How to fit a purlin ring!

For reasons I don't fully understand (erm, actually - don't understand at all!), Himself decided to put the main rafters on the tea house roof and then fit the purlin ring whereas I would have done it the easy way and put the purlin ring on without the rafters in the way ........ but this is probably why he's in charge and I'm only Technician, 3rd Class!

The purlin ring was glued together on the yard, chocked up so that it didn't twist on the slope, then held firmly together with the strop. (for non-British readers, in the UK the 'yard' means just the hard surfaced area outside the back door - everything else is the garden! It gets very confusing at times when blogs talk about their yard, then show you the garden!)

Moving swiftly on from discussions on the joys of a common language........!
The purlin ring.

We roped in several of our strong male friends, Garth, Big Dave and Big Dave's FiL - Pete, to help with the manouver. The next 10 photos show how it was done. Apparently it would have been a lot easier without a big deep pond in the way!

Once the purlin ring was safely in place and tea and biscuits had been devoured by the workers (got to look after your staff, you never know when you might need them again!), Himself took all the 'bird's beak' wedges he'd saved when he'd previously cut them out of the rafters where they rested on the main beams. He turned them over and glued them onto the purlin ring under each rafter to give extra support - always thinking that man!

He then did the final adjustments to the corner post...

cut the appropriate sized piece out of the corner rafter.....

and tried it for size! It fitted - naturally!

He put the corner wedges in place.......

then cut the bottom edge at an angle.......


and worked his way along the front and back sides of the roof fitting the remaining rafters.

Until he got to the point of feeling that the roof frame was finally secure enough to take off the extra batons!


And what was I doing whilst all this was going on? (apart from clambering over scaffolding and making tea!) .......... that's in the next post!

The day my brother came to help!

During this past week whilst I was languishing in my sickbed, racked with fever and a hacking cough, with Vaseline being my facial moisturiser of choice and necessity, my brain (having nothing better to do with itself) sidled off into a corner and began to ponder on some of life's imponderable mysteries: why was I wrapped in an invisible electric blanket?, where on earth was the 'off' switch?, why can't I successfully grow carrots?, how come I can only see the hills on the other side of the valley in winter? (yeah, yeah - I know it's because the trees are bare! I told you I was pyrexic!), where does the horizon go on grey, snowy days? and - The Biggy - when would my tea house be finished?

I still don't know the answer to the last one (or as to why I can't grow carrots!), but I thought it was time I caught up a bit on where we've got to. My big brother, Our Dave, (not to be confused with my father-in-law, David, who helped put the frame up!) came up for the weekend in July to help put the rafters on.

Introducing Our Dave!

Some of you may now be wondering why he's called Our Dave? Easy - I'm from Yorkshire, that's how we talk! (Himself's NOT from Yorkshire and therefore he speaks posher than I do!) British readers will be nodding their heads sagely at this point but, for the benefit of non-Brits, I'll explain:

In Yorkshire, immediate family members are often referred to as 'Our ..........', to denote to outsiders that they are family. I'm 'Our Liz' or 'Our Kid' (little sister). Some families even talk about 'our mam' and 'our dad'. 'Me' can also be substituted for 'Our' - eg; 'me dad', 'me brother'. Quick, easy, avoids long explanations! HOWEVER, you've got to get the pronunciation right - Yorkshire has quite a flat, guttural intonation, so 'our' is really pronounced 'ower' and you have to be able to hear that w! So he's really 'Ower Dave', oh, and 'Me ...' is pronounced 'Mi' and Monday is pronounced Mundi, but there you go!

So, anyway, back to the tea house!

First Himself and Ower Dave re-jigged the scaffold tower to make a safe working platform.

Health and Safety would have had a field day, but it was actually a lot more solid than it looks - honest!

....take a whole load of wood and turn them into rafters - your time starts ... now!

Standing 6 ft up on a slightly wobbly scaffold tower is not the best position to try to cut precision wedges!

One of many 'bird's beak' wedges carefully cut by Himself and Ower Dave.

Accuracy is paramount.

The first rafter in place and upright at last!

The odd shaped piece at the apex is just a temporary fixture to assist with stability.

It's quite difficult to see from this angle but Himself had marked out every single rafter and taken them down to school where the D&T technician had cut them all with a 5* curve along one long side.(oh the perks of me being a Governor!) Himself had then glued the cut piece onto the other side to keep the width of the rafter whilst giving it a very gentle overall curved shape to make the bottom edge flick out a bit - just like a 'proper' tea house!

Sighting along the rafters prior to the main beam going in.

Finishing off the day by fixing a couple of batons for extra stability - you can never have too much temporary extra stability!

...... and thanks for your help Ower Dave! :)

Good things seem to come in threes!

....... and that certainly seems to have been my recent experience!

