Archive for the ‘House and Home’ Category
Posted by Shirley Anne on January 27, 2012
The year has been slow in starting for me on the whole. Last year as with previous years I have found plenty of things to do, most of it work related either at home or in my capacity as an electrician but not all of it work related. I usually have goals that I wish to complete and set my mind on those things. Once I have an idea in mind that I know I can do or have done for me if it is too much or outside of my capabilities, then I get on with it. The main problem I have is that I tend to procrastinate regarding setting the starting point, that is the day I’ll begin the work. This year is no exception! Two of my projects have been started but after long periods of dragging my heels thinking about them! I do have excuses, especially if I have electrical work scheduled but sometimes I simply don’t want to start. On Tuesday E and I started work on our proposed wet room by disconnecting and removing the existing furniture and fittings and as I didn’t have work scheduled for Wednesday I should have continued with that but instead I decided to chop up the tree branches and twigs that we had felled the week before. We couldn’t put off that job any longer but it will still take a few days to complete. Here is a picture taken when about a third of the branches had already been removed and disposed of.
It doesn’t seem a lot but when we have to chop it up to fit into our wheelie bins it takes a considerable time. Burning them is out of the question as they are not dry so we have no choice but to cut them by hand. We do possess one of those machines which chips up the branches. If you remember (those who have been regular readers last year) it was used quite a lot last year when we had an even larger tree chopping exercise. However it won’t tackle the thinner twigs and branches or the long and sinewy ivy as they simply clog the machinery. Clicking on the picture will enlarge it and perhaps you will then appreciate the task we have. I spend about three and a half hours cutting and chopping it on Wednesday and still only half of what was left is done, for we had already disposed of a third of it last week. My upper arms were left aching for quite some time afterwards. I seem to have more than one job on the go at any one time at home but I find that better than just doing them one at a time. For one, it relieves the boredom and gives me a break from some of the larger projects which can become a burden. To be honest I like the variety. There is plenty for me to be doing this year but there will also be plenty of days for leisure too, same old routines or not!
Shirley Anne
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Posted in Activity, Gardening, House and Home | Tagged: Activity, Home and Garden, Waste collector, Waste container, Wednesday | 2 Comments »
Posted by Shirley Anne on January 26, 2012
Image by Vaguely Artistic via Flickr
After working every day since last Thursday I found myself free on Tuesday. I squeezed in a session on my treadmill late on Monday evening making falling asleep much easier. I planned to have an extra lie-in on Tuesday morning and thankfully I wasn’t disturbed by telephone calls as usually happens when I want that extra rest. This meant that I arose just before ten o’clock, too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. I collected some clothes that needed washing and fed the washing machine with them before collecting my tools and setting about dismantling the drain pipe from our downstairs toilet as it entered the sewage pipe outside. I cleaned the sewage pipe collar ready to accept a new soil pipe later and covered it with a plastic bag to contain the wonderful sewage smells that would continue to emanate from the open pipe until the new pipe was connected. Following that I dismantled and disconnected the toilet pan, cistern, wash basin and all water pipes and drains ready for work to continue when I feel the urge. This will be the new wet room I promised E and myself last summer! We have most of all the necessary materials we will need to complete the task. All we need now it the time and the inclination! On Monday whilst purchasing a new distribution board for the job I was doing I finally got round to buying two of the new boards I have been thinking about buying for our own house. These boards each have a ten-way circuit capacity but I know I will need to buy a further two four-way boards later. I am waiting until the weather is warmer before tackling the installation of those boards. We do have a lot of electrical circuits in our house. So it was that at 1.45 I was feeling rather hungry and thirsty too but was loathed to prepare anything and I told E that we would be dining out. She raised no objections either and off we went to enjoy the afternoon in one of our haunts. No wine this time but a couple of glasses of cider and on the way home E dropped me off at my local so that I could put in an appearance after seven weeks absence. I had but one drink and bought one drink for a friend before walking home a half-hour later behaving myself by not making a night of it but I may make another trip for that soon. On Friday, the 27th, I will have known E for exactly 40 years and I have already told her that I want to take her out for a special meal to mark the occasion. She is selecting the venue but she always does that anyway!
