Last free day

Sunday, 30th September

Up early again - getting to be a habit.  First round of laundry in...

And these guys around the house, variously grazing the meadow and raiding the bird-feeder!



To Arundel for Church; Bevan led worship.  A lengthy, simple but utterly convinced message about "Good News".  He started with the story of his granddaughters going to a Bluejays game - and being feted - and moved on to his utter conviction of the Good News of the Gospel.  As I said, lengthy, simple but utterly convinced.

To Rona for some more insulation rods - none to be had so we picked them up at  CT instead.  Via the petrol station in Labelle to leave a package for Audrey.  The attendants were completely unsurprised by the idea; happens all the time.





Then to Mark and Janis' for the Apple Pressing.  Lots of people, lots of food!  A great event.



Karen and Denis came home with us - Denis needs little trees to surround the new build; now delayed to the 9th of October, so he has in turn delayed his flight to Arizona....

And we received approval for our porch.  Not too surprising, really?









Screen room roof support put in place, canoes to racks, more laundry.  Back door screens replaced with windows.....

A doze (!) and supper.  Bits and bats tomorrow before the big tidy up and away to K and D overnight and flying out on Tuesday!

This has been a simply brilliant trip.  The last month has been a bit of an endurance event but , hey!

Help is at hand....

Saturday, 29th September

A 7.00 am start!  (unheard of - but I ache so maybe that has something to do with it?).  Down to Yves and Lucie's place - where we have had the cladding from - to deposit an excess of waste.  Then more cladding of our own - little slices above the doorway and on to draft-proofing the door.  I have had to bodge the lower edge.  No one seems to sell door back brush strips and the floor slopes (probably something to do with the weight on the front edge).  I really should fit rising butt hinges - in the winter, in the winter....

At 9.00 am, Derek arrived by arrangement; we have (at least) two trees down - there are a lot more but these are noticeable.  What we would call Silver Birch and a Maple, both very good for firewood.  And there is / was another down across the trail, a confer of some sort.  It was all the way across, like some huge, bristly border post.  Three hours, four trees, the useful ones logged and stacked, the conifer discretely sidelined......  Thank you Derek.

And at 9.30 the man from the window company came to fit new, thicker units.  That solves the sealer issue.  Doesn't help with the lack of paint on the beading strips (baguettes - of course!)  but it means that we're snug and will be elegant in the window department in due course.

And we gradually, distraction by distraction, pulled the porch construction together - dodging the heavy rain showers of course.  That wasn't forecast.....

At some point, the fair weather meant that I could go to paddle the Big Green Canoe around to Yves (Cloutier)'s dock to pull it out for the season.  Sad but such a lovely day for a paddle....  Crystal clear water, inquisitive fish.  Perfic.

Why on earth - apart from seeing family - are we leaving this wonderful place?  Beats me!

We dropped in to Yves (C) - to ask formal permission to use his dock to come ashore ( I think he liked that, and why not, eh?) and to chat a little.  He really is not very well.  He has put on a lot of weight and complains of his lungs.  He may not be able to clear the snow for us this year.  We shall make contact in the end of November, beginning of December to see how the land lies.

Ali came to help me pull the boat back home.  She hovered at the gate, embarrassed by her trousers - which are filthy from kneeling - but Yves was all gallantry, something about "But Madame, you make dirty trousers look charming!".  Very French gallant.  We hauled the canoe up the hill on its wheels and snugged it up in the barn.



Anyway; Ali has built a beasty-proof wire gauze enclosure around the foot of the deck and disguised it with a charming rock-fall; we spent some time closing the ends of  the step .  It looks good.    The door bottom is horrible - that will haunt me until February or whenever.  We think the porch is done.  So we cleared the house roof gutters and reinforced the one that flooded the basement last winter..  Let's see whether that works.

After supper we were all set to fit the roof supports for the screen room; honest we were!  But the light in there is a bit suspect and we decided instead to clear all the tools that have for nearly two weeks occupied pride of place in the living room down to their proper place in the basement.  Ali was very surprised that each has a place and I can describe it!  Not like me at all ;-)

Less geese flying over, but very well organised!






























