Doing a bit ...

July to 20th

Dave was away sailing for the first week of July, and due to go away again after a week's rest, so we didn't have high expectations for getting on with anything.  But then on Wednesday 8th, Dave said, 'I've got to get something done.' and leaped into action.  I thought I'd better help, so we put a coat of water-based varnish on the window box in the SouthWest diagonal.  A small job that we hadn't managed to get round to till now.

After that, we completed the final triangle of base frame up to the right-hand side of the front door (looking from the outside), which will support the ladder frame that runs up the edge of the door, and the bales in the wall behind it.  

 

Then Dave built the ladder upright to go at the south end of the diagonal, to hold the bales in place where they will eventually join with the cob south wall.

We constructed this frame out of the last long pieces of green-treated 5x7 (they were last because you had to be mad or desperate to try to build with them - Dave likened the frame to a DNA spiral, but forced it into shape).  Obviously, we needed more wood, so off to Lefkas to the woodyard, having checked they would take payment by credit card, since Greece was in the throes of the bailout crisis and no-one had any cash (including us).  And then it was the end of the week, and Dave was away again.

 

I didn't get very much done in my empty week, except that I wire brushed the front doorstep stones, and they came up very nicely.  I was going to grout them, but realised that this was our next centre of operations and there would be a lot of plaster and straw lashed around before long, so best to save the grout for after all that.

Dave barely gone for a day, and Oedi-puss settles down happily on his end of the sofa!