Off Mice and Men

I now have what every good farmhouse should have. Something that looks like yoda, and which does a good impression of a goat.

The new, blue point Himalayan cat after a quick bath

Most farms have cats to keep down the rodents. Even number 10 now has a chief mouser to the treasury  which has sparked many books on the subject.

However, doing things slightly differently, a purrrrfect solution to the infestation here is Bluebelle, a Colourpoint Persian (or as the Aussies call them, a blue point Himalayan cat).

However, unlike the Mr. Jinx of the films, belle has some decidedly wayward tendencies. Most noticeably her cry, which resembles that of a large goat, her addiction to climbing trouser legs to get at what she assumes will be some milk! So, instead of calling “kitty, kitty” to get her to attack the mice, I tend to yell “get off, get off!”

As for keeping the mice down, well, that’s rather beyond a fluffy kitten at the moment.

The Complete Tangler

Victorian Fireplace - the heart of the old pub

Finally, it is complete.

Room number three.

The last task in the tangled web of jobs was painting the rather impressive fireplace. Well, impressive for Australia anyway, where fireplaces are a distinct rarity. Which is more unusual than you may think: far from being the land of eternal sunshine of the optimistic mind, it is the land of really quite cold and frosty winters.

As no one believes in central heating either, a fireplace is therefore a must. If only I had a spare forest – or even a tree – so I could cut the lot down and get some free logs.

The old pub tap room - now complete

The fireplace is, well, not that fancy: it wouldn’t get a glance against some of the more over the top Victorian fireplaces I’ve seen, but considering it was built out of wood chopped down straight from the bush, it’s OK, if you ignore the knot marks and large split up the middle. Clearly in the 19th century the carpenter was the low rung on the totem pole.

However the room is complete, freshly painted, and waiting for... well... I’m not sure what really.

It’s an unusual position to be in, having a room and having no idea what to do with it.


Other than put the original bar back of course.

The fatal door

I’ve moved onto doors now. I must, surely, be getting close to the end. Surely this painting must stop... soon? I’ve used half a 10 litre tin on the walls, and 5 litres of white to cover the ceiling.

And still I’m not done. However I can see the light at the end of the rainbow.

But, bar the fireplace, the only other remnant to complete are the doors. And once I’d talked myself down from the ledge, I went through the slow and painful process of taking all the door furniture off the, err, door. It’s funny, but most builders paint the door still with the catches, handles, everything, still on, and then just slop a bit of paint around. The result is a muddy mess.

So with nerves of steel and an iron will, I’ve been attacking what, according to the heritage officer, are very heavily protected specially significant doors onto the old tap room of the original pub.

Oh no they are not. The giveaway is the Bunnings logo stamped into some of the metal work, and all the old screw holes that show where the old hinges (used to) go. What a nonsense. Right now they can take their open door policy and throw it right out the window.

Clearly the doors were salvaged when this place was turned into a pizza restaurant in the 1980s, and roughly put into place: very roughly in some cases; the door jams were fixed using a nail gun! Then a load of old door catches were screwed on; they are however unusual ones, and are generally all of a similar type. Turning the handle lifts the door catch up! And the catch itself has a very fancy cast brass insert into a mild steel frame. Not that that has stopped generations of painters from painting over all the brass and hiding the small stamped nameplate.

However, slowly but carefully, I’ve been able to scrape the paint off the brass, and polish it up. I’m at a loss as to how to get the mouse teeth marks out of the door though.

A Broom of One's Own

Paint.

Oh what lovely stuff.

Apparently it is a liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film.

It is also a means to ruin. I’ve spent days trying to get the stuff off the walls.

I mean, just look at it! On the wall that once held a shelf, I had to replace three planks because the termites had had a good munch, but otherwise the planks were still sound. However the 1950s and 1970s repaint cracked off a strip up the centre of each plank.

So, in their infinite wisdom, the builders just repainted over the top of the lot, leaving cracked paint with chips that got into the new paint, that wasn’t even a pretty colour. I mean, muddy beige? The whole lot was then painted over again about 10 years ago with a very hard, solid, emulsion.

And the only way to get it off is the sand the lot down. Sometimes I feel like I'm swimming uphill against the grain, but the wood is slowly appearing. I’ve taken so much paint off, that I’ve been sweeping it up in piles – and that’s just the paint that’s gone into my hair and down my ears.
The broom has been getting a workout.