The Hydrangea like flowers at the back of the house have changed colour again.














But we are so tired.  And without Derek's help, we would be soooo far behind!

Bob the builder....

Friday, 28th September

Can we fix it?  Yes we can!

Early start, in to the village to buy the aluminium section that was folded for us.  Then on with the cladding.  I really do have trouble with measuring - and then I realised that I was beginning to run low on acceptable pieces of siding.  Late morning ( the bitumen takes a while to warm up) Ali added the last row of shingles and we fitted the aluminium flashing to the existing weatherboard.

And then it was just a bustle to get the siding on.  I didn't quite run out, and I have some six inch, hidden pieces to close the gap above the door.  AND I have to make the door fit again.....














But, at 6.45 we downed tools;


grabbed showers, loaded the cot in to the van ( James will be too big for a cot if he comes in the winter - we hope he will) and drove very gingerly through the most torrential rain imaginable to supper with Lorne and Audrey. 








Good food, the best company, what's more to say?

And it was not raining on the way home - bonus.

Wheeee!

Thursday, 27th September

So much today; a real hardworking day.  It started fairly early as I had said that I wanted to see Marcel and his wife, Rachel, on this, his last day as owner of SOS Mecano, to take a photo.  I have never had a photo of them in all the time we've needed his help.



But Rachel was an age on the phone transferring their cars from commercial to personal insurance, and Marcel was changing one last set of wheels for a local gentleman to winter tyres...



Anyway, here's the last job, and here's the last hand-wash.  And here they are, and here's a kiss!


Up to BMR for some last bits; they bend aluminium!  That'll help finish the roof for sure.  Back home and to work on the cladding. 

And then the delightful man (and his 93 year old father, helping him!) who makes a living out of muck came to enter the Fosse Septique.  A rather rich pong - not evil, just noticeable - pervaded the locale.  We have to take the receipt to the Municipality to let them know we've had it done.

Ali spent time watching roofing videos - and then she set to and clad the roof!  I made various messes of the measuring variety but she just went up and down the ladder carrying "shingles" (tarpaulin tiles) and buckets of pitch and nails and goodness knows what else.  She finished waaaay after dark.  I had left a bag of frozen peas in the fridge, not the freezer, so I made a sort of peas pudding and we had cauliflower cheese.  Nursery grub and none the worse for that.



A very, very little to do tomorrow to that; I have rather more cladding to fight - its the ruling and the metric and the Imperial that gives me grief........

Like a scene from "the Scottish Play"

Tuesday, 25th September.

Act 1, Scene 1.  A desert place

(Thunder and lightning.  Enter three witches.)

First witch       When shall we three meet again

                         In thunder, lightning, or in rain?


Well, I don't know about three witches, an aged hag and his familiar perhaps!  We knew it would rain first thing - and so it did; but not so much that I couldn't get out to fit the font door.  The width I managed quite well; the top and bottom were a different matter and I rather savaged the sawing of them.  Hmm.


And then it was time to heave the winter wheels out of the barn, load them into the van and head off to Marcel at SOS Mecano to have them fitted.  He's selling up so it will be the last time that he does this for us.  He was in no mood to rush; he wanted to show me the transit van that he's converting to a dormobile so that he and his wife can "Be free".  He's had enough of the garage, and so has his wife; he agreed to sell it to two young relatives 9 months ago.  It has taken them that long to have the loan agreed.  So he took his time, chatted, balanced the winter wheels assiduously, pressure hosed them down, pressure hosed the summer wheels and loaded them in to the van for me.  I shall miss him and hope that we can keep in some sort of touch once he's retired.

Once home, I returned to the fray with the door but then the rain really came down for a while and so we took to internal chores; stowing some of the camping gear for a start!

After supper and with a tarpaulin suitably arranged around the south end of the building, rather like a bather trying to keep their modesty whilst changing on the beach, we fitted the third window from the inside.

Bed was very welcome.

Wednesday, 26th September.

