Borrowed a scaffold Sunday, 31-Dec-23 23:59:59 CET

Third bucket of plaster in the staircase hall Sunday, 14-Jan-24 18:59:03 CET

Sunday, 07-Jan-24 21:24:01 CET

Finished the door to the hatch above the bathroom

This week, I finished the door to the hatch above the bathroom.

Monday 1 January

It was a lovely morning. We woke up late. I gave the sheep hay and let the sheep out from their enclosure. They were happy.

It is the first day of the year; conveniently, it is also Monday. Not only that, but it is also a compulsory holiday. This time, it is because of the Gregorian calendar; I suppose that is fair compared to all the compulsory holidays due to fantasy figures no one cares about anymore. That said, in a politically correct 24-hour 7 days per week economy, would it not be better if I get to choose, perhaps with my employer, when I want to use my holidays. If I am traditional and stick to fantasy figures, okay enough, I can decide to have a holiday when everybody else is celebrating the exact figure. Otherwise, I could have them when I want on a day without traffic jams, for example.

Today, I wanted to continue making the door for the hatch at the storage above the bathroom. I had to have a drill that fit my drill press. I have not used it for more than thirty years. I had the drill press and the drilling machine but not the chuck. I searched for the chuck. Could not find it.

I used this day to clean up my tools to find that chuck. I will have to figure out another way of preparing the door. I think I will use the router. More about that another day.

Tuesday 2 January

Today, I went to work. DW had a day off. She was not lazy; she worked on wool preparation and made soap. She also cooked with runner beans from our garden. Seeing the fruits of our hard work with the sheep turned into yarn and yarn products fills me with joy.

There were not that many people in the office. We wished each other a happy new year, as one does, and we did our work as usual.

Today, Merida had two weeks without an epileptic seizure. Here, she is surveying what is going on around her.

The storm Henk arrived in the evening in the Netherlands. When I returned from work, and before the storm, I replaced steel thread with steel wire and fastened the rain roof. I think we are good to go with Henk. The previous rain roof handled Beaufort 7, so I hope it works this time.

It is not fun to sit out a storm like this. I am wondering what will be ripped and what will hold. It is not so that all decisions and deeds essential for surviving a storm are based on our own doing. We can have everything in good order and sorted, and then the neighbor's trampoline comes plowing into our living room. I am not saying it happened, but it could happen if their trampoline was not appropriately fastened.

Tomorrow, we can sum up the aftermath. I think there will be damage.

Wednesday 3 January

I was wrong. I am happy I was wrong. We had no damage. The rain roof was intact. The sheep happily gathered. With the storm Henk out of the way, the weather could continue with just the rain that we got used to the last couple of months.

Somehow, I recall we watched a movie from Ireland when it was raining a lot. Perhaps it was Redemption of a Rouge, but I doubt it. Too funny. The one I saw went on and on; it continuously rained, people were poor, and things were horrible. It was not funny at all. It is hard to recall what movie it was since I only remember it was filmed in Cork, Ireland, and it rained throughout the movie. One day, I might recall what it was. Anyway, it is raining, like in that movie. It does not always rain, though; sometimes, there is a two- or three-hour break.

Today, I worked from home. DW had a day off. After work, at noon, I worked on the door for the hatch. Precisely the hinges for the door. Since I could not find the chuck, I could not use the drill press. I resorted to using the router. For that, I had to create a template.

But first, I figured out the theory. I wanted a cavity in the door 35 by 22.5 millimeters wide and 12 millimeters deep. I used a 10-millimeter router bit guided by a template hole of 17 millimeters. The template I make needs to accommodate the template insert. The router bit will stick out of the template insert following the template.

I found a suitable template material, drew the opening I wanted, and tried it. It turned out that I removed a little too much of the template material. The wall towards the edge of the door became thin, and there was empty space between the hinge and the wall. I could leave it like that, but now, when I am making a great effort to get this right, I could improve.

Should I make an entirely new template or put something on the template? I glued a little piece of wood on the template, and when it is dry, I will try it again. It was feeling great to work on this project. As soon as I got a chance, I tried to tidy up things so that working in the workplace would be even more pleasurable.

Between two showers, we had a little walk in the neighborhood.

Thursday 4 January

I went to work as usual today, and DW worked from home. It was her first day after her Yule holidays. There are still not that many people in the office.

After work, I helped a colleague to start her car! I bought the jump cable on 25 February last year. It was on the way to the cottage in Sweden. I had no use for the cables, but they stayed in the car all this time. It was already dark when I helped her. We read the instructions together to get the cable connection done right. It worked! Then I took a photo that became fuzzy, but that does not matter because you can see her thumbs up and a huge smile!

