We have finally received a piece of good news on Thursday, that the materials for the roof insulation might be delivered on Friday, and were happy like a pair of kids we are. :) Friday came with torrential rain and Biblical hailstorm. :( But the delivery was late and when it has finally arrived the rain paused, just for us, just for an hour, that we all needed to fuff about and unload the stuff. :) The driver has telephoned shortly before the arrival asking me, if I have anyone to help me unload the rockwool, so I in turn quickly telephoned my lovely husband to help me. ;)
On the arrival of the lorry I felt a bit weak, thinking there is no blooming way we are ever going to cope with that amount of stuff, and even worse when the driver informed us that he couldn't bring the whole lot in one go, so would be back with the left-overs... No kidding! Not that it was easy or great fun, or anything of the kind, but we did it (insert Dora the explorer singing We did it song here) and it only took us a bit over half an hour. I was shattered, and filling my garage was easier, as it was smaller, too.
The weather forecast for week-end was good so decision was made that the work on the roof should start immediately. My dh (he is a man after all) invited two friends to help him. (good man!) except that he invited their families as well, after all it is only going to be 200 sq.m. of basically fiber-glass. And to access the roof we need to move some asbestos around, but a little bit of asbestos is good for you, isn't it?! If you have a minute, do explain to me how does the mind of a man work?! It must be very different to a woman's! I was busy organizing where do I send our kids out for a day, not planning at all having 6 kids running around all the debris and three men going up and down a ladder... Seemed to me like a scenario for a disaster. Having explained this to my dear dear scientist of a husband, I have found myself in a situation that he wouldn't talk to me for the whole evening, and refused the help of the blokes, and blaming it all on me not wanting to have a party... Really I am all for parties, only not the ones that are combined with DIY and Asbestos, for goodness sake! I tend to avoid going to them, so I am not going to throw one, am I?! Anyway, I said I would not change my mind, and would rather crawl in the roof-space myself, if macho help involves 4 more kids present...
So when Saturday came we were ready (but not speaking yet), and the kids looked after by a friend in the village from 9:30 in the morning! The work has started...The packs (awkward size) had to be carried up into the garden, cut open and carryied up the ladder, did I mention that my wonderful man has vertigo, and I have fear of just about everything? Ok, so keep this in mind when I tell you that he had to go up and down the shaky ladder 96 times to carry the materials to the roof, where I met him to push the panels in (each individual panel of FlumRoc is the size of the cot matress) and take them into position. I was armed with a face mask and a bread-knife to perform my task and by the end of the day managed to crawl pushing one matress in front and pulling the other one behind me... Thanks to the communist government that prepared me in my Soviet childhood by making us participate in the military game of "Zarnitsa" where you were taught to crawl under the tight threads, hauling an injured body with you... Watching American films in youth has helped me move back to the pile of matresses even faster by using my comando style roll, and in the middle part of the roof, I could even hobble along in a proper Disney hunchback fashion. Oh! That was fun! Keeping in mind that my husband's knees have been operated on 7 times (?) -Gosh! so far, and are pieced together using some other less used part of his body in a mosaic fashion, I didn't mind doing most of the crawling, I got used to the huge spiders almost immediately, and for the dark corners I had my miners lamp on the forehead, so that was alright, too. Besides I was not at all capable of climbing up a shaky ladder with a huge pile of rock-wool in my hands. But it turned out that I have a hidden talent, carving out bits of rockwool to make a nice jigsaw kind of effect when laying it down. Thus my trusty bread-knife...
About 6 p.m. Saturday we had to stop for several reasons: we have emptied the biggest garage, we have used up all of the material in the garden, it was too dark to see, and we thought it was time to remind the kids that they still have both parents. BTW some time during that day we forgot that we were not on speaking terms, and the family relationship has become a warm and friendly one... Sunday morning I could not kneel on the soft bed to get up, I couldn't sit up or pull myself on the elbows either... I am such a sissy, being all bruise and pain from mere 8 hours of excercise, Alas! I was no good as a helper, but brave superhero of my husband came to rescue, he single handedly brought four more packs up to the garden and then up the ladder to the roof, climbed in and layed the patch that was left over. Hurrah!!! He is my champion. So what is left now is about 88 sq.m. of surface along the other line of imaginary L that represents a layout of our house. And this time I am organising the help, and no children are involved! Just keep the fingers crossed for the nice weather next week-end!
These are two friends, best girlfriends ever. They go to the same school, read the same books, like the same music, so they both agreed to go as brides, though one of them doesn't really like skeletons, so she is just a bride, even if it's not too Halloweeny... There isn't a rule about that, is there, she says. They are also both finger puppets.
This amigurumi likes Halloween, but not the really scary stuff, she has made this costume herself. And if you still don't know what she is supposed to be, she is a champignon dressed as a Fly Agaric, or Amanita Muscaria as my dd informs me. Do they study extreme survival in the second grade? She likes playing tag with her friends, she is very sociable and polite, loves school, and after school is always planning the next party. I am also told that she has made most of other mushrooms' costumes. Even the scary ones. Even though she didn't approve of those. She reminds me of my oldest daughter. Studious, organised, pleasant, sweet.
The second mushroom must be a girl, she is dressed up as a butterfly, she is fun to be with and likes to be noticed by her friends mushrooms, she likes to be adored! Her favourite colours are purple and pink, or so my littlest daughter says, she likes singing and flower picking... Do mushrooms really pick flowers?! Nevermind. She is restless and likes her mini adventures that she has to make up if the day is really boring. Dislikes being bored, but is rarely bored due to active mind, and body. Her favourite game is skipping with a rope, but I am told she is still not too good at it, because she keeps tripping. In fact when she is having an imaginary adventure, she trips over things, furniture, and other mushrooms, too. So surprisingly I have just discovered that She is a bit clumsy...
To celebrate 10 years since we met, we went up the roof again (how romantic) and worked until it was finished. Thank Goodness for friends! Two of them just turned up on the day to give us a hand and Gosh! It was so much easier with the help, it seemed so much easier... We saved so much time thanks to another pair of hands and a brilliant idea of throwing the materials up instead of carrying them up the wobbly ladder. And it was so easy to have somebody pushing the insulation through the hole in the roof, which meant I didn't have to crawl out of the narrow space for each piece and push it in front of me all the way back the whole length of the roof. So by the end of Sunday the job was done, I sure hope it will make the significant difference to our temperature indoors. My Dad, a true Russian gets cold when he comes to visit, and wears in bed a wooly hat that I crocheted for my dear husband to go in the snow... And last winter, when we ran out of oil in our new house