A snatched photo - rain again and thunderstorms forecast.  Off to St Jovite to watch Denis' new house being delivered as well as to return some goods to Rona - an unwanted bale of insulation and two large, angled "Noue" (strips of galvanised steel) which won't do what we hoped they might.

But when we arrived, Denis' off-site house prefabricators had already rung him to delay the delivery because of the impending rain.  I shall have to ask Karen (who is due home from Alberta tomorrow) to take plenty of pictures on Monday when it is finally due to be delivered.




The weather, once we got home, did worsen for a while, and there were one or two big gusts of wind, but essentially, a cold front passed over with its main weight further south.  Not the catastrophe delivered to Ottawa earlier.





Most of the south end is now clad with its finish.  It's 8.30 pm  - we're just contemplating whether to go out to fix the last window.......

So we did and, despite the Measuring (not to be confused with the foldin' of the arms and the tappin' o' the feets [pace Terry Pratchet]) or even regardless of it, the window glass didn't fit.  By about 2mm in one corner.  This is is the South West corner which we think has settled a fraction.  It gave us grief earlier in one way or another.  So there was nothing for it but to make the window frame fit the glass; wood is generally easier to adjust than glass is.  Especially when the glass has a bonded edging.......

So there we are; four windows in.

Just the door, the front eaves, the cladding and the roof to go.  Two fair days forecast; cross everything.  It's midnight!

At the mercy of the weather!

Sunday, 23rd September.


We each slept badly - and then overslept such that we were the last ones in the door of Church before the soon to be ordained Trainee curate,Tania Lesack followed the choir in to the sanctuary!  She preached on the passage from Proverbs, Proverbs 31:10-31.  This paean of praise to the Wife of Noble character could be seen as a gender specific anthem; but when you consider - as she did, that the church is the bride of Christ and that we are the church, then we are all the brides of Christ and should be as Wives of Noble Character for his sake.

Neat, and very convincing.

 
And the surprise - almost everyone, Winston and family, Wanda's cousin, even Greg and Peter were there.  The latter were not supposed to be up in the Laurentians this weekend but they described walking through Ottawa on Friday night after the earlier tornado in complete darkness; not a light anywhere.  So, by Saturday afternoon, when they began to fear for the freezer contents, they fled to the cottage, bringing their frozen goods with them.

This is the state of disrupted electrical power supply in and around Ottawa - Canada's Capital city - at 21.40 on Sunday evening.  Our little "outage" overnight on Friday to Saturday is a mere nothing!

Oh, and early on Sunday morning ( I was awake and I heard the outcome; happily very quick...)

At least one version of the mouse has passed on......






After church we headed for Rona - as usual - but this time with the intention of returning some unused materials.  But they were in the middle of a cyber-attack; all their inventory down.  Apparently BMR - the big builders' merchants across the 117 - was closed as a result.  At least Rona was selling, just couldn't cope with returns.


Back  home, the weather threatened a bit so we moved on to fitting the windows; a bit premature but it has to happen sometime.  Two in, two to go.  Seems as if it should have been quicker.



Monday, 24th September




A slow start, but really only because we were watching online videos of how to lay "shingles" (Asphalt tiles).  Yup, we're getting on.....  It is amazing what you can learn to do by watching YouTube!  (Did I say that the temperature has fallen?  It's been 4 degrees C overnight and about 14 in the day time.) 

This is how we start the day - every day - UK or here (the mugs are different in the UK).  The little boxes, one in each country, came from a store in Toronto and ensure a safe journey for the coffee cups upstairs!










Outside, we're working in fleeces, down gillets, padded trousers.  Three weeks ago it was in the 30's).  Anyway, after some faffing we got all the weatherboards on and trimmed the membrane (undercoat asphalt layer) to the edges, and then fitted the drip edges.

Amazing.  Three times longer than we thought but hey!  Rain due for tomorrow - may need to chainsaw some fallen trees.






Ali is going to cut the grass; she started by raking the twigs off the lawn - at nightfall.  She had started earlier but other things sort of got in the way.


Spicy ribs for supper - comfort food.