Shirley Anne
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Posted in Celebration, Electrical, House and Home, Lifestyle, Work | Tagged: Friday, Pipe, Sewage, Sink, Toilet, Tuesday, Washing machine, Water pipe | 2 Comments »
Posted by Shirley Anne on January 15, 2012
Image via Wikipedia
On Friday morning I had to go out in my little van to do an electrical job. On my return I wanted to put the van in the garage as I always do when my working day has finished and on Friday that time was noon because I was going to be dining out with E. I opened the garage door which is done manually but assisted by two large springs one on each side of the door. These springs are attached to the bottom of the door sides by steel wires via pulleys. It all sounds complicated but in fact is a very simple mechanism. However I had been experiencing difficulty with the door lifting mechanism and was having to constantly replace the steel wire on to its pulley on one side of the door. I wrote about this a few days ago. I had cured the problem by fitting a spacer which allowed the pulley to align more easily with the door. This solved the problem with the steel wire jumping out of the pulley wheel. I hadn’t noticed any wear on the wire but when I closed the door after putting the van in the garage on Friday I heard an enormous clanging sound and I knew that something had gone wrong. I wasn’t able to open the door from the outside so I went into the house and entered the garage through the cellar door. I discovered that the steel wire had snapped part of the way along its length and could not be repaired. In the past I have purchased the steel wire and fitted it myself but later I used a local guy who specialises in fitting and repairing garage doors. As his work was good and his prices very reasonable I employed him to repair the door the last time the wire broke. I have asked him back to repair the door this time too and he is coming at noon today to do so. Whilst he was on the telephone I asked him if he would be prepared to fit the roller-shutter door in the other garage for me. He said he would give me an estimate for that work when the other job is done. To be honest all I really want is to have the roller door lifting onto the brackets I have already fitted but to be truthful I would rather give him the job if he is prepared to do it as I am tired of not being in a position to do it myself. There is very little work involved, most of the electrical work is done really and what is left is mostly confined to the fitting of the door on its brackets and fitting the channels in which it rides up and down on the wall. Finally after years of waiting, the ‘new’ garage will be useable! Much work has been done on this garage when last summer we fitted windows, doors and a partition internal wall and there is still some outstanding work left which will get done when the weather is warmer.
Shirley Anne
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Posted in House and Home, Uncategorized | Tagged: Construction and Maintenance, Doors and Windows, Garage door, Garage door opener, Overhead Doors, Pulley | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on January 3, 2012
Image by teachernz via Flickr
Well it is Tuesday morning and I am off to Liverpool today, to the Queen Elizabeth 11 Crown Court to do another stint at jury service. I have no idea if my services will be required or not, nobody does until the day itself but it would be a shame to have to take time out if I am not subsequently elected. There is a possibility that I won’t make it as a juror but I’ll have to wait and see. It was Christmas Eve when I last did some electrical work and it might be a further two weeks before I get the chance to work again but if jobs are scarce I do have work to start on at home. Late last summer E and I purchased materials and fittings for converting our downstairs toilet/cloakroom into a wet room containing a shower, toilet and wash basin but we never got round to starting the job. Presently the room is stripped of wall and floor coverings but still has a working toilet and wash basin which must be removed before we can begin the installation. Happy days again. Work at home never seems to end. We plan to completely renovate the second largest bedroom on the first floor at some point. At the moment the room is full of odds and ends which need to be thrown out or stored in the cellar, the carpet requires changing and no doubt I will need to add a couple of extra power outlets too. Then there is the furniture to buy, bed, wardrobes and such. To be fair the room hasn’t had a proper make-over for years and it really needs it. There is no special reason for doing it up but it will allow its use as a guest room. There are two spare bedrooms on the top floor (the third bedroom is being used for storage and as an office) but they are only fitted out with the bare essentials so it would be nice to have a larger and better appointed room as one of the four main bedrooms situated on the floor below. This will mean that we have six of the seven bedrooms available for use, although E and I are using two of them. For the moment I am focused on my trips to Liverpool and all of this can wait. When it gets a little warmer I really must push to get the garage finished too but the main thing there is getting that roller door installed! No, it hasn’t been fitted yet but all that is needed is to get it raised to ceiling height and onto the brackets I fitted a few months ago, the rest should be easy. It is hard getting things done when there is no-one available to help.
