and today i have mostly been...

[Doggy]

Guess it depends on which bit of the UK you're familiar with, loads of abandoned dwellings in Cumbria and the less populated bits of Scotland, (no doubt other places too). Rural France is much the same, the locals have no desire to own an old house in the country, they see it as risking high maintenance cost for no good reason.

Anyway, looks like you're well on the way to creating an impressive man cave there.

[Welly]

I would say that T&G is the perfect colour for it, that's exactly how I'd like it to look. The problem with going too dark is that you're stuck with it unless you want to sand it all off again.

I admire you're spirit to preserve what is obviously an important part of past communities and families, I'm guessing whoever lived there worked the land or something, it's cool anyway.

Why don't you come clean now and admit that's your 'man cave' and you'll pretty much live in it to escape all that crap TV noise and her indoors

Edit: damn, doggy had the same thoughts....

[Welly]

See where the T&G meet the 'cill' at the bottom, water will love to sit there and attack the T&G, would be worth looking at applying a very generous bead of clear silicone forced right under the T&G so any water get repelled. Perhaps even some leadwork or a flashing over the cill too?

[steve_earwig]

Cill? Do you mean that strip of wood (actually my chimney chiseller) that Miloš nailed up as a guide? It's a fair point though, water will capillary up behind. I'll ask.

Guess it depends on which bit of the UK you're familiar with, loads of abandoned dwellings in Cumbria and the less populated bits of Scotland, (no doubt other places too). Rural France is much the same, the locals have no desire to own an old house in the country, they see it as risking high maintenance cost for no good reason.

I suppose there's something to be said for not living in a draughty house that's falling to bits, but it is a shame for it all to go to waste, purely because people are obsessed with "shiny new", which is actually "superficial crap".

What's all this "man cave" nonsense? Why would I need to get away from t'wife? I was talking to Miloš earlier, a bew will go up there no trouble at all...

That paint: Miloš pointed out that, while both maybe palasander, there's are various shades available and what I have there is 3, as opposed to the 9 that's on the roof and all my tool handles. He reckons the 9 would be way too dark. I'll probably try another coat of 3 and see what it looks like. Plenty to do first anyway.

Miloš is done for the week, he's off to the seaside in the morning (apparently he likes sea fishing) and he'll be back Wednesday. He wanted to get that whole side done before his holiday but he needs to piece-in the rotten bit, he brought some oak with him but it's too small. so we concluded that'll do for now. All I have to do now is tidy everything away and put it all under cover as the forecast is cooler with mucho rain.

[Welly]

That chicken wire fence, how come it divides the man cav, err workshop like that? I mean it almost looks like the gable end wall is in someone else's garden?

[steve_earwig]

Chicken wire? Whuh? Chain link fence maybe? Separates the garden from the er, garden. Umm. Ok, separates the yard from the vegetable garden.

[Welly]

Yeah that wire fence with the blue carpet? draped over it. Looks like it would stop you from walking around the building easily?

[steve_earwig]

Oh, that end. That's not carpet, it's blanket, it's there from the last time I covered the yoyo up 'cos it looked like hail. I've divided both the front and back yards to keep the dogs off the flowers. Well, mostly that, and it keeps them a bit further away from the retard with the air rifle (he doesn't have it any more )

Have a "before" picture from 2007


Now


Speaking of retards, the televidiots are back.


Yeah, you just park there, don't worry (or even give a flying one) about me


They were down the road by the railway crossing the other day, so it didn't really effect us, but today they're back here. Just not right outside our house this time. I've just taken t'wife to school (she's off with her drunk.. sorry, colleagues to Romania for a few days, end of school year-type thing) and we had to get them to move.

Btw that's not a real police car, although I hope the fact that it's outside the retard's house gave him a moment.

And, while I'm mindlessly uploading more pictures, this was part of the view from the restaurant where we went for my birthday


I'll bet that was quite pretty when it was first put up (around the time of the black death...)

[Welly]

I always enjoy your pics, the properties there seem to have fairly elaborate walling to the boundaries and gated fronts which is not seen much here. I'd imagine that would be expensive initially even by Croat standards? is there a reason why the properties are enclosed like this?

[steve_earwig]

Dunno really, keep the chickens in, keep the dogs in/out. The materials will be expensive yes, but remember the labour is cheap. The fence we have at the back is quite well made, concrete posts with chain link, there's a small gate giving access to the veggies and a bigger double gate for a tractor, which I've only had open once and that was after straightening it out so it would open, looked like some drunk had driven a tractor into it. Front wall not so good, it's made out of pre-cast panels but the ground has shifted so it's all pissed and the frost's getting into it. One day... Again single gate (which I have to keep tweaking with a crowbar as the posts shift about) and a double, which is functional but not pretty. When everything else is done I want to do something about it but just now it does the job.

[steve_earwig]

And then there were six This morning I had my oldest cat, Billie, PTS. She'd been loosing weight for a while but she'd stopped eating for about a week and today I took her to Mirela, our vet, who helped me with the hard decisions. The thing is Billie hated being touched unless it was on own terms, hated being picked up, hated going to the vet's and would scream constantly, so I was kind of hoping I'd find her dead one morning. But yesterday she was in such a poor state I decided I had to do something.

Mirela couldn't find anything obvious, besides being stick thin and dehydrated, but her body temp was 36, which is seriously low. Mirela said it was simply metabolic failure due to age. She could have treated her, which would have involved being in the box with heat pads, infusions,injections etc. but the chances of survival were slim, and I really didn't want to put her through all that. As she hadn't screamed the house down and no blood was drawn I guess she'd given up too.

She was only 14, which in the UK is nothing special, but for Croatia it was positively ancient, never mind the neglect even a well looked after mog doesn't make it much past that, Mirela's oldest cat ever was 17.

[Doggy]

Sorry to hear that Steve, it's always hard but deep down you know when it's time.
Doesn't make it any easier though.
Feel for you.

[Welly]

The look on her face in that second picture our black cat does that look and it's like "if you poke that camera any nearer I'm gonna scratch your f*cking face right off"

You did the sensible thing, saved her from suffering any further.

[Bailes1992]

Two stroke advice please guys...

Cheap B&Q chainsaw. Less than 5 hours on it but about 2 years old.

Starts and idles fine, as soon as you touch the throttle it floods and cuts out. Doesn't matter if it's on full, half or no choke.

Can't work it out for the life of me?

Air filter and spark plug are fine. Backed off both high and low fuel screws.

[trufflehunt]

Two stroke advice please guys...

Cheap B&Q chainsaw. Less than 5 hours on it but about 2 years old.

Starts and idles fine, as soon as you touch the throttle it floods and cuts out. Doesn't matter if it's on full, half or no choke.

Can't work it out for the life of me?

Air filter and spark plug are fine. Backed off both high and low fuel screws.

I know nuffink about chainsaws..
but in cars this used to be known as carburettor idle jet is fine,
but main jet blocked.