After a few early chores around Raveloe House, it was right over to Milby this morning to meet and let in the chimney sweep, the same chap we’ve always used thankfully also covers our new area.
That done, it was time for a strategic turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sandwich before cracking on with the house. As it happened, I spent a lot of time tidying up the rubble from the past few day’s work — last night I just couldn’t stand to sweep up after demolishing the hall wall.
Mr D., another of our NCT friends, joined the fun around lunchtime and got to work demolishing another bit of wall in the hall while I carefully sorted the lumps of plasterboard from the dust. Very time consuming but important, apparently, because the plaster dust is good to condition clay soils.
The rest of the family turned up later, Mrs Revivalist seeing the house for the first time in daylight and with electricity, and her mother for the first time ever. Mother-in-law investigated one of two under-stairs cuppoards and discovered it was totally loaded with old curtains and sheets before heading off to Waitrose to get some Christmas supplies.
Mr D. and I held the ladder for Mr. H as he went up to the roof to bodge a temporary fix for the dodgy guttering which has been flooding our ground floor. Hopefully, it will hold out for a little while and especially over Christmas.
Among the other rancid gunk found in the collapsed, blocked gutter was a tennis ball, nerf gun darts, and a lot of horrid old leaves.
We also go to have the first peek into the downstairs cupboard, which happily looks both dry and tiled.
All done we headed back to Raveloe and moved the sideboard before having a big pile of meat for dinner. It has been a very hard week and I’m very glad to have a few days off to relax with the family for Christmas!
Doing American radio at 2330…
The Young Revivalists 