But, ever so slowly, I’m getting to the stage when it will all be done! Just a bit more paint and I’ll have buttered my nest.

The Magic Padding

Now that the shelf is down and the wall is, errr, out, I need to come back to the thorny subject of putting some padding in the wall to drown out the hoons reving their suped up Supras outside.

Bunnings have raised it to new depths their green credentials, by deciding to stop selling sound insulation, so I’ve been forced to use normal thermal insulation. I guess the Aussies don’t care much about being quiet. For me, Silence is Bliss.

However, I have been offered a great way of getting it into the wall. As I mentioned in one hand flapping, trying to stuff thick insulation down the wall from one side is pretty hard. However, with both sides of the wall free, and slightly more spongy thermal insulation, it becomes a whole lot easier.

Indeed, it’s one of the eureka moments, I was so excited my heart about fell out of my stomach. Instead of trying to prize apart weatherboards from the inside, when they’re locked together with a tougne and groove, so the only way to get em up is to split the two... from the outside the weatherboard is simple feather-edge. It pretty much just levers up, just like magic!

Hard Tomes

Time to approach the Fourth Wall of the Third Room, or as it’s known, the last and hardest wall of the renovation of the original cottage. Which explains why I’ve left it until last.

In part, it’s because it’s got a shelf. It’s the shelf in the room. And yet, from whichever angle you look at it, it’s still there. Indeed, never mind how many brackets I unscrew, it is indeed Still There. It was there again today. I wish, I wish it’d go away. When I came home last night at three, the shelf was waiting there for me.

I just had to get to the bottom of it. Or side, as it were.

It turns out that so heavy were the Hard Tomes expected to rest on it I wondered if it was designed for notes for the Dickens Scholar. A huge steel bracket was custom made, and then screwed to the frame of the house – and weather board nailed over the top.

Then, to make really really sure that even in an earthquake, when the house had tumbled down, the only thing still standing would be that cursed shelf, there were screws that could only be accessed by taking off the outside weatherboard into the plank of the shelf.

So, with a heavy heart, I ended up peeling off the external weatherboard too, just to take down a curious, out of place shelf. Finally I got it out – and the room suddenly seems so much bigger. Indeed, without The Shelf In The Room, it’s possible to see the grand proportions of the original tap room. Or it would be, if I had a wall left – at the moment there’s just daylight coming through the empty frame.

The Light Man Cometh

Australia really is the lucky country. Blessed with natural resources, saving energy really is the last thing on many people’s minds. Abundant coal means that electricity is there for the taking... and that induces a certain irrational exuberance in what remains of the national consciousness.

Energy Saving Light Bulbs, with Aga for comparison

And boy, do they like their their juice. I thought I’d been beamed down a rabbit hole and transported to some alternative universe where electricity was too cheap to meter, when I found the joy Australians have in 200watt carbon filament bulbs (illegal in all states in the EU now), along with heating their houses using electricity, an almost total absence of double glazing, and even the incredibly inefficient heating hot water with an immersion heater – again, the Australian standard, even though it costs vastly more than using, say, a decent gas boiler.

Indeed, I was shocked that not only had the builders rebuilt this flimsy wooden shack with no insulation in the walls, they’d also built it with no heating other than the 8kW (yes, 8!) industrial strength aircon plant, which of course has dual redundancy incase of a failure. Each time I turn it on so I can work on the latest Emirates A380 Seating Plan in the cool, the lights go dim! And the place is of course littered with 200 watt light bulbs, or for those outside... 500 watts. You can probably see this place on the moon.

I’m not attempting to join the bunny-huggers, or even be all that green, as I try and drag this house into some modern British sense of living. All I’m trying to do is keep the electricity bill in four figures... and so I’ve been shopping for energy saving light bulbs, swapping over every old one I find – I’ve been up and down the ladder like a light switch.

I’m used to the normal types you’d get down any Ikea in the UK. 8, 12, or 16 watts if you really want to throw the boat out, and go overboard into the house. Not so in Aussieland.

30, 45, or the amazing 60 watt monsters are the standard. They are literally the biggest light bulbs I have ever seen! They throw out a stunning 4000 candle power.

It takes energy saving to a whole new league. At least I can see the light at the end of the rainbow.