Shirley Anne
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Posted in House and Home, Law | Tagged: Bedroom, Crown Court, Home, Liverpool, Sink, Tuesday | 2 Comments »
Posted by Shirley Anne on December 21, 2011
I have not moved far away from my place of birth nor the places where I grew up. I was born in the heart of Liverpool on one wet Wednesday morning in the city’s Royal Hospital in November 1945. For the first three months of my life I lived with my parents in my aunty’s home after which we moved into our own home almost in the city centre and stayed there until 1958 when my family and I moved to the suburbs. By 1955 our family was complete, five children for mom and dad to look after. When I married in 1974 we couldn’t afford to buy our first house so we decided to rent an apartment for two years until we had a big enough deposit for a house. The apartment was in Bootle, just a couple of miles outside Liverpool city centre. Our first house was bought in a small town north of Liverpool about sixteen miles as the crow flies. We moved there in 1976 and left again to move into the house we now live in which is about 22 miles north of Liverpool, in Southport. We came here in 1988. Our decisions to move where we did were all based on our work and the need to be reasonably close to it. Had our circumstances been different we may have decided to locate in another part of the country. Compared to some parts of the country this area is perhaps lacking in dramatic scenery but it has a great heritage and history. The people who live hereabouts are some of the finest you will meet anywhere and some of the most friendly and welcoming. Having said that though I do find that people who were born in this town are less friendly than those who migrated here from Liverpool but that is a generalisation and it would be unkind to suggest that folk here are not friendly. I like being here because it is near the shore, the weather is fairly reasonable and the air coming from the Irish sea is fresh and clean. I think people grow to like the place where they live. When I first came here I was a little apprehensive as to what it would be like but I settled down soon enough. I have travelled across the globe but each time I have been away I longed to get back to my home territory and all these familiar places. It is good to live here as I am sure it is for those who live elsewhere. I suppose we make the places we live as our home and make them places where we can feel at home in a world that is often hostile and unstable. Home is where the heart is and my heart is here
Image by djmcaleese via Flickr
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Shirley Anne
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Posted in House and Home | Tagged: Bootle, England, Liverpool, Liverpool City Centre, Merseyside, Southport, Wednesday | 2 Comments »
Posted by Shirley Anne on December 20, 2011
The small mirror in the picture on the right now has lighting surrounding it. I installed that last week. Near the bed on the floor is an alarm unit I made which sounds when one of the floodlights in the front of the house is activated. (Click on pictures to enlarge)
Shirley Anne
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Posted in House and Home | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on December 3, 2011
Image by kevin dooley via Flickr
I am quite an active person, when there are things to do I get on with them. These days my electrical work comes and goes and I find myself either with nothing to do on some days and at other times I am fully occupied. Now I am not getting any younger, like everyone else, so I cannot do as much now as I was once able to do but even so I do far more than most people I know of the same age. I get tired of course I do but strangely enough I don’t seem to be able to sleep for longer periods than 4 or 5 hours at a time. On Wednesday morning I planned to get up early and have a stint on my treadmill as I had no scheduled work. I went to bed at 11.30 the night before but watched television until around 1 am. I woke up around 6 but that is an estimate, I don’t have a clock in the room and I couldn’t be bothered to check the time on my mobile phone. I could tell approximately that is was 6 o’clock by the amount of light coming through the chink in the curtains. I closed my eyes again and went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up until 10.30. I really must have been tired. That happens sometimes when I need that extra sleep. It can be a bit awkward as we get older, not needing much sleep and therefore having more time awake but less to do in it! Physically I can only do so much but whilst I am still able I do what I can. The important thing is to find something to keep me interested. I spent almost half an hour on the treadmill before returning upstairs to bathe and dress and had the rest of the day to myself. Most of it was spent doing household chores and pursuing my hobbies. The exercising does help by the way!
