Lives of Others
July 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
One of the latest movies we watched: a very intense movie on the life of a writer in former Eastern Germany before the “Wende”, while his life is monitored 24/7 by the Stasi, the Secret Police. German spoken with English subtitles, adding to the grim atmosphere of the movie. Excellent movie, 5 out of 5.
The movie generated flash backs of my trip to Berlin on the 21st of July, 1990 with 2 friends when Roger Waters did his version of “The Wall” on Potzdammer Platz (a location which was part of the former “no-man’s land” of the Berlin Wall). We drove straight through Eastern Germany and were astounded by the desolate, gloomy and dark appearance of everything…
Hornet
July 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
Anything that crawls, buzzes or stings makes me a bit uneasy. To be honest, I truly detest insects. Given that, I always thought that Scotland was a safe place to live. All right, there’s the midge which does generate a lot of annoyance but they’re small. Luckily Schotland doesn’t host any massive beetles, cockroaches or spiders…
Except yesterday - while juggling a big piece of timber - I saw a glimpse of this ginormous insect hovering over my head. At first I couldn’t see it too good and thought it was a dragonfly (also not a favorite of mine, but they’re not too bad) but then I had a good look at it and saw it’s colors… bright yellow and black and about 4 centimeters in size. Blimey! A genetically engineered giant wasp here on Skye??!!
No… I later learned it was a Hornet. They do sting although I understand their sting is not as bad as a bee’s sting…
Birds dropping off the roof…
July 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
Well, not really but it’s a saying we have back in Holland when it’s really hot weather. And hot it has been over the past days!! Summer has kicked in and we’ve forgotten about the dull and rainy days that we have had over the past weeks.
Actually it was so hot today that we decided to go for a swim in the loch… and Jingles came along too. Big fun! Jingles is still not much of a swimmer (yet?) but after some persuading with treats he decided to have a go. Eventually he seemed to enjoy it. It was a nice cooling down although actual swimming is a bit of a hassle with all the rocks and the weeds on the shore.
According to the MetOffice website the good weather stays with us until the middle of the week.
Not much progress on the shed. Did some odd jobs I still had to do: cut the joists to the proper length, aligned the concrete lintel and fixed it with cement. Next week I’ll get some scaffolding to lay the blocks of the gable. I’ll update here with some photos.
Firewood
July 25, 2008 | 3 Comments |
After a long wait it finally arrived. Our firewood from the Scottish Forestry Commission. I had ordered 15 tonnes of it and at about noon today I got a phone call from the truck driver of Skye Transport that he was on his way from Glenbrittle.
Upon arrival of the truck I was a bit surprised. What a massive pile of trunks!! It appeared that the load was not 15 tonnes but well over 20 tonnes! The driver had made a mistake and had loaded too much wood at the forest. He wasn’t going back to Glenbrittle so we got 6 tonnes more. Good!
The pile should be well enough for 2 years of fireworks in the stove. The only thing… I need to saw it and log it. We already invested in a new chainsaw and an axe. My next job is obviously waiting….
The reason I initially ordered 15 tonnes was that the 20 tonnes required a bigger lorry. I wasn’t sure whether such a lorry could come down our driveway. But that appears to be no problem!
Weather: still hot, windy although the wind died down and I was chased inside by the midges 
Haar or hair?
July 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
I came across the word “haar” recently. In the weather reports by the Metoffice. Slightly confusing as that same word in Dutch means “hair”. I figured it probably had nothing to do with our scalps but with some sort of fog. And indeed it did. Just type in define:haar in your Google search box and:
“A name applied to a wet sea fog or very fine drizzle that drifts in from the sea in coastal districts of eastern Scotland and northeastern England. It occurs most frequently in summer.”
Almost there…
July 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
The roof frame is nearly finished. There’s a couple of things I need to sort now. The front and end rafter set need to have the so called steps installed. Basically these are just two pairs of 4”x2” rafters with noggings (steps) between them to create the overhanging effect of the roof. See the photo of a prepped ladder to get an impression of the ting.
