Old Pigeons, New Home

One of my recent favorite phrases is "say what you see", because in my humble opinion many of the world's problems can be solved simply by being bold enough to report on what is happening in front of your eyes.

To solve the problem of how to fill today's blog entry, I will say what I see in the three photographs I have taken today. :-)

In the first photo you can see Joe at the top of the scaffolding, plastering the top of the north wall. He is nothing if not ambitious, as he is trying to complete this mammoth wall in a single day.

Ambitions were partially thwarted as Joe reported he had had a cup of coffee first thing this morning to get him going. I was worried as Joe had told me previously, that he was a coffee addict and had given it up a couple of years ago. Needless-to-say, Joe reacted badly to the coffee and looked wretched after an hour or so. Fingers crossed, he is now better and back on track.

Just above the top of the ladder you can see some square openings amongst new wooden supports for the ceiling that Gregor has inserted. Gregor was mortified that the two pigeons who are still living in the castle (Mr. and Mrs. Flappy) are using one of these openings as their new nesting box. Mr. and Mrs. Flappy are nothing if not audacious as they fly through a door into and out of the Great Hall, just a foot or so from our heads. You can feel the draft of their flapping wings on your face.

There was a swift in the Great Hall earlier today, and Joe was escorting out some brightly coloured butterflies. Spring has definitely arrived at Balintore.

In the second photo you can see the fireplace in the Great Hall. The builders were burning some rubbish here today and the smoke came straight back into the room. In just a few days of the fire being off, due to the good weather, birds have built a nest in the chimney! The metal mesh had been ripped off the top of the chimney can by our avian property developers and squatters rights have been claimed. Gregor is on the warpath.

The third photograph was taken at the end of the afternoon. You can see that Joe has almost plastered to ground level. Rest assured that Joe did succeed in his "one wall, one man, one trowel" plastering challenge by the evening shift. I went to take a final photo of the completed work, but it had gone dark, and I could not find the light switch in my own castle! :-)