Project: Extension - Day 12

Hmm... Day 12. It has been very dry for a few days now. But is bitterly cold. It is also after 9am and there is no sign of anybody on site. I haven't seen the main builder dude since Tuesday. I think he might be embarrassed to come out in the daylight now that movember is reaching it's gripping conclusion. And I can only think that the Trade Union of Brickies forbids them from working in sub-zero temperatures.

The setting moon marks the start of another exciting day of bricklaying in the cold. At least I hope it does.

Eventually we got a delivery of more bricks. And somebody turned up to move them around and make a neat pile. He also gave the site a bit of clean, which was nice. No digging or cementing or actual progress today though.

Project: Extension - Day 11

The back is coming along. That scaffolding has since been put together. Bricks are like Lego. Scaffolding is like Mechano.

Still got Mordor going on at the front. Nothing has happened for two days, other than the mud has dried out a bit.

Crosswords

I can't believe I haven't yet mentioned crosswords in my blog. They are something I have been trying to get into for a few years. I have had at least two "How to solve cryptic crosswords" books, and in recent weeks I definitely feel I have improved a notch or two.

My most recent "how to solve cryptic crosswords" is actually really hard. I look at that at lunch times, whilst in the evenings I have ago at my collection of Daily Mail crosswords. And I generally seem to make more headway with the Daily Mail ones.

So today, I figured I had some time to kill and picked up a copy of "The Sun". Which I understand to contain a good "entry level" crossword. And amazingly enough, I finished it. I was dead chuffed. Not only is it the first time ever that I have finished a cryptic crossword, but it is the first time I have ever answered all the clues in any crossword. (Excluding, perhaps, exceptionally easy ones. For example the ones aimed a children. Where the answers are "Honey", "Tasty", "Monster", "Breakfast" and "Spoon".)

Believe it - cos it's true.

I didn't do it completely unaided. But I honestly believe you are allowed to use dictionaries and the internet when doing cryptic crosswords. Especially hard ones. I worked out that "mountaineer" is an anagram of "enumeration", but failed to spot that "Esperanto" is an anagram of "person eat". I did however identify that I was to make an anagram of those letters and the answer might be "a set of words".

I had to use the straight clues to help in a few places. But I only wrote the answer in when I understood the cryptic bit. For example, "The others come down and hold". The straight clue is "curb, control", and using the letters in the grid I decided that the answer was probably "restrain". But how to get that from "The others come down". I believe the answer is "The others" = "rest" and "come down" = "rain".

This is the pastry and coffee I enjoyed while attempting the crossword.

Before my books got me solving the occasional clue, they taught me a few things about crosswords. Like, the Sun is easier than the Times, but it still a proper crossword. I also learnt that anagrams and "hidden word" clues are easy. And the frequency of those clues is an indication of how hard the crossword is. By that reckoning this Sun crossword is particularly easy.

Out of the 24 clues, eight were anagrams, and three were hidden words. I don't think there are any abbreviations at all. The very first thing I learnt about crosswords was that "queen" gives you the letters "ER". The second was that I should keep an open mind about that. There are lots of other crossword devices that were missing from this puzzle. For example references to historic figures or literature, references to other clues and that thing where consecutive clues are somehow linked and joined with ellipses. There was also a lack of clues going "back" or "up".

One of the many things I like about crosswords is that in both tangible and intangible ways you get into the mindset of the compiler. They might not be so big on abbreviations, for example! In my Daily Mail crossword book, I also appreciate how there are connections between puzzles. For example the first five all had a clue with the words "open course" in them. From looking at the answers I decided this was probably something to do with golf. Needlesstosay, I didn't get any of those clues. On the other hand, the next puzzles all contained clues about "stones". See if you can get them all!

• Stone could make them stay (8)
• Stone Oswald's assassin (4)
• Stone endless old poetess with anger (8)
• Stone's barely metamorphosed without one (5)
• An entrance of stone (5)

In other news I impulse bought a "cocquille saint Jacques". I had heard of this recipe from Michel Roux Junior's book, and so naturally thought it was an exciting delicacy that takes hours to prepare. Turns out that it is £1.49 from Morrison's and you just bung it in the oven for 12 minutes. It was pretty good too. Like a little fish pie.

