Well the weather was back to normal today and we were greeted by a rainy morning just as the roof tiles were due to go on. I had to leave early to take the car to John Barton, yes it still smells after it's driven, and of course I had to walk back in the rain. Actually it wasn't too bad and my trusty UT umbrella kept me dry on the walk back. By the time I arrived back at the house Simon and Marcus were on the roof and installing the roof tiles while an occasional visit from Sam kept them supplied with tiles and drinks. Simon braved it in a T shirt while Marcus wore a cagoule. I had spent a large part of Sunday dragging an old door down from the roof of the garage as we need one for the upstairs bathroom. We have decided that if we replace the solid wooden panels in the top with some glass then it will let light into the new landing area so I also carefully took these out and then used a hot air stripper to get rid of one side of the old paintwork. Today after the rain slowed down I turned the door over and stripped the second side, sanded the whole thing and gave one side a coat of white emulsion to act as an undercoat then sat on our swing in the sunshine while I scraped off the old white enamel from the metal door handles. Those things are a pig to do as they are made of twisted wrought iron and the only way to clean them thoroughly is to use a Stanley knife and scrape - not my favourite thing. But they do look nice once they are black enamelled.

Just to show one of the trials in having workmen around the place, the first two photographs show the mess outside our house. On one side we have the rubble and we have to negotiate our way past this each day when we reverse the car out from the drive way - we are hoping that one of these days Tony will hire a skip and take this pile of rubble away. On the other side of the driveway we have the builders' supplies, here they stack the slates, the bags of cement and of course a large pile of sand - into which, according to Tony, rabbits have burrowed. Just what we need is more rabbits, they have already eaten every runner bean plant that Hilary has grown from seed which means that we will not have any to eat or freeze this year.

The final picture shows the progress that was made on the roof today, it's not much to look at but I gather that getting the new tiles to line up with the old ones is quite tricky, one of the new additions that we have to our outside area is a new bridge across the leat, actually it is a scaffolding plank and is used by Sam to carry the roof tiles from the pile out the front to the workers on the roof. It does mean that our heathers are getting flattened but they are pretty tough plants and should son recover.

I did the return trip to get the car at the end of the day and I am not sure if the news is good or bad. On the one hand the bill I was given was only for the 10,000 mile annual service and on the other hand no work was done on the smell that we get every time that we drive it. John has spoken to the Skoda main dealer who supplied the new clutch parts almost 12 months ago and their statement is that if it can be proved that the clutch is the part that is smelling and that it is faulty then it will be replaced under the 12 month guarantee which expires on June 27. However if they open up the clutch and find that it is not faulty then we will have to pay the labour charge. Watch this space!