Today I tried my hand at mixing up some lime putty and filling the holes in the wall where the plaster has come away. It seems to be a very similar methodology to using cement mortar, but much more workable.
I then managed to slice open the ball of my thumb on a broken tile. Where the plaster has come away from the walls in the living room, it has also brought with it a row of tiles which form a skirting board. I was chiselling the cement backing off these tiles so that they could be re-used when I managed to break one. For some reason I picked up the broken piece without sufficient care, and discovered that the edge was razor-sharp. Unfortunately the tiny (supposedly) waterproof sticking-plasters which we had in the medicine chest proved insufficient at staunching the flow, so in addition I had to wrap lots of Sellotape around my thumb to avoid getting blood on everything I touched.
LSS spent the entire afternoon with the aged FIL, awaiting the delivery of the “lit médicalisé”, which finally turned up at around 16h30. Needless to say, whilst she was away, the borehole man turned up to see if he could determine whether we were suited for a borehole or not. This led to an interesting conversation. Fortunately he was Dutch, so between his Schoolboy English, my Afrikaans, his French, and lots of sign language, he diagnosed a source of water some 20m from the house, at a depth of 45m, so will be posting us a quote. His findings are guaranteed; if there’s no water there, we don’t pay a cent.
LSS also borrowed one of the aged FIL’s lawnmowers, because the grass around the house has liked the rain so much it is now almost waist-high in places. The cat loves it; two steps and she’s invisible, much to the chagrin of the mice.
I may need to consider fitting the lawnmower with a snorkel due to the amount of rain we’re getting at the moment. Mind you, today it didn’t start raining until 17h00.
Wildlife diary: A grey heron in the shallows of the pond, stalking up and down. Unsuccessful at catching his dinner tonight though, but it must have had some success here in the past because when we first moved in we found the skeletons of two carp in the garden.