Day Two Hundred and Ten

Heavy lifting day.

This is a reasonable gamble. $100 to the person who can work out why anyone would install a ton of concrete, to make two steps, in a building that must have weighed less than John Candy.

Nevertheless, I was like a school boy with a new train set - what is it about big machinery and men? Don't answer.

Obviously I wasn't involved in the serious work (Tom was, above), but I like to think that my presence added...well, frankly, absolutely nothing. I stood aside while the job got done. I still know my place in this project.

The machinery was supplied by our neighbour Ron. If you ever read this Ron - many thanks.

As I was taking this photo Tom said to me 'It's looking good'. Indeed it is.

Day Two Hundred and Eight

Our new office attracts water with a thirst that makes Hemingway approaching Harry's bar in Venice look like a Mormon tourist from Utah.

After three martinis and with one eye half shut it could be Venetian, but I pretty certain Canaletto would refuse this particular commission.

We need to do more than grade an ounce of earth here, a pinch of mud there.

So, to avoid wading around with the Canadian Geese in 12 months time, Tom has arranged for an engineer to survey the land and let us know the best way to drain, shift and gently persuade the rain to go elsewhere.

This peculiar contraption is one half of a two leg attachment that the 'spacklers' use to reach the ceiling. Incredibly difficult to master I'm told - much like stilts I guess. Novices can be spotted by being black and blue with bruises.

But, the spackling is finished. Who cares about a bruise or two? I know, I'm horrible.

Empty paint pots. The significance is in the emptiness. I'm really horrible.

I picked up the external lights from the store in Hockessin yesterday. I'll post the photographs just as soon as London gives me the nod.

Day Two Hundred and One

Day Two Hundred

The PICO electric wires have been removed from the front of the building.

This is impressive - every little external nitch, glitch and ditch is being hand filled and smoothed and the entire place is being repainted. Em, are you sure you don't want it in Royal Navy Blue...?

Yes, that plant thing on the left does need some attention.

This deserves to be in the art gallery. It's the pipe that will be fitted under the sink. I had no idea that something so practical, and normally hidden, could be so well designed and worth leaving on show.

Day One Hundred and Ninety Eight

We've moved along a little. It seems my writing hasn't.

I've been informed by London that my prose is too 'purple', too Brideshead Revisited (I wish - if I could construct a single measly sentence that Evelyn Waugh would deign to nod his head at I would straight out faint), but if it's too 'purple' for West Finchley tastes, then fine, I'll take a shot at Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Nothing like setting the bar stupidly high.

Hemingway: 198 days. Good.

Fitzgerald: I still remember some advice I was given about renovation...

Day One Hundred and Ninety Seven

The options for the parking area are A) poured concrete, B) blacktop, or C) this..
.

This is called Old Towne Cobble, Pewter Blend (who thinks up these names?).

I'm partial to a combination of the rectangular and square pavers...

In this arrangement...

These are other options...

For some reason I like this spectacularly impractical design...

Do we need borders?

I'm not sure how poured concrete will weather after a few fearfully hot summers and brutally cold winters, but I have the sense that trying to repair chips and cracks will be ongoing and expensive; blacktop/tarmac is just an outright con, a complete waste of money, aaarrrggghhhh, I'm furious just thinking about it!

A further consideration is that neither of those options allows water to drain through, so it sits there. Splash, splash. Or if the grading is not perfect it runs off and turns the surrounding grass into a swamp - bog turtles, that would be the next problem - I'm not having bog turtles casually wandering around my herb and root vegetable garden. Have I not mentioned the herb and root vegetable garden?

However, because the cobble stones are laid individually each single stone can be replaced if it gets cracked, and obviously the gentle, gentle but mostly torrential rain of Pennsylvania drains straight down.

The first small crop of swedes, turnips, parsnips and potatoes should be ready in late November - mutton stew time.

Day One Hundred and Ninety Six

And this wonderful card from my sister.

Which arrived shortly after we moved into our new apartment in Delaware.Thanks Kate.

Day One Hundred and Ninety Five

Now I know how they make the drywall perfectly smooth. Spackling. Great word.

And this delayed my journey home on Route 41 this afternoon.

A bumper to bumper event but the locals love to make a Greek tragedy out of a bit of chipped car paint in rural Pennsylvania, so shortly after I took this photo there were seven emergency vehicles and a couple of local ambulance chasers on the scene. Almost as compulsive viewing as Keeping Up With The Kardashians.