.

I also asked them to build a new retaining wall at the back.

How it looked before

How it looked before

Some native shrubbery planting will be in order before Lynn gets home in December.

***************

This afternoon I played some golf in absolutely ideal conditions - sunshine and no wind.

I went out a bit earlier than usual - at about 2PM and, get this. Some other golfers were down in one of my creeks looking for the balls that they'd hit in there. Bloody cheek!