Cat on a hot slate roof

I know i haven't posted in absolutely eons, no excuse just got a lazy head on for awhile and couldn't be arsed! Oh, i did spend a week in bed with a flu/cold thingy. It must have been bad because in the end i had to go to the doctors. The first time in 4 years!!! Anyway now back in the land of the workers and boy is it hard work in the heat. Mixing concrete and putting in a spiral staircase in 43° is no fun. Even in the cellar it went up to 27°. The hottest day so far has been 47° and i expect in july/august this will be beaten as well.
The cat has found herself a new high vantage point from which to survey the world and to see if she can spot any mice to eat. She brought us home a dead rat the other night. She could only just about carry it but she enjoyed playing with it, tossing it in the air and pouncing on it until i spoilt her fun and took it off her. I don't mind her eating mice but i draw the line at rats!! she went off in a huff.......
The house advances, i have started plastering the last wall in the other guest bedroom and hopefully it will be finished this weekend. That will just leave the floor to clean up and stain, make and fit the doors and voila! finished and awaiting guests. slowly it is at last all coming together! hurrah 

Working views

I haven't posted for ages. No reason, just lazy. Anyway this is the view of the house that i have been seeing each morning recently as i tootle off to work. That's "real" work for M. Plasterman. I bet you don't have such a good view do you? Life teeters on much as usual, the weather is just hot! 29° ish in the shade at the front of the house which is the north side and up to around 42° around the back on the southside. The cellar as ever remains at a lovely cool 15 - 20° lovely!! The horses are getting short of water as the source has dried up a little, providing just enough water to keep the vegetable garden watered so we have to fill up the watering can a few times and empty it it into the horses water trough. It has forecast a change in the weather for the weekend but this doesn't automatically mean that it will rain!! So, it is all hands to the water recycling bacs so we can use the waste water from the house to water the garden!
This eco-friendly business is all very well but can be very time consuming!!! We have eaten our first lettuces and they were delicious. We are trying out a new way of picking them suggested to us by a gardening friend. Instead of picking the whole lettuce just take off the second set of leaves from the ground from a number of plants. This means that the lettuce will continue to grow and produce new leaves. So far it seems to be working..... the cauliflowers are producing little florets and the broad beans are coming into flower....this gardening lark is real fun especially when you can eat what you have grown....... L has also made some elderflower syrup and the walnut leaf wine has been started. It just needs me in a week or so to start the pickled walnuts and vin noix and we are up and running again as true country peasants using stuff that is free..... hurrah for the bounty of the countryside i say!