Once these are nailed to the outer rafter set, I can move on with nailing down the sarking boards (the actual planks that will cover the roof). Once they’re on, the roof structure can be finished off with facia’s and soffet boards. I’m trying to get as close a match as I can with the design of the house, so the whole thing will blend in really well.
Then, there will be the remaining challenge of the gables. I will definitely need some scaffolding to complete that job. Luckily I can borrow a bay of scaffolding from Simon.
Just a little side note on our Jingles: Over the past weeks I’ve trained him to behave better around sheep. Much to my astonishment he’s now capable of completely ignoring sheep, as long as I keep his attention. We can even pass a flock at a distance of about 10 meters or less. Weeks ago he would have chased them full steam. So, having that in mind we decided to let him out tonight with the chicken roaming free. And again, he didn’t let us down. He did try to get near them and have a “dog inspection” but a short “Ah Ah!” got his attention and then he just ignored the hens. Good boy!!
Weather: HOT(!!) and cloudy but later sunny. The picture of the roof frame was taken at about 6pm.
Ohhhhhh…. Holy Smoke….
July 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
After the UK, Holland has followed and banned smoking from pubs and restaurants. Some business owners have tried to be clever and no longer call their business a pub or a restaurant. In stead they now run Smoking Societies, Smoking Lounges and even Churches… glorifying “The Smoking”…
The fisherman and the pond
July 21, 2008 | 4 Comments |
The fisherman would come to the same pond every day. He never caught anything but he still kept coming back. Not that the fisherman was stupid, he just kept being tempted. By stories he heard in his pub, by talking to his friends and also probably just by looking at that magnificent pond. There surely must be fish in there! The crystal clear water, the green lush plants growing along the sides of the pond, the stately trees creating his favorite shady spot and the acres and acres of soft sloping fields surrounding the pond. It was almost heaven… for a fisherman. One day there would surely be a big catch for him. And the fisherman kept walking the walk to the pond, assembling his rod and sitting on his chair staring at the line… But no fish… not a twitch in the line. Just calm water…
Where does this story go you might wonder? Well nowhere. It just popped up in my brain after receiving another email from Screwfix for massive discounts on items I recently bought and a bonus discount of 10% on any ordered item. The fisherman, that’s me. The pond… that’s the Screwfix catalog and website. The fish…??? Those are the deals I see announced in Screwfix’s emails, every time just a couple of days after I put my order in… and like the fisherman I keep coming back…
On the shed: all the rafters are up which is good. It starts looking like the real thing I suppose. Next step will be sawing and fixing horizontal braces (4”x2”) on each rafter pair just below the central ridge to add extra strength.
Weather: started out really nice but now overcast with a little rain. Cold.
Rafters
July 19, 2008 | 4 Comments |
Today was another milestone in my novice building career. I managed to fix no less than 10 rafters and the center ridge. It took quite a bit of struggling - due to the rather strong winds - but the end result was great.
After fitting two pairs I decided to fix a temporary cross brace (you can see it sticking out at the top of the roof) as the wind made the wobbly character of the construction quite apparent. The brace immediately made the structure extremely rigid. Maybe the brace should become part of the final structure. I will decide once all the rafters are fitted.
As everything fitted really well, I decided to fix all prepped rafters and by 6:00pm the thing looked like the situation on the photo.
Tomorrow I will saw the remaining rafters…
Weather: sunny during most parts of the day, two or three showers which required immediate evacuation, northerly winds, nippy when cloudy…
Cloverfield
July 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment |
The film fans might know that the title refers to a recent monster movie from the US. I watched it last evening and it was a total waste of time and money. There are some original elements - like the way the movie is recorded through the eyes of one of the actors with a camcorder - but that’s about it. The “camcorder effect” also makes for really awkward viewing and when the movie was finished I had a headache. The effects are good but sparse. 1 out of 5
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Latest music...
Hair (1968, Original Broadway recording). Some naughty lyrics for that time!!
An Rathad a Bhatarsaigh, by the Vatersay Boys