A Wall Divides Us!

News from this long weekend with David has been that thanks to the help of his dad, Dave and his brother Gary, we managed to get the frame and plasterboards up! Giving us the main bedroom and the box room back to the way it should be!

The plasterboards were delivered on Friday by Wickes which is just what David wanted as he was so eager to get on with the work. Saturday afternoon, we worked from 2pm ’till 8pm! The frame was built as David put up the plasterboards. We did the box room side first as that looked smaller and easier.

Earlier in the morning, I ordered the black high gloss sideboard from Furniture 66. I can’t wait for it to be delivered! We were only in the shop for about 10 minutes and in that time I handed over £229! I came out of the shop a bit shell shocked wondering what had happened lol. 😀

Sunday, while David’s dad had a migraine, it was left to David and Gary with little ‘ole’ me hindering as we continued to put the plasterboards up on the main bedroom side. It was the first time since my father had passed that I missed him. I was thinking he would have helped whether he was in pain or not, he was that kind of guy! We needed his help as well as the plasterboards were heavy! Such is life!

David and Gary did a great job and within six hours of work we had the boards put up and the electric switches cut out. It really looks nice! The main bedroom is so large! But the work is not finished with, the ceiling needs to be smoothed over and there is a hole in the wall by the window which needs filling in so no rest for the wicked!

Hope you enjoy the slideshow below:

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On Monday David and I took our last visit under the membership scheme to Chester Zoo, before it runs out at the end of July. I said goodbye to Lushui and Pali the Red Pandas and got upset as we walked out of the gates. I don’t know when we will be back as the house takes priority over days out. 😦

Bird news, and the Goldfinches continue to ‘charm’ my back yard! There were 10 of them on the feeders this weekend! The baby House Sparrow was seen a few times over the weekend crying for food and my reserves of sunflower hearts and nyjer seed is getting low again!

New Life Just Keeps Coming!

The news from the past few days has been a visitation of a Male House Sparrow with his baby! Mum spotted them last night on the bracket feeder and I ran upstairs to get the camcorder, but on way down, they had flown off… such is life! The baby House Sparrow, looked like a Goldfinch baby and was crying like all the other babies before him/her, begging for food, which the daddy House Sparrow was obligingly giving!

At dusk last night, I spotted nine, yes NINE Goldfinches and this morning, Friday, I spotted yet another baby Goldfinch begging from his parents! WOW! My yard is so blessed with all this new life. 😀 It is nearing the end of July and still there are baby Goldfinches abound!

My feeders have become a hive of activity over the past few days, with not only Goldfinches, House Sparrows and the Blue Tit couple regularly gracing my feeders, but the Magpie with the sore eye has been seen eating from my fresh coconut and last evening Mr. Dunnock was spotted hopping about the yard floor picking up the seed left by the Goldfinches! I love watching the Dunnock, he is such an adorable little bird, people think he is brown and boring,  but I have fallen in love with this small, unassuming bird! 😀

With all this activity at the feeders, my two 5kg bags of Haith’s bird seed is going down considerably as I am filling up the feeders once a day! I really can’t keep feeding at this level with dwindling financial resources, so any ideas on how to keep the birds happy but feeding for less, then do let me know. 🙂

I am eager to get out into the yard and join the Big Butterfly Count, I saw three Red Admirals last year but this year butterfly sightings have been poor.

In my area I have seen the odd White and Cinnabar Moths but none of the more strikingly colourful ones. Lets hope the sunny weather that the Met Office has hinted at for the coming weekend, will bring the butterflies out!

Slow Progress and Free Tickets to see TED!

After ending my last blog with some optimism I begin this with saying that David and I never completed the stud wall yesterday. 😦 We did cut the wooden beams for placement and David took off the old 1900 nogs but we never built the frame back up again much to my disappointment. 😦

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On a happier point, the Haith’s bird food arrived a day after I ordered them. They arrived via FedEx and the Goldfinches are eagerly gobbling up the seed! 😀

We have had many Goldfinches visiting as well as two faithful Blue Tits, and up to three male House Sparrows. I am very happy that the House Sparrows have visited, adding to the bio diversity of the yard. My mum also said that the Dunnock was spotted hopping about the yard and helping himself to the dropped sunflower seeds yesterday. I do love Mr. Dunnock and I am very grateful that he has continued to visit and that he is getting some food, despite the hoard of Pigeons and colony of rats that are in competition for the feed!

I was amused when I got an email this morning from Vue Cinemas. I had entered a competition last week to win preview tickets to the new comedy ‘Ted‘. David and I both think it will probably be awful, but today I found out I got two free tickets to see it! lol 😀 I just sat laughing at the computer for a few minutes and my mum thought I was mad! The screening is tomorrow, so I am planning a romantic date with David, we are going for a pizza before hand and then going to see the film. I just hope it all goes according to plan!

The Stud Wall Will NOT Defeat Us!!

It’s a Sunday evening, and I am relaxing after a long weekend of hard graft, (though not so much graft today!).

While listening to the new Dark Knight Rises soundtrack by the wonderful Hans Zimmer, I shall recap on an eventful three days!

Friday, with David having a day off work, was spent mostly with David and I driving around Liverpool, between Taskers to get the kitchen ceramics I wanted. I spent over £50 on them, but they look lovely in the new kitchen!

