Getting Stoned

Well, no, it isn't as much fun--or as cheap--as what you might be thinking, nor is it biblical. This morning as Don and I were eating our cereal, a huge tractor-trailer drew up out front loaded with the stones for our outer fireplace wall. Mr John Jack and his crew of brickies are in the process of selecting certain ones and transporting them to the front of the house. Meanwhile, Scotty, Neil, and Crawford are getting the old tiles off the roof where the new porch roof over our verandah will attach to the existing sitting room roof and tie in with the sitting room extension roof. Superjoiner Ally is working on the entryway closet, the shower room, and finishing up in the utility room.

It's a somewhat mixed day weather-wise. So far, we've had overcast, brief showers, and full sun. It is quite warm (as you can see by the fact that the brickies have gotten down to their tee-shirts), especially when we get those periods of full sun. Don is off to St Fillans for the Friday Morning Seniors' League but says he won't go out for the second 9 as he has 18 holes planned for this afternoon with Peter Innes.

Yesterday afternoon after book group, I went down to the Innes' house with a large empty suitcase to begin gathering the things I'll need to take with me to my quilting retreat down in Cumbria next week. Packing up for a retreat has always been somewhat higgledy-piggledy but it's made much worse by the fact that all my studio is packed up. Some of it is here and some of it is at Robbie and Peter's. And even there, it is in two different rooms. I think I got what I need but I will put off doing the actual packing until Saturday or Sunday when it's quiet around here.

Our "few errands" in Perth that I mentioned in yesterday's blog turned out to be a 4-hour trip. To begin with, we had to drive 25 miles from Stirling to Perth after picking up the sewing machine. First stop in Perth was to drop off the 3 wallpaper sample books we had borrowed from the Dulux Paint Store. Coincidentally, as we walked in the door, it just so happened that Raymond Cramb was on the phone to Lorraine who works there, asking her to give him some pricing information from one of the books we were walking through the door with! We're pretty certain we'll go with the Crambs for the painting as we really don't have the time to gather a bunch of estimates; we just need to get on with it.

Next stop was Shore Laminates where we picked up a sample of a laminate veneer that matches our worktop which we could use as a backsplash behind the two sinks if we decided to do that instead of Perspex (Plexiglass) over our wallpaper. Then we went to McGarrie's metal shop and had them cut us a piece of brushed aluminium to use as a backsplash behind the hob.

After that we went to Howdens Joinery to pick up the interior door hardware, only they didn't have anything but the privacy latch sets for the two bathroom doors and D handles for the two storage cupboards. The regular door handles are on order and not due for a couple of weeks or so. Our last stop was at MFI to order the 500mm lower cupboard to fill up the space where the dryer was to have gone. While at MFI, we looked at stools for my kneehole desk there in the utility room and found one we really liked but they only sell them in sets of 2 and there is no other place in the house where another stool could go. So we're still looking.

When we got home, Ally had made our 2 window boxes and was hard at work putting in the fittings for the pantry insert to be attached to. Things are moving along quite nicely. Now we are waiting to get an estimate from the painters so we can get them lined up. (They told us last week that they are so busy that we need to pray for rainy weather!)