7th October 2013

Another bright, frosty start to the day. Woke at 8 am, revived myself with a strong coffee, and took Banjo for his customary trot down the lane. On our way back, we bumped into Mark from across the way, striding out on his morning constitutional. We exchanged a few words about the frost, always a sizzlingly hot topic in these parts, before breakfast.

Back at the house, David and I decided today was the day to finally finish the wood store. The side section, with its odd angles and awkward scraps, kept us occupied for a while, but the back wall went up like a dream. In a rare flash of inspiration, we ran the wood horizontally instead of vertically, and suddenly the job looked rather professional.

Work was interrupted by Milen, who popped round to borrow the ladder so he could pick grapes for his grandfather from the vine climbing up the wall beside the wood store. He later returned with a couple of bunches for us, an infinitely more civilised form of “payment.”

Lunch didn’t materialise, though Banjo and I happily cracked through a stash of walnuts that I had stored away. Banjo, of course, saw this as his version of a three-course meal.

By afternoon, the sun was blazing, so I was straight into shorts. Our attention turned to the tricky end of the wood store where the tiles stopped dead against a wall. The woodwork followed the wall’s charmingly uneven line, while the tiles and laths were stubbornly square, jutting out awkwardly. Waterproofing the gap was shaping up to be the sort of puzzle that makes men go grey. After much chin-scratching, I marched Banjo up the village in search of inspiration from other roofs. None forthcoming, we returned to find David in favour of drastic measures.

Out came the fascia boards, and he began trimming the tiles to fit. Banjo and I made a tactical retreat down the lane to avoid the dust. Once the carnage was over, I tidied up the wood trim at either end and centre. With dusk rapidly approaching and temperatures plunging, we bent and fitted two large sheets of metal over the end tiles, a job that, miraculously, went smoothly. At last, with the day’s work complete, we retreated to warmth indoors.

Dinner was billed as a hotpot with a side of cinema. Unfortunately, in my weary state, I had unwittingly grabbed the family-sized cauldron for the dish. Assuming the portion looked miserly, I kept chucking in extras until David pointed out my error. The hotpot barely squeezed into the wood-burning oven, lid wedged upside-down. While it bubbled away, David Skyped Nan, accidentally waking her, but she was cheery nonetheless. He then wrestled unsuccessfully with the projector before we abandoned the “enhanced experience” and resigned ourselves to the telly.

When the hotpot finally emerged, it was heroically hearty…and heroically huge. Foolishly, we soldiered through the lot. By the halfway mark of the film, we were both slumped in our chairs, groaning under the weight of our own ambition. The movie was abandoned in favour of bed, where the gentle chorus of grumbling stomachs provided the evening’s lullaby.