I also saw a nice sideboard (though white, hopefully they have in black), from Furniture 66 in Aintree! It was only £219 and I would have bought it straight away if it wasn’t for David saying ‘wait!’

Saturday, David and I started making a mess of the stud wall between the main front bedroom and the box room. The owners before us renovated the house for students and had a new stud wall extended into the main bedroom. To our dismay it was too much encroachment so I wanted it put back the way it used to be!

The work seemed to go smoothly, David and I worked on sawing the plasterboard from the wooden frame and then ripping the rest off. We managed to get the plasterboard off all sides before stopping for the night. On the Sunday, with the help of David’s brother Gary, we managed to get the whole wooden frame off! Now there is one large room instead of two! Refer to slideshow for the complete pictures!

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Monday, David and I plan on putting the frame back to its original 1900 place, whether we will be successful is anyone’s guess! Wish us luck! 😀

Look! A New Roof!!

The past two days, I have been on the edge of my nerves watching the workmen fit the new roof to our home. I was very surprised that it only took two days! The scaffolding will be taken down tomorrow and then our house will be free to show off its lovely brand spanking new roof. 😀

The work started on Wednesday morning at 8am! I was knocked out of a disturbed sleep by my mum who said ‘Chestnut (Chestnut Roofers and Builders) are here! I dived out of bed and looked out of the window and it looked like a huge military opperation had commenced as there was a convoy of lorries and vans parked outside the house! 😮

The five men worked from 8am til 4pm! I can’t fault their work ethic, they hardly stopped! At least we had good weather on both days of construction!

On the Wednesday, the workmen took the old slates off the roof that must have been on since the house was built over 100 years ago! Then there emerged a pile of rotten wet wood, that were the battens crossing the roof and which the tiles are attached too. The men had constructed a shute that made a right racket when the tiles and later on the bricks from the demolished chimney stack were thrown down.

Wednesday evening, David went into the loft to see the water proof fabric that had been laid down, it resembled a Japanese wall to me. 🙂

Work recommenced on Thursday with the putting up of the tiles and taking the chimney pots down. The workmen used a mechanical conveyor belt to carry the tiles up to the roof. 🙂

The work was completed at 3.30pm and David became just shy of £4000 poorer! I must say the roof looks very smart! We now just need a good torrential downpour to test the new tiles and guttering. 🙂

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Wild bird news: I have just ordered from Haiths.com a 5kg sack of sunflower hearts and a 5kg sack of Goldfinch seed which has teasel seed that the finches love! I can’t wait for the seed to arrive so I can dish the feed out as I have ran out of Nyjer seed. 😦

I was quite amused watching the Goldfinches cope with the work on the roof today. I watched them several times as they flew around in circles trying to land but fearful of the workers on the roof. Later in the evening, I sat out in the back yard with a cup of tea and chatted with my mum, while the Goldfinches and Blue Tits flapped their wings overhead trying to land on the seed. Needless to say, we didn’t stay in the yard for long as we left the birds to eat in peace. 🙂

Red Panda Numbers are Growing!

The news I awoke to this morning was that Lily, the Red Panda who was born at Chester Zoo in 2010 and subsequently moved to Sweden’s Norden’s Ark Zoo, has now become a mum herself! I was so overwhelmed! What lovely news! It is a shame I live so far from Sweden, I would so love to visit her and see her with her babies. 😀

More Red Panda news and also a son of Lushui and Pali (their legacy lives on!), and brother of Lily has also bred successfully at Cotswolds Wildlife Park.

House news, and yesterday (Monday) we got a call from Chestnut saying that they were not coming next week to do the work but this Wednesday! I was shocked! Today, the men with the scaffolding came. They parked outside our house at 9am and did not get out of their cab until after 9.30am! Talk about dragging time out a bit! lol

They worked from 9.30am until 1pm-ish! Now as David put it, the house has braces on LMAO! 😀 Maybe things house wise are starting to move forwards. 🙂

Garden bird news: The Dunnock was spied yesterday evening, hopping about the yard gobbling up the scraps that the male House Sparrow (I’ve named Jack) was dropping as he attacked the fat balls! 😀 I am happy to report that the House Sparrows (maybe three of them) are continuing to visit daily. Yesterday, two males and a female were spotted. 🙂

Last evening, about 7.30pm there were up to 10 Goldfinches and two Blue Tits on the feeders. Even one of the baby Goldfinches was begging for food. I had thought that we had seen the last of the begging birds, but I was wrong. 🙂

Oh No! The Starlings are Back!

On Saturday while poking my head out of the bedroom window I spied 12 Goldfinches at my feeders! 12! Over half were babies. 😀 Going from a charm of Goldfinches to a small murmuration of Starlings, on Tuesday there were up to 10 Starlings at my new ringed fat ball feeder (from B&M at 2.99!). lol Oh no, I don’t think I could cope with a hoard of Starlings as well as Golds! lol

A few weeks ago I talked about a visiting female House Sparrow being spotted, now, today I have seen two male House Sparrows eating from my fat balls. I didn’t know they ate from feeders, I thought they were ground feeders? The two new visitors seem very nervous, but the Goldfinches were like that before getting used to their new surroundings. I hope the two new visitors will continue to visit and perhaps bring their friends along as well 🙂