All I want for Christmas

...well, next year anyway...

is my own private nuke in the backyard!

200 kilowatts eh?, I wonder what I'd do with the excess energy.

Oh, and Santa... if you could make it that all tourists to Tas., came in, dropped their cash in a box at the ferry terminal, and then imploded, that'd be nice too. I'm a little sick of driving round the buggers every day.

I see stupid people.... everywhere!

Requim for a ceiling

So, after the filthy weather on Friday night, Saturday turned out OK in the first few hours, but being the doubting Thomas that I am, I waited until about 11am, when it started raining (4 inches in 24 hours). So I spent the day rewiring the north east side of the house and pulled out a heap of redundant crap.

The best part of Saturday was that I realised that with th roof off, I had the perfect chance to rid myself of the last of the bathroom ceiling (I had removed the bathroom light fitting at this point). So I kicked my celing in! Most theraputic for a man who had been severly frustrated all day with the weather (and the wiring that I found in the roof).

The ceiling as it was:

After I'd kicked it in and pulled out all the nails:

Sunday was far nicer and I did about 12 hours up and down ladders and in and out of the roof. The result being that I was absolutely shagged by the end of the day, and most of the wiring was complete. Found a small mistake in the evening which I fixed on Monday.

Unfortunately on Saturday night I had needed the power point that the brooder was plugged in to and I forgot to plug it back in. As a consequence I lost one of the peachicks. The other three are still fighting fit, and peamum, seems to be doing OK with her one.

Monday saw me finish off the wiring, and add a four button architrave plate to the back door to tie in with the garden light/home automation projects. It cost a bit, but I reckon it'll be well worth it in the long run.

I spent some of Monday trying to put the new ceiling up after putting up the ceiling battens, but it was just too heavy for me. Instead I cut the small section for one side put it up. Part of this learning experience involved wrecking a sheet of villaboard, Not happy.

Ceiling battens up:

Side sheet up:

Yesterday I had a rest day, so I drove to Launy, caught the plane to Melbourne and spent the afternoon with the family doing Christmas lunch, chatting, reading, sleeping etc. All in all, one of the more civilised Christmas' in recent memory. While ther I got to check out the bath I bought on Ebay in person. Found a part number on it and have already downloaded the drawing for it. It looks like this;

Today I spent the first part of the day preparing the bathroom to put the rest of the main ceiling up, by removing the basins, clearing some crap out, etc. I also went and pre-drilled all the countersinks for the sheet to make everything easier, and marked out the hole for the Tastic to go in.

Phil came over about two, and we got the sheet up in record time, I spent the rest of the afternoon, cleaning up the room, fitting the Tastic, and pulling out some remainder pipe, that was in the way of things to come.

Main sheet in:

And the Tastic in place:

Back to work for a couple of days tomorrow, but tomorrow night I will be plumbing up the new cold lines and pulling the power cable down for the prospective laundry under the house.

Fortnight in review and FRUSTRATED

Why?
Well, I'm all set up to lift the north side of the roof off and it's bucketing down. I need to take the roof off to get the power cable where it needs to be to be able to remove the old split conduit.
Now I just have to do everything else I can think of while I wait it out. Bugger!

So anyway... some cuteness. Sunday a week ago I found Blue boy munching on this rabbit in the bedroom.

I believe he is saying "I am the blue rajah! Fear my wrath!"

Which I followed up by making the lasagne supply for this half of the new year, with a lot of help from the lovely Miss A.

And Monday past with the canneloni supply for the same period, again with a great deal of help and effort from Miss A.

Wednesday I pressure tested the new hot water pipework... Tonight I fixed the final leak.

And Saturday saw the arrival of this year's peachicks. We managed to gather in 4 out of 5.
Last weekend Miss D visited and much fun was had, even though we missed the plane home because I overreached a little on the wine tour of the north. Mea culpa. I now have a new pourpoint pattern to try out over the next few months.

Hot water service day

So, today has gone nearly completely to plan.

The hot water service drained whilst the morning shop was on the go, and was in place in enar record time. Miss A went mad on the tiles and walls while I prepped up the pipe lengths under the house. The power cable pulled down very easily. The hookup went reasonably well apart from a couple of unfortunate kinks, which were got around.

Surprises included:

- Finding that the cupboard bottom was on top of the floor instead of over a cavity. SO I had to bring in the saw and cut soem boards out.

- Killing one of the 5/8" connections so that I ended up having to disconnect the basin.

- Finding that the hardware shop 15mm fittings are actually referring to the OD of 1/2" pipe. Not good, as 15mm is 5/8", very frustrating.

- Having the water hammer from the new service location blow out a tap at the kitchen sink, requiring the refitting of the tap.

- Not being able to find the burner for my MAPP gas to do a solder joint.

The result looks like this:

Where the bath was

Where the hot water service was.

Under the old hot water service location. The leak is where I managed to deform the shape of the pipe while soldering. Must go back and refit it this week.

In the roof, where I removed the ridiculous piping where thewater had been plumbed to the low pressure hot water service, then around the beam and down the wall, to the old mains pressure service, then disconnected and moved to the new.

Now I'm in a decent position to plumb up the new points for the basin, and the toilet, and the pea trap for the basin. Pull out the remaining nails in the walls, replace the ceiling and a heap of wiring... and on and on and on....

And today's cuteness! A new pot of ducklings! 9 today, moved them into the pen above the kitchen. Much quacking and peeping!

Preperation

This weekend is hot water service moving weekend, so this evening I've preparing everything I can think of, from installing the plinth for the service, polishing the ends of the copper pipe, finding cable, bluepoints and clips to pulling down the plaster moulding in the bathroom so that the walls come off quicker once the service is out.

Shopping lists for Saturday morning are made and should cover everything.

Tomorrow night I'll get rid of the remaining plaster and archetraves and remove all the detritus to the trailer to make everything run that bit smoother.

In other news, our local canvas place (the ones who've always had canvas cheaper than anywhere else in the country) is closing, so yesterday I bought 137m of the canvas for the new festival tent. I should only need 100m, which will leave enough for another smaller bell wedge for local events, and possibly a small arming pavilion for tourneys.

Our dose of cute this week is brought by the relaxed wallaby that has moved in recently, found washing himself in the middle paddock on Tuesday morning.