My First Good Thing:
Back in December I entered a competition set by Monica at http://gardenfaerie.blogspot.com/ to work out her favourite modern art sculpture at Meijer Gardens (easy - there were several photos of a bright orange 'thing', which was 'Aria' by Alexander Liberman!) and to identify where the lyrics "Caw! I guess it was alive!" came from.
I spent ages trawling t'internet in search of that flippin' quote ........I finally found it on YouTube done as a song called Mounted Animal Nature Trail by the Arrogant Worms (most amusing!)

Anyway, the upshot of my sheer stubborness not to be defeated by song lyrics from an obscure Canadian band meant that I was the very lucky winner of 'The Painted Garden - a year in words and watercolours' by Mary Woodin.


It's beautifully illustrated book as you can see from the photo below. It's a cracking good read, but you can also just dib into it for the sheer pleasure of looking at the paintings and picking up little snippets of useful information such as 'plant crocuses near lavendar to stop the birds pecking the petals' - a real gem! I love it ...thank you Monica :)

She also sent me some very scrummy 'Twilight Delight' dark chocolate, which I thoroughly enjoyed and which made me re-evaluate my relationship with American chocolate! Me and Hershey Bars have never really bonded!

My Second Good Thing:

Around the same time, Diana at http://voiceinthegarden.blogspot.com/ offered a limited edition print of one of her paintings to celebrate her anniversary of 3 years of blogging. I was obviously up there amongst the best begging letters in her comments box (oh how I can grovel when I really, really want something!) and was honoured to be chosen.

She sent me this lovely print of 'The Train Station', which is hand signed and numbered - but I can't tell you the number right now as the print is away at the framers even as I type. I'm hoping it'll be done within the next few days and I can't wait to get it back! I know exactly where I'm going to put it - which wasn't where I first thought of, but doesn't involve redecorating!!!

Sadly my photo really doesn't do it justice though.Thank you so much Di, I'll treasure it and care for it :)

My Third Good Thing:

is Himself!

This will seem obvious to regular readers as Himself is the star in my firmament in all things tea house (and lots of other things too ....... ooops, starting to wax a bit lyrical and soppy here, but you know what I mean!)

ANYWAY, the reason this time is non-tea house related! For ages now we've had an old clock in the hall which Himself found on ebay. (the clock, not the hall!) It came out of the old Vauxhall car factory and was the master clock used to regulate all the other clocks in the factory as well as the clocking on/off machine. He did some fancy electronic magic to make it work, but really wanted to find a slave clock to run off it.

(ignore the mushy pea green hall ....NOT our choice, but there's no point in decorating here until we've done everywhere else!)

Having finally found a slave clock on ebay, Himself discovered that one clock had a 30 second motion and the other had a 1 minute motion. This called for even greater electronic wizardry so, whilst we'd got the hatches battened down during the great snows, Himself got to work and produced this thing of beauty...........!

The end result was that the slave clock in the kitchen is now wired into the master clock in the hall - so we now have two clocks that actually tell the same (and correct) time! The clock suits the age and style of the house and fits in beautifully. It's also made of the same type of wood as the renovated servants bell box which is in the kitchen.

I'm chuffed to bits with it ...and Himself!


What en excellent start to 2010!

Ooops, forgot to mention that I'd promised First-born I'd give a little plug to her Etsy shop, http://www.etsy.com/shop/cooplet . She makes gorgeous things out of reclaimed and vintage materials, and all her packaging is recycled. Here are a couple of examples of her work:

A handstitched patchwork cushion

..... and recycled envelopes made into notebooks.

Pop in and have a look! Thanks :)

Trudging home in the snow.

In a moment of madness I decided to enter the January Picture This Photo Contest on the www.gardeninggonewild.com blog. Why? I have no idea - I blame the mulled wine!

But anyway, here is my entry:

Almost Home!

Winter for me is about our family having fun together in the snow, then warming up in front of the wood burning stove whilst drinking hot chocolate.

The photo is First-born starting the long slog up our drive to our warm house and that hot chocolate - enough to make anyone smile! And, yes, the backpack was full - and quite heavy.

We had braved the elements yesterday (thermaled up to the eyeballs, naturally!) and walked and slid our way down to the local shop for in a (not very) epic expedition for emergency supplies ..... milk, eggs, crumpets and a trashy magazine! Needs must eh?!

Below is a photo of the topmost part of the very steep road down to the shop. The photo does not do justice to how steep this road actually is. We NEVER drive on it even in the Land Rover when there is any amount of ice or snow. It wiggles down the hill to the main road at the bottom - with no flat bit to stop any sliding before you get there!

A red cotoneaster hedge en route.

I have never seen our telephone wires so iced up!

I was going to enter this photo in the competition, but the other one made me smile more! :)

Ceefer cat is totally unimpressed by the snow!

The animal prints are actually on the ice on the pond.

I had to rescue the brassica cage before it broke this morning.

Last-Born and her friends built a new snowman yesterday as they had decided that the remains of the old one was just "too freaky"!

Is it just us that thinks he looks like a gargoyle?!

.....or maybe a left over angel from the 'Blink' episode of Dr.Who? Oh let David Tennant come rescue me with his sonic screwdriver and the Tardis!!!