A new day

The colour was dazzling. Intense deep oranges and reds that glowed; as if an enormous furnace had been lit behind the mountain. It begun this morning, quietly, just a glow, that slowly grew richer, deeper. It lasted no more than 5 minutes, heralding the arrival of a new day. And at the risk of showing the same old mountain yet again on this blog, here it is!

Help arrives

Jo and her boyfriend Matt arrived. They gowned up (a nurses occupation!) and set about rubbing down the plaster work and putting the first coat of paint on in our bedroom. They did a brilliant job and it's just so good to have the help.

Jo bashed about in the shower room with the centre punch and hammer, clearing out adhesive that is now rock hard, making way for the grouting.

It's back breaking work and takes chips out of fingers and thumbs along with tiles! It isn't at all selective! I have since grouted the floor and painted over the chips with tile paint. If people don't look down all will seem perfect!

Ollie and his mate Alex arrived. Ollie and Niels studied the heat exchange system, put the instructions away and had another beer!

And now some of the wiring that has been hanging around for weeks is beginning to disappear. Brilliant, thanks Ollie and Alex.

I had thought to have light switches that were more trendy and upmarket, but I'm so relieved to have any thing at all that suggests we may have some light, and besides, I'm working on the premise that we can always change them one day (along with the floor tiles in the shower room!)
At the start one is adamant about doing all the work 100% efficiently and having it just so, after all why compromise on the dream? Now as we move towards the next phase, we've adjusted our thinking. Isn't that why we have plants and pictures and rugs and cupboards to cover up the flaw/mistake/error/wrong measurement/the off day? I've never noticed joints in plaster board, now it's become a fixation. Some of Tesco's loos could have had more attention paid to the plaster board work!

The day after the kids went home, the weather plunged head long into arctic conditions.

On Tuesday I had very important appointment in Inverness, that short of the road being closed I was determined to keep. The hairdressers! Appointments don't get more important than that! I made it!

It was wintry and white

I expect on the road into Inverness it's still snowy but down here nearer to sea level its all together softer. This was this morning from the bedroom window of the house we're staying in.

Just beautiful

The start of the day

This was the view from the bedroom window this morning. There is a setting on the camera for taking sunrises and sunsets. I used the zoom lens but without using a tripod it looks woolly.
You really needed to be here to see how beautiful it was!

Brrrr...

Woke up this morning to this! Quite a covering of snow on some of the higher peaks. It really is cold. I got dressed in everything. Lots of layers keep you warm, but make walking around a bit cumbersome!

I went to pick up some left over jointing compound from a job Dodo did at a house just outside Ullapool. He is here this morning making good all the jointing tape I plastered, making it neater. (I shall be going over his floor tiling later with much the same purpose in mind!)
The colours were glorious and I could see the weather making its way up the loch

and then over the water to our house! It's just visible through the trees in the middle of the picture. There is a possibility at the weekend that we can get two more trees down thus opening up the view a little more.

If anyone needs to buy a Centre Punch at any time, here's what they look like. I was going to compare it for size with a pound coin, but what with the recession I could only find one penny. Now I must go and do some work and stop playing with this camera!

Autumn colours

Autumn here is beautiful. I had to drive to Inverness today to buy more tile adhesive and grouting. Once, I used to go to clothes shops, now I've discovered trade counters, tool shops, and builders merchants. I browsed the aisles at H.I.S (Highland Industrial Supplies) turning over things on shelves, looking at bargains, trying on tool belts (only joking!) and eventually found the very thing I needed - a Centre Punch. I have no idea what its real use is, but I'm going to bash the end of it with a hammer and hopefully make room for the grouting on the shower room floor tiles by hacking out the large amounts of unwanted stuck on tile adhesive!

On the way in I stopped and took these pictures with my new camera! I learned last week that Olympus had made a mistake and couldn't in fact repair my old camera. As a good will gesture and probably because I started sniffling down the phone they said they would send a new one for the same price as the repair of my old one - and throw in batteries and a battery charger. I think I got a bargain, as even at the cheapest price the camera is worth more than the cost of the repair. I'm getting used to it. It does all the things that the other camera did and more, and in many ways is simpler to use. I don't like the 'on' and 'off' switch and the one big disappointment is the fixed monitor, which makes high or low angled shots impossible. I haven't yet managed to focus using the super macro function but over all I'm happy and it's so nice to have a camera again!

Last night there were gales and torrents of rain. This little burn running through the garden has been empty through the summer and is now full again.

I can watch the weather come up the loch, it changes in minutes and with the sun and the rain comes an almost constant rainbow

And the house? Oh that old thing! That's still there. I've grouted the wall tiles in the shower room and Niels is laying the tiles in the kitchen and utility room with regimental, and methodical precision ie. slowly!