Lazy Day

If I am honest I really tried to do as little as possible today. The weather featured intermittent heavy showers and, after yesterday's soaking I didn't feel like walking T&M in the rain again.*

The consequence of my lethargy and poor weather meant that I had a relatively lazy day and definitely did not extend myself. In the morning I ran TP over to the Rugby Club where he was playing in a Sevens Tournament. I didn't stay to watch and instead returned and spent a tedious time carefully scraping away paint from the woodwork in the Hall.

After Lunch, and a second trip to collect TP, I finally finished stage 1 of the woodwork preparation. My lack of timber meant that no second fix carpentry was going to take place so I pondered what to do next …

… On the right of the Inglenook there is a badly broken slate flag that has been patched with mortar at some point in the past. The repair was dreadful and the flag needed to be removed and replaced. The obvious problem was getting hold of a slate flag that would match the rest of the Hall floor. Fortunately I had a plan and headed out to the garage where I had stashed a slate hearth stone that had literally come to light when we dismantled the old wardrobes in our bedroom. The wardrobes had concealed a bricked up fireplace with it's hearth stone still in place. I had removed the flag before the new wardrobes had been constructed and finally it's moment had arrived.

It took a good hour of scrubbing and careful scraping to remove the grime and copious paint splashes obliterating it's surface but at the end of this process I could see that I had a near perfect match. It was then a simple matter of some judicious hammer work to dislodge the pieces of broken flag. The aperture will need to be tidied up and the flag trimmed to size before I can tick this as completed but I have made a sound start.

I now need to add mortar to my shopping list at the Builder's Merchant.

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* They didn't seem particularly perturbed by the lack of a walk. IF they did their protest was registered by means of an extended sleep on the sofa in the lounge!