Shirley Anne
- When will it end?! (familyphotographyandfood.wordpress.com)
- For the Love of Sleep (glimmerdesigns.wordpress.com)
- How Exercise Affects Your Sleep (sleepoptionsmattress.wordpress.com)
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Posted in Activity, Hobbies, House and Home, Lifestyle, Rest and sleep | Tagged: Back to Sleep, Health, Housekeeping, Time | 2 Comments »
Posted by Shirley Anne on October 4, 2011
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In 1988 we took out a mortgage in order to buy the house we are still living in. It was an endowment mortgage meaning the funds to buy the house were loaned to us and we then had to produce that loan at the end of the term and pay it back. Along the way of course we paid the interest on that loan and to do that we took out an endowment insurance policy which covered us in the event that we were unable to keep up the payments. Some of the money the insurance company took from us was placed into a fund that earned interest and the theory was that at the end of the term there would be enough to repay the original loan. Each year we receive a statement from the fund managers to see how much we have accrued during the time span of the policy. Unfortunately those funds will not be enough to pay off the original loan because the global recession in these last few years has reduced the amount of interest that we could earn. I have the cash to cover the shortfall but at this moment I have no idea how much that will be, I only have what could be the maximum amount. I hope it will reduce a little more before the termination of the mortgage. That is in twenty months time. Not having to pay the interest or the insurance will be a blessing and will allow us a little more income each month. No doubt that money will be spent where it is needed. I feel sorry for those who are embarking on the journey to buy their first home at this time when the financial world is in upheaval and where mortgages are hard to come by and for those who have a mortgage and finding it a struggle to keep up with payments. The world is in a bit of a mess and it is difficult to see where it is all going to end. The only way is forward and I hope those who are setting off will be able to say in the future that they are nearly there too.
Shirley Anne
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Posted in House and Home, Money | Tagged: Endowment mortgage, Financial Services, Funds, Insurance, Loan, Mortgage, Mortgage loan | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on September 27, 2011
When I was at the doctor’s surgery last week there was a guy in the car park carrying out a valet on a vehicle owned by one of the staff. He was doing it when I arrived and was still doing it half an hour later. I chatted with him and found out that he had suffered a couple of heart attacks and now cleans vehicles instead of his previous job which I didn’t get a chance to ask about. He was starting afresh in life, having a clean sweep as it were. I asked him what he would charge me for cleaning the cab of my van, which is like having half the interior of a large saloon car cleaned. The outside doesn’t need cleaning and in any case I do that myself in about twenty minutes and the carriage area, that is were all my electrical stuff is stored gets a clean out once a year by myself. He told me he would charge £20 which includes shampooing the carpets and seats. He is coming this morning (Tuesday) to do the job.
Every so often I have a clean-out of my bedroom and in other rooms of the house (although to a lesser extent). I think it is a good idea to have a good clean-out every so often. It is quite amazing what rubbish I find I have accumulated after a short time. My office, that is the room I use for an office, gets cleaned of out-of-date paperwork, invoices etc. although I have to keep the last five years worth of documents for tax purposes. It still leaves a lot of paper to store away. Cardboard boxes keep it under control. When I look back at my life it has always been one in which I have regularly had a clean sweep because it has always been necessary!
Shirley Anne
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Posted in Behaviour, House and Home, Maintenance | Tagged: Cleaning, Cleanliness, Feather duster, Home | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on September 21, 2011
I have been into many homes, it’s part of what I do as an electrician. The actual number must run into thousands. I have been in real hovels where the occupier has had little respect for themselves let alone their house. I have been in houses where the owners have done their best to make their home clean and tidy with as much investment in it as their income would allow, you might say house-proud. I have been in houses that look like show pieces where everything is neatly stacked away with nothing out-of-place and where every move I made was closely followed by a brush and shovel. There have been homes that I would never dream of living in and those that were most inviting. My own house is fairly well-appointed, fairly well decorated and fairly clean but most of all it is a home, a lived-in house and not one that I am terrified of anyone daring to put a cushion out of place in. It’s all about attitude to life I suppose. Some folk take things far too seriously and I think often afraid of actually living out their lives without imposing all the rules they have in place for those living in their homes. Take a close look at your own home and see if it is inviting to any visitors. Do you make too much fuss when visitors call or can they find a more relaxed environment when they visit your place?
