Haircut pour la maison...

April 7th, 2009

Having forgotten to hang the clothes on the line from yesterday’s wash I was up early to do so. Then I sat to write for a while. Shortly Christian came knocking and told me that it was raining…”did I want my clothes brought in?” “No” I said” They’re already wet.”

Then we spent the day running around setting up accounts, getting bills paid and doing all the busy work that piles up on you no matter where you are. I finally got through all of that by late in the afternoon. When I got home determined to get some work done I took one look at the fringe of vines left on the roof and couldn’t stand it. I had to figure out a way to get on that roof and clear it of those vines.
First, I took an old piece of scaffold and propped it up in the entryway at the back of the farmhouse. IT was against the wall so it couldn’t tip over. Then I got a plank to put across it and took my ladder and put it on top of that. In that configuration the tip of the ladder just cleared the edge of the roof. I scrambled up to take a look. Yep…pretty secure.

From there it was all downhill…not! I had to figure out how to cross these four hundred year old roof tiles without breaking them. Then of course the fringe of vines extended all the way across the end of the roof so I had to work my way up one side and down the other. By the time I did that I decided the roof needed so much repair that I took it apart and rebuilt it all the way back to the side I started from. It was getting on the 8:00 pm by now and I was worried that leaving the roof open to rain for the night would not be a good idea. Then I counted out how many new (old) tiles I needed to haul up there….thirty! Thirty new tiles (three that had broken and 27 that were in too bad a condition to use again. That’s when I decided to pack it in for the evening and take a much need shower.

My stew had aged nicely over the past couple of days and a big bowl of that after working in the wet, high up on the roof, was comforting. That and some writing, some reading and bed time came upon me faster than I had imagined. Tomorrow, I begin tiling the bedrooms upstairs…gotta’ get ready for visitors!