Luke has been back, and old and new adventures are about to begin

We are not far from heading back to the boat - this time in two weeks we will be on board, still in the marina and with a fair amount of unpacking to do - baggage and groceries, but on board we will be!

In the meantime, we have been getting the house and grounds ship shape, partly for our departure and partly because my retirement and end of earning is getting closer and we need to make sure we've done the maintenance and any upgrading necessary around the place before the regular influx of contract rates ceases.

So for two separate weeks about 6 weeks apart, the cheese scone production line has been brought back on stream, and lunches have been cooked while Luke worked on:

• in week one, putting down a concrete pad** and constructing a very high trellis out beside the garage,
• constructing a two piece table top to transform our titchy table from one that seats 4 comfortably and 6 at a bit of a squeeze and 8 only if people breathe in constantly, to one that can comfortably seat 8 or ten.
• and in week two, re-cladding the garden shed with a contoured ply to cover the deteriorating weather boards
• waterblasting the shed roof and guttering
• repainting the shed roof
• cleaning and re-staining the gable ends on the house roof
• building a trellis for a grapevine that I want to plant (grapevine on back order to be delivered to Bruce and Gary while we are away and then delivered here for Rob to plant)
• finishing off the brick edging for the new piece of garden around the very high trellis, so Rob can plant a bourganvillea, transplant a rose and plant a pittosporum
• putting sheets of MDF up in the attic so David can store more junk up there
• driving huge nails in the garage walls for the ladders to hang on
• reducing the width of the above mentioned tabletop by 60mm so that it looked less like a covered over billiard table and more like a generously-sized dining table (and incidentally fitted the tablecloths better as well)
• and second to last but not least, while waiting for morning tea one day, wiping down the scotia and fridge top (I can't reach them or see them ...)
• and the last task was helping us paint the shed - we needed to do that fast as Bruce and Gary were coming for dinner, and we all wanted them to see it finished. 

The cooking has taken place between my doing work, although I would have to say it was good that I didn't need to be fulltime on my paid work during these weeks, as what with cooking and supervising David's interventions of what he thought would be a good idea for Luke to be doing, I didn't have much time to myself!

Photos of some of this week's work:

The garden shed before Luke started - it looks fine from this distance (from my desk in the bedroom - I was working) but the lower corners were going a bit rotten. Last year Luke lifted one side of it and levelled it - the edges where it had been on the ground had got damp and the timber had finally given up the ghost.

Not such a sunny day#* as when I took the 'before' one above. But looks very smart in its new cladding (vertically routed ply and Stone Creek grey paint - which doesn't need primer or undercoat! yay!! and newly painted door) #* We were going to take a photo yesterday when the sun got on to it but we were out for several hours and missed that portion of a very sunny day at home, honest! When the sun comes out on it I will take another photo and swap this one out.

The trellis for the grapevine that is on back order: buffalo variety that we tasted when staying with Janneke and Nico in Hastings. Just yummy!

The cleaned and re-stained gable ends

** See the upcoming next post for more info about this.