Shirley Anne
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Posted in House and Home | Tagged: Cleanliness, Home, Houses, Living room | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on August 11, 2011
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We were promised rain for yesterday and when I got up from my bed I discovered we hadn’t any! That is until I set off to work! It started as I was driving out of my garage and didn’t stop until I arrived at my destination. Whilst I was inside the house doing my thing there was again no rain to be seen. I finished the job by one o’clock but as soon as I started to drive back home it began to rain again. As I arrived back home the rain ceased but I had to go outdoors again, twice, to place items in the yet to be emptied re-cycle bin. Each time I stepped out of the door it rained. I was beginning to think that it rained only when I was outside but in fact it continued to rain for the remainder of the day, heavily really heavily! I suppose it is ok if you are a duck! Things are quiet on the home front and nothing has been done regarding the garage door but our eldest son dropped by the night before last with his ever-growing wife who is now just about half-way through her pregnancy and he is keen to help organising the fitting when he gets some time free. I am waiting to see his work roster so we can arrange a day.
Shirley Anne
Posted in House and Home, Weather, Work | Tagged: Weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on August 5, 2011
Well it has been a week since I did anything, work that is, at home. I promised myself a breather and hard as it was for me to refrain from working at home I managed to do just that. I have had work away from home in my capacity as an electrician, yesterday was a busy day for example. I thought that I would get bored but somehow I managed to find things to do, playing my guitar a lot more than usual almost wore out my fingers! There are things I want to get on with and I am waiting for my two sons to be available to help get the roller door in place but I need to organise some staging first. Once I get the door in place I can fit the guides and the control gear. The next job I want to tackle is rebuilding the concrete steps leading to the garage back door and tidying up the wall around that door. After that there is an internal block wall to build and existing walls to tidy up by applying a concrete render. A host of small jobs really but they will take some time to do. Fortunately I have plenty of time on my hands these days. I just hope I can remain fit and healthy enough to complete them!
Image by revger via Flickr
Yesterday I received an email from Lotte, a friend of mine, who has been spending the last three months travelling around the world. She flew east to places like Thailand and Australia and now she tells me she is in San Francisco! Working her way back home. Well not actually working of course, lucky girl! It will be great to see her again when she finally gets back home and tells me about her adventures. If you are reading this Lotte, Hi…..take care, see you soon!
Shirley Anne
Posted in Friendship, House and Home, Rest and relaxation, Work | Tagged: Friendship, Lotte, Rest and relaxation, San Francisco, Thailand, Travel, Work | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on July 28, 2011
Yesterday was another glorious day here on the north-west coast at Southport. 
Weather for sitting around in and relaxing but I had to do the work I promised I would do the day before. The garage electrical circuits are now all fully functioning. E took me to a local store to purchase a light fitting for the roof above the rear steps as we had forgotten to buy it the day before. I also diverted the supply to the floodlight on the garage front so that it, along with everything else in and around the garage would be supplied by the garage distribution board. After I had completed that work I set about fixing some wooden battens over the rear access to the storage area which is inside the garage but above the rear steps to the garage. I need to make this opening secure by fitting some heavy-duty plywood over the hole. I have a small job to do for someone this morning so I will have to continue with the garage later. I also have to fit the woodwork for the roller door’s metal guides on each side of the garage opening and the newly cleaned and painted brackets need to be replaced on the wall. I didn’t finish working until 6.30 last night after starting at 9.30 in the morning so I was glad for the rest but I’m ready to start again today! It looks like we are in for some more fine weather this weekend so maybe a barbie is on the cards? Must remember to get some charcoal though!