Photographing food is an art in itself. But I definitely think my shell is the wrong way round.

Project: Extension - Day 10

Day 10. It's cold and windy. But at least it is bright and sunny. The rain has stopped. A perfect day for making 14 year old boys crawl around in the cold mud and calling it rugby. Well, that is what happened at my school anyway.

Was quite windy again last night. I believe that gazebo thing is supposed to be upright, but I hardly ever see it like that. I usually wake up to find it stuck in the neighbours tree.

My lawn! My beautiful lawn!

You can see where the door is going to be!

Today, for the first time I offered the builders a hot drink. It's one thing to hide upstairs and try to pretend I am not in, but quite another when I am stood on the other side of a window making risotto while they are working hard in the freezing cold. They accepted my tea and everybody was happy for a bit. When they left for the day I realised I hadn't got my cups back. Had I done something to upset them? I suddenly remembered the phrase "builder's tea". Maybe I hadn't made it strong enough? Definitely less than the approved 3 minutes. And nowhere neat the 8 minutes required to make the eponymous builders drink.

I went on a late night sortie to try to recover the cups. Lest they get flecked with cement, which might dry on them, making them pretty much unusable. Found one, the other is still missing. Wouldn't it be cool if it was inside the wall? What would future historians make of that?

In other developments we received a delivery of scaffolding today. Which has yet to be built.

Project: Extension - Day 9

Like a medieval Lord, I feel quite secure knowing that invading forces (and Jehovah's witnesses) have to cross my moat before they can get in. Not only that, but when I open the door I will knock them into the muddy hole!

The walls are going up! Yay.

"Aire Concrete. You only pay for what you lay"

I spy with my little eye... My watering can and favourite gardening trug being used to make cement.  I am quite sad about that.

Project: Extension - Day 8

There may not have been any workmen doing anything on Sunday, but the elements meant the day wasn't completely uneventful. The tarpaulin that was supposed to be protecting the rest of my house was flapping all over when I got up. My first attempt to pin it down under a couple of bricks didn't last more than an hour. Not one to over-react I only used 8 bricks when I went out again. Needlesstosay, that held it in place all day. Oh, and there was a puddle of water in the middle of my lounge that came in overnight. 

Yay, waterlogged garden. It's never been like that before.  Fortunately, the floor of the new room is at the top of that little wall, so it has to rain an awful lot more before we will get water inside.

Everybody's favourite lorry driver was back this morning with some more bricks and sand and cement and stuff.

This is the challenge you were faced with when trying to leave my house today. Fortunately the postman delivered the H&M catalogue before this hole was dug.

It turns out that the most interesting part of day 8 is not something you can really take photos of. At about 4pm David in his little digger cut through the power line to the house. Which isn't ideal to say the least. So we were without any heating or lighting, or hot tea, or internet, or more importantly Cbeebies for about 4 hours until that was fixed. It wasn't all bad though, I could at least order some fashionable shirts by candlelight using the catalogue that had arrived earlier.

Project: Extension - Day 6

The cement mixer has arrived. And various bricks and building materials have been distributed around the site. This is an exciting time, the transition between destroying and making a mess, and constructing something new.

Nothing is going to happen tomorrow, it's a day of rest. That is to say, no men are going to turn up and do things with bricks and power tools. What is going to happen is that everything is going to get pelted by wind and rain. And that lovely blue sheet is going to whip around and make lots of noise.

Project: Extension - Days 1-5

Just a quick summary to get us up to date, then I can start with daily highlights of what is occurring.

Our extension was more than a bit DIY. And had a few problems. Like it was freezing in winter, kinda hot in summer (because none of the windows opened), and leaked quite badly when it was raining. A plan was hatched to do something about it.

Day 1. The old structure was pulled down. Revealing it had a hidden door in the wall, and was insulated with ceiling tiles.

Start of day 2: We have a radiator outside. How cool is that.

Everybody likes little trucks and diggers. They are so cute. But if they fall over it's can be a bit tricky to get them  upright again.

Days 3,4 and 5 contained some very deep holes in the ground and lots of extra thick concrete to remove.

Day 5: Answered the door to a lovely man with an inpenetrable geordie accent who said (I think), "I have a delivery of 26 tonnes of concrete. Where would you like me to put it, pet?"