This was the tricky bit. It's the V where the porch emerges from the roof onto the decking, and only when it was in place could Mike get the boards on the front roof. Anyway , it's now done and most of the boards are on, and covered with polythene ( a hairy business last night in blustery showers). Then it's insulation, plywood, waterproofing and slates.

But sadly it's covered up the Sky aerial and we can't get BBC2 analogue, so I'm having to do without my daily fix of Newsnight.

Just for a change I thought I'd show you the picture we bought to go in the new room. Last week-end the studios in Mid-Argyll opened their doors, and we had a great tootle round looking for the right picture. This one is 'the life of a pizza' painted by a delightful young artist called Rob Walker
from Crinan Ferry who was clearly obsessed with food. It was a choice of that one, 'Pizza for two' or a bowl of mussels.

Work on the roof goes really well and the latest worry is how to get the jutting out roof that goes over the doors fitted in with the whole. It's a bit Catch 22 as it needs to sit on the boards, but the boards need to sit on it. Or something. Once that's done , then that side can be boarded.

I have one more coat to paint on 12 planks after my original 96. Cause for celebration.

Not that much to show, but we're making progress - I think ! Inside it's the stair area that's the tricky bit , with original roof supports being cut out, new ones being shoved in - always a scary business - and last night with a lot of effort , bits of sarking being removed, and whacking with lump hammers and jemmies we (we - I helped!) got two fairly critical joists in. This now means the final support for the roof can go up and the second side of roof can be covered.

Remember the 96 planks I had to chamfer and paint with two layers of fire-proofing? We're down to the last twelve. I did hear some really good programmes on Radio 4 while I was doing it. We tried to burn some of the cut-offs in our chiminier last week and I'm delighted to say they were very grudging to go , so I must have mixed the mixture right!

And hopefully the scaffolder will be along next week - safety is all! and if I'd been wearing a hard hat last night I wouldn't have stuck a nail from the roof in my head as I whizzed up a ladder.

Slowly, slowly the house is being eroded away. Remember that nice coat cupboard and Granny Campbell's beautiful hand sewn Art Nouveau curtain? Forget them. Now, instead, we're back to the original byre wall - I remember putting that yellow mark on it in 1975. That was when we discovered the building had no foundations so we decided to lower the whole place rather than raise the roof.

so now we're raising the roof!

The windows have arrived! Aren't they lovely. They are covered in tape and are actually black. Mike had an incredible job getting black ones - McLeods would make them in white and get a wee man in Inverary to paint them black, but we didn't think that was a geat idea. Then we got a quote from some people down south for thousands of pounds. In the end good old Jewson's came up trumps. The triangular ones go on the side wall, them there's a high one on the road side and one under the decking for our old bedroom.

This morning a pretty fraught morning; raining hard and the old familiar leaks springing up, and - having somehow found places to put all our coats, climbing boots , and kites - Mike very loudly demolished all the cupboard area at the end of the living room. Said he'd never been happy with it anyhow. That's where the stairs will be - well we'll need to be able to get up to this wonderful new room somehow and I'm not ready for a Stannah lift.

Well the roof is rising; sadly the most dramatic pictures which are of me single-handedly erecting the double beams, aren't available, as I am also the official photographer. But the photos below give an idea of progress.