24th May 2013 - Preparing for the big Sew..

A couple of weeks off the longest day and the central heating is still on timer. Which means that the gas bills will still be through the roof - though normally they are very small while we gavotte around the country and close the house up. The gas man called a couple of weeks ago to do a "Safety Inspection". I know that they really want to get in and find out if my self readings are accurate or whether they can charge me some more for gas used...

Unfortunately our gas meter is in the corner of the living room. The corner where I hide the industrial sewing machine by piling up boxes and teddy bears all over it so you can't see it. Of course that piling means that it takes about half an hour to unravel the debris to get the meter to see it, so there was no real reason to let them know that they could come into the house.

But yesterday, I cleared the living room ready for the big sew. Therefore it seemed only fair to give the gas man a text message (I hate texting!) that the meter was now accessible. Sure enough, he was so keen to come that he called this morning. Now, I sometimes am up at about 8am, but this was not one of those mornings, so calling before 9am was a good excuse for the dogs to bark and run around in ever decreasing circles, but was no reason to open the door in a dressing gown.

The little card says that he will call back after 4pm. Chances are he will have to climb over 100 meters of tent canvass by that time but so be it.

But the room is cleared and the decks are ready for the lay out. Susie has a series of paper plans all to scale showing how the tent should go together. It is a mammoth task! I have done the easy bit - cleared the room ready!.

And so it begins....

Well, Rusty is ready anyway...