Woodhenge

Today Karl and I started building a woodshed on the site of the old Wash house.  The old wash house received its building consent in 1910.  Its not longer there but conveniently the concrete base and low walls are.  Having no idea what we were doing, we set off to buy an impact drill, a masonary bit, a spirit level and dynabolts.  Jesse and Karl were hopeful that it could be built this Sunday afternoon.  I was more realistic and decided on 3 weeks (weekends only after deducting rugby and rugby training).  By 3.30pm our backs were absolutely shagged and neither of us could stand up straight any more (to be fair, yesterday we did do a heap of work around the property.  Karl started his rough draft of the woodshed, and I mowed the lawns, weed ate the top half of the bottom section and pulled apart most of the cartage pellets the woman who sold us the place left behind).  Our backs called all the shots and we threw in the towel for the day.  We will get back into it next Saturday, but at the moment the woodshed has its uprights (the studs) only standing.  It looks like a wooden version of stonehenge erected to pay homage to the sun the area in which the woodshed will stand so desperately desires.  That's actually part of the problem and the reason for the woodshed.  There is almost no sun in that area so the wood for burning manages to attract damp - this of course is non beneficial to the wood burner.  The wood burner incidentally pumps out 21kW of power.  That's a huge amount of heat compared to most heat sources.  I brought home a thermostat from work for the weekend to measure the heat in the house.  I was pleasantly surprised to note that the lounge (which is the room in which the wood burner resides) when the fire has been going for about an hour, has an average temperature of 26 degrees celcius (top temperature is 30 degrees which is far too hot), and the bedrooms, after the heat transfer system has been on for about an hour, has an average temperature of 19.4 degrees celcius.  It is just wonderful to go to bed and never have to feel cold, or get dressed quickly lest jack frost bites your member.  All in all, we are very very happy with the fireplace and heat transfer system when they operate together.  The fire is sonderful on its own but the high stud (12') holds all of the heat in that room.  Back to work tomorrow.  Mum has now been home from the infirmary for the past 4 days and she is steadily showing signs of improvement.  She still gets tired, but her sleeping binges seem to be getting further and further apart.  She had a smoke yesterday.  Very disppointing.  She has had a couple today as well.  Less disappointing - mainly because I knew that as soon as she had her first one that would be it.  Hopefully she manages to keep the number of smokes per day down to the bare minimum, but seeing she's been smoking since she was 13 years old, I think that unless she stops fully, that will be unlikely thing.

Jesse's first day of the term tomorrow, and he's not looking forward to it very much.  Never mind, only 5 months until Christmas.

Nite nite everyone.