When Nick told him “Your mum’s upstairs, doing acid”, Kieran was a little surprised; but that’s what life here has driven me to! OK, not that sort of acid. The grout for the tiles is cement based, so it leaves a whitish bloom on the tiles, which has to be cleaned off with acid. It’s a tedious, time consuming task because each tile must be cleaned individually, without getting acid on the surrounding grout, then they have to be rinsed several times with clean water. Boring, but the result is worth it.

We bought a new-to-us door for what will be the main entrance to the new house quite a while ago; a lovely, old, solid oak, double door with opening windows behind a metal grill.  Kieran offering to come over to help for a couple of days  seemed a good chance to get it fitted. It was planned to be done in one weekend, but they didn’t exactly get straight to work on the door, preferring to move all the kitchen units into the living space first, then potter with other jobs, before they finally got started at 4pm.

They cut a new hole the right size for the door, propping up the wall above till they got the wooden lintel into position. I had finally got Nick to agree to having a well for the doormat; so they cut away part of the cement floor, leaving Nick to concrete the external edge before the following weekend, when Kieran would be back. Finally, they closed the hole with an old garage door.

The next weekend, they fitted the frame and the doors. we were delighted, it looked perfect, almost as if it had always been there. But the following day it started to rain, lashing rain, straight onto the door. The windows, it seems, don’t seal well and the rain poured in and down the doors. Where the panelling on the outside doesn’t reach the edges is another weak point and the water poured in there too, leaving the bottom of the frame soaked and the doormat well like a miniature swimming pool within a few hours. We moved the camper as close as we could to the door, but it offered little protection; all we could do was sit it out, mopping up at regular intervals, and wait till the rain stopped. This morning was dry, so Nick was able to cut the old garage door to fit the hole; we’ll have to seal the windows shut when they’re dry, which should stop the majority of the water coming in, but I think we’ll have to get planning permission and build a porch to protect the door in the longer term as the door faces west, the direction of the prevailing wind.

Nick et Kieran ont passé deux weekends en remplacer notre porte d’entrée, derrière la maison. C’était super, jusqu’à il a plu; les fenêtres de la porte ne sont pas étanches et la pluie a coulé dedans. Nick a coupé une ancienne porte de garage et l’a mis en place dehors de la nouvelle porte jusqu’à les fenêtres seront sec et on pourra boucher autour des fenêtres.

Moi, je nettoie le carrelage à l’étage avec de l’acide pour enlever les traces de ciment qui restent après avoir fait les joints.