Well, at long last the great day has arrived - the stairs are in! Having lost a week-end collecting me from hospital, Mike spent Saturday routing and gluing and all sorts of things and then - with a huge amount of help from Dougie - the stairs were slotted in to place. Put together upstairs they had to be manouevered round corners and gently lowered down; turned out they were a wee bit tight -hence the crow bar - but now they fit perfectly. No screws at all, all careful fitting and a bit of glue. And I was able to christen them. Terrific.

Well, this old Robinia was hiding the view from the balcony so it had to come down. We don't like cutting down trees but it was getting very tatty looking anyway, and hardly had any leaves on last summer, so time to go. And what a difference it makes - the seagulls wheeling over Dougie's fields are amazing. I am trying to get a quote for wire wound the balcony but they haven't come back yet. but it will have to waith until the sofa bed is heaved up the outside.

Stair are well on the way and another week-end should see us able to discard the ladder. Which will help a lady who' going to be on crutches for the next 6 weeks!