Shirley Anne
Posted in Activity, House and Home | Tagged: Distribution board, Garage, Home and Garden, Southport | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on July 26, 2011
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Yesterday, Monday morning, I managed to have a sleep in for an extra hour or so. I say ‘extra’ but in fact I must have needed it. Usually all I have ever needed during the last twenty years or so is a mere four and a half to five and a half hours sleep each night, dependent of course on how tired I have been through working hard. Occasionally I get some extra hours in bed which is ok provided I have no pressing need to get up. I cannot however simply lie there once I am awake, maybe ten minutes at the most but I get up after that. I have been procrastinating over doing a certain job in the garage, applying wood preserver to the roof timbers. The reasons for that are it is a messy affair and the roof is quite large. The actual area to be covered is almost twice the dimensions of the roof if one takes into account all the joists and trimmers as well for they each have three exposed sides to treat. The roof itself is marine plywood and is exposed to view from below. I don’t have a paint sprayer which would have been ideal for the job but I do have a couple of sprayers of sorts, large containers with a spray attachment for controlling weeds! Well after a late breakfast I decided to stop procrastinating and treat the garage roof. I modified the spray nozzle on one of the sprayers to give a wider spray, filled the container and set about spraying the roof. The only problem was that I had to keep pumping the spray head to maintain flow. Never again! I shall either buy a paint sprayer or borrow one in future! Anyhow, after a couple of hours I had it all done at last. Now despite being careful I did still manage to get the stuff on my hands. Plastic gloves were useless for the job as the liquid ‘melted’ the plastic! The only other gloves I had were too large and cumbersome. Well at least my hands won’t get wood worm infestation! It all came off easily anyway. Whilst I was doing the job I noticed an abundance of spiders of various sizes scampering away from the liquid spray. I don’t mind spiders as long as they keep out of my way (we have plenty of them inside the house, difficult things to get rid of but harmless, that is to us!). I thought no more about the spiders until I went indoors to visit the toilet and having completed what I had to do began to pull up my underwear (knickers to you! LOL) and what should I find inside them but a spider! Don’t ask! It was obviously lost and very much dead.
After lunch I decide to remove the two brackets that had been fitted to support the roller-shutter door because they had become a little corroded and needed cleaning up. I scraped them down and immersed them in oil and set fire to them, repeating this a few times until the oil had penetrated the metal surface. This is a proven method of making mild steel rust-proof but it does take time. Once they had cooled down I cleaned them and applied a special rust-proofing paint. I will give them a second coat today and replace them on the wall when dry. All I need now is to borrow some scaffolding and organise the fitting of the roller-shutter door. Hopefully we may have an almost completed garage soon!
Shirley Anne
Posted in House and Home | Tagged: Home, Roller shutter, Roof, Spider, Sprayer | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Shirley Anne on July 25, 2011
I was up and out working at 8 o’clock yesterday morning. I had rested all day Saturday so was ready to do something. The main jobs were to remove the bricks and then the stones that had been stored in the garage but first of all, where to put them? I had it in mind to store them on the concrete platform that stands behind the old garage but first I had to remove some garden furniture and other things that had been left there. Using a wheelbarrow I proceeded to remove the bricks and re-stack them on the concrete platform. This took me over an hour of continuous labour. The next hour was spent shifting the stones and re-arranging the other items stored on the platform. At last! I could see the garage floor! By this time E had come outside to help. She was applying wood preserver to the parts of the new partition wall that had not yet been done and also some spare plywood sheets. Meanwhile I fitted some skirting boards and architraves to the partition wall which is now complete. There was quite a lot of off-cuts of wood as well as old wood pieces that needed to be removed and burned. This was my next job. In the past, before we had a vegetable plot, the area was used to burn large amounts of old wood, tree branches and the like but now the area has been landscaped and planted so we have to burn the wood elsewhere. We have an old metal waste bin that we use for burning wood now. It has holes in the base thus allowing an air up-draught, perfect for burning. However, with such a large amount of wood, including some old branches we found in the garage, it was necessary to stay with the fire to both feed it and to make sure the fire remained safe. By the time the wood had burned a couple of hours had passed by and I was beginning to smell of wood smoke! It was around 4.30 when I decided I’d had enough and went back indoors both to rest and to get washed and changed. There is always another day. The garage is looking more like a garage now although there is still much to do yet.
Shirley Anne
Posted in House and Home, Work | Tagged: Garage, Home, Wood, Work | Leave a Comment »
