Before we start to talk about today's surprise visit let us just reprise the weekend. It stated really well with the arrival of the shower enclosure and base that we bought from Trago earlier in the week. The base was so heavy that we decided to just wrap it in plastic and leave it outside, but we did manage to get the enclosure into our old bedroom. Then the rain started again. Not only did the rain continue for the rest of the day (as I said before it's Glastonbury week and Wimbledon is about to start), but it chucked it down in bucketloads. So hard in fact that the level of water in the leat rose to within a few inches of the top and tons of branches came washing down and made us fear that they would jam under our bridge. Hilary and I put on our wellies and climbed in armed with sticks and forks to clear up the logjams as they arrived, we had one bonus when Hilary said "Drinks can on its way," and I scooped it up as it floated past. I assumed it was empty but to my surprise and delight it was a full can of Carling lager which is now cooling in our fridge. The other job that we had to do was to clear the rain gully in front of the bridge as this had become filled with silt from the road/driveway and excess rain just washed down over the bridge into the garden, sweeping away the gravel in its path before flowing into the garage. That was pretty much our weekend gone.

Three workmen arrived on time today, Simon, Sam and Marcus and they immediately set to putting up some new rafters ready for the flooring. They hadn't been at it long when a van arrived from Orchard Windows and we were rewarded by the prompt installation of three new windows. The first to go in was the one where you recently saw Hilary and Rachel talking to each other, that is the big one in the new diner/bed sitting room, then they put in the one for the master bathroom and finally they put one in the new upstairs bedroom. I noticed on the van they also had the matching window for the smaller of the two en-suite bathrooms but as the men are still using that as a doorway so that they can work on the house without traipsing through the house, they had to take it back again. We talked briefly to the window installers about the round window and they said that the plastic was in and they were just waiting for the stained glass to be done. While on this subject I did scan the outline that Paul made for us and this shows pretty much how the window will look except that the big fish at the front will be changed to a humuhumuetc. Incidentally have you noticed that if you click on a picture on this blog that it becomes bigger and you can see more detail, try it and see. Most of them are huge.

I am beginning to get excited about our new gable end and the last picture shows the other two windows that were installed today. It will look even more spectacular when the green felt and battening give way to the white siding. Then it will begin to look like the finished article.

Tony arrived late afternoon and after a brief chat about how much he enjoyed Glastonbury he told me that the boiler has arrived at Travis Perkins and that he would like to bring it over to our house tomorrow. The only place that we have to put it is in the laundry room which will mean that we have to move our big fridge freezer tomorrow and put it in the kitchen. If we can persuade Tony to take out the old boiler first then that will make life a lot easier for us as we can temporarily move down the cooker in the kitchen and slide the fridge into its final home. We won't have ice and water for a while but we lived without it before and we can do so again.

Actually I do have one more picture to post tonight, you have read that I have been working on a door with glazed panels in it and the result of my endeavours really is the last picture. It has turned out rather well and we may well do another one which will help to bring light onto the landing. I will probably try a different technique for taking out the panels though as I made rather a mess of this one.