In the evening, I programmed the visual effects. I continued programming the spotlight effect. That is correct; I am currently programming something that will look like spotlights. Tonight, I made two virtual spotlights, and it looks promising.

Friday 5 January

This was no spectacular day. I worked from the office, and DW worked from home, and it rained.

After work, I went grocery shopping, and we had pizza for dinner. That's it.s Well, I had forgotten to buy coffee, which was a bummer.

Saturday 6 January

This morning, I went to the grocery store to buy coffee. Since I was already at it, I thought I would buy something else on c, namely croissants. When I came home with the c², I could surprise DW with a luxury French breakfast! She liked it very much.

After breakfast, I also went to the sheep to make them happy. I moved them temporarily to the area in front of the house. Already, that made them happy. Hanna even made a little jump of joy.

While the sheep happily ate fresh grass, I cleaned the platform under the rain roof. I produced four or five wheelbarrows of dirt that I placed near our compost. I connected the water hose, sprayed water on the platform, and brushed the leftover slush into a puddle that I transported to the compost. I had to repeat this procedure a couple of times. I also removed the slush around the platform. Then, I moved the hay rack to the old location in the middle of the rain roof. I tied it to the scaffold so that it would not fall over in case of a storm. Finally, I spread fresh, clean straw on the platform. I let the sheep back in, and they came running. They were so happy with the clean platform. Fresh hay and water.

DW prepared herself for tomorrow. She will be at a wool event the entire day and must prepare material to work with.

Next up for today, I had to buy screws for the hatch project. We went to the second-hand shop and the hardware store to make the journey a little more fun. There is nothing like fun shopping at a second-hand shop. We could have brought things to the shop, but that could also happen later. We found the screws I needed, and then we went to the second hand.

We found a food dryer. A food processor and a drilling machine that fit my drill press. All nice finds at the second-hand shop.

After eating and resting, I had a go at continuing on the door prototype. I used the modified template with an extra bit of wood glued on. The template is screwed onto the hatch, where the holes for the hinges also need to be screwed.

The door prototype worked like a charm! The prototype is much smaller than the final door, but that does not matter. It is big enough to try the various aspects of making the door.

As a finishing touch, we experimented with making a nice edge of the door. The other alternative would be to make the wall around the door have precisely the same height, but now we will have a router edge of the door. The door will be painted white, the same color as the wall.

It will be beautiful with a decorative edge. We decided to use the 9.5-millimeter rounded edge.

Tomorrow, I can work on making the door, and then I can start plastering the walls.

On 6 January 2021, I wrote about what happened at the capitolium in Washington, DC, USA. I wrote that a lie is a lie, and the truth will prevail. I said my healing could start. It did not start. Trump and his insurrectionists became the dark cloud in the sky, getting bigger and bigger, just waiting for November 2024, in November when Trump will be back in power and release his private army that stormed the Capitolium. It is disgusting.

Sunday 7 January

DW had set the alarm early this morning because she was going to a wool festivity. For me, it felt like a regular working day. I hopped out of bed as I always do and took a shower. Then, I made breakfast consisting of a smoothie from a Belle de Boskoop apple, a conference peer, and a banana. We also had some raspberries and our homegrown red currant berries.

It was cold but sunny today. Not a single drip of rain fell today; that is unique!

I brought DW to her wool festivity. When I came home, I worked on the hatch to the storage above the bathroom. Most of the time, I made the metal corner beams for the hatch. This is to protect the gypsum next to the door. Usually, the corner is large enough, but I had to cut it off here to narrow one side of the beam. When the metal was in place, I decided on the door size. That way, I knew what would fit.

Today, I enjoyed very much listening to the podcast "In Moscow's Shadows," especially episode 129: "It's All About Putin's Eggs". This is Mark Galeotti, who speaks with an elegant and easily understandable English accent about the inflation challenges in Russia.

I cut the door from the 22-millimeter plywood; I made it 62 by 82 centimeters. It is not a big hatch. Then I screwed on the template for the holes and used the router to make the holes. It worked flawlessly. As a final action, I cut the decoration on the other side of the door.

When I was busy putting the door, I got a message from DW that she was ready and that I could come and pick her up.

DW was excited to see the door! She told about the wool event; she had met the sheep herder of the city, and they talked about our sheep and the herd. There had been many sheep dying of the bluetongue virus last year.

Here ends this first week's blog of 2024. I am ready to start applying buckets of mud to the walls!