I opened the front door and there was my Mother holding a spider plant. “This is for you,” she said.
It turned out that she had heard/seen a programme where they were discussing the use of formaldehyde in practically everything we have in our homes.
Having plants in the house is the best way to counteract the effect. I found this article rather informative: Plants for Clean Air inside Buildings
Yes, I’m still laying them.
I didn’t manage to finish over Easter. In all there will be 309 tiles and I have 90 still to do. You can tell by the numbers game that I am now at the stage where the laying of one more tile is cause for rejoicing! My knees are begging for this to be over (yes, I am wearing kneepads).
At first, I was utterly pedantic about them being totally flat in all directions and everything was going swimmingly until I realised that the cement was getting thicker and there was a slight slope upwards. This I tried to rectify with a slight slope back down again and that’s where everything started to get complicated coz you’ve got to join tiles on to the redirection and they have to be level with each other as well.
It may seem like a three dimensional job: lines straight in two directions and levelness (we’ll leave time out for the moment) but the reality is that you are looking at it from far more than three angles. Levelness left and right is one thing, but there is the diagonal as well. And then you’d better check that, although it is flat as far as the level is concerned, is the tile level on its own or have you got a dip in one corner which doesn’t show up with the level. You need to check this in all three directions as well. So for every tile there is about nine checks to make.
Then I realised that as I tamped in the next tile, the previous one was shifting a bit and all the checks had to start again…
That’s when it happened!
I got the answer, or rather, I heard the voice in my head, “Luke, Luke, use the Force, Luke.”
“What?”
“Use the Force!”
Now, I don’t know about you, but I figure that if the likes of one as eminent as Obi-Wan should take time out from managing the Universe and traing the future generation of Jedi, then it would be churlish of me not to listen!
I stared at the tiles before me and moved away the spirit level, yes, I thought, I can do this. I laid the cement with feeling, place the tiles and tamped them in running my fingers along the edge with its neighbour. Tamp, tamp. I could feel it coming into place. Then the next, then a row of four. Yes, it felt good. Tamp, tamp. This is it! I’m getting it. I checked with the level – it was pretty close! The level showed which tile was slightly dipped or raised but, on the whole, it was a lot better than I’d expected!
It speeded up my laying time, anyway. And, as my friend Sally said, “You’re going for rustic, aren’t you? Who ever heard of a rustic floor being completely flat?” I’m happy to go along with that.
Mind you, if Obi-Wan turned up he’d take one look and say, “Hmm…, you’re not Luke, are you.”
The delay in posting news on our attempts at eco-converting is not a sign that work has stopped. On the contrary it is quite the opposite!
I’m spending the Easter break on my knees surrounded by quarry tiles. I wanted to lay them in the kitchen around the sink area but Pat had trouble finding them locally. Some kind of shortage. Anyway, I found a good deal on the web at Walls and Floors. They arrived next day.
Now, I’m not the world’s most experienced layer of tiles… my only previous experience was our patio. But it didn’t take me long to work out that 150mm square tiles needs just as much care and attention in the laying as larger tiles used for, say, a patio. So for the same amount of work, I’m laying a quarter of the area. Hmm… they do look nice though :>)
While Pat’s away, we also have a bathroom to decorate ready for him to come back and finish everything. Finishing everything involves installing a water softener, necessary for the Solar Twin solar panel which also has to get installed. Whilst on the roof, the two Solar Tubes for the kitchen and bathroom need to be fitted as well. Then there’s the underfloor heating and tiling to do so I’ll be keeping him busy for a bit!
By the time all that is done, I’m hoping that the LED lighting system will arrive. I got in touch with Creative Lighting who were at Eco-Build. I really liked the stand and the lights were very impressive. They lit the stand beautifully. My experience with LEDs thus far has not really produced enough light for direct replacements of the halogen bulbs in the ceiling so I was glad to be able to chat with Shabir at Creative Lighting about the kind of bulbs I would need. LED lighting is a whole science of its own. There are so many variations depending on the kind of spread and intensity you need as well as colour. So I was very grateful to have Shabir’s time working it out for me. More on that later.
In the mean time I’m going to look for something to rub on my knees so they keep going for a few more days.
One of the fab things about taking on a new garden is that you don’t know what is in it. So the Spring is full of surprises. March gave us a slope covered in violets and the promise of rhubbarb. The violets have now been replaced with a mass of primulas in all shades, along with the indigo coloured self-heal and forget-me-nots. Its an absolute picture and very popular with the bees, I’m glad to say.
We have a lot of bumbles, some seem to be residents, and we have been visited by honey bees as well. I’ve bought a WBC hive which is ready to assemble should a swarm decide to hang in one of our trees. If not, I shall have to buy a nucleus next year.
I’m also trying a bit of an experiment with potatoes. I didn’t have time to prepare a bed, so I put the seed potatoes into a few cardboard boxes, covered them with compost and just plonked them on the ground to do as they pleased. I’ve seen at least six poke through so I’ll just keep covering them with compost and look forward some fresh picked spuds later in the year. With any luck, they will have done some prep work on my potential veg plot as well.