In theory week-ends are great for getting on with things, but in practise they are a dead loss. The workshop's open until 2 on a Saturday (at least it's not 5 as it used to be) and at this time of year there are may be one or even two cottages to change over - which is amazingly time consuming, even with two of us. Three cheers for our marvellous Catherine who does the bulk of it.

So, Saturday saw us grab a few hours to put a new upright in the living room. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the old black cracked one, but Mike felt it needed replacing and made a very fine pole out of multiple slabs of timber. Replacing it was slightly hairy involving temporary struts, car jacks, and a very creaking roof which had not been shoogled like this for 35 years , but all is now solid.

Then, when the rain had stopped, it was time to build the first joist. Oh the tension! For a kick-off I can't read a rule which put us back a bit, then the engineers drawings were wrong, which put us back further. So lots of pencil marks later it was all hammered together and we hope to God the angle is right. This will go onto the workshop gable end, and will be the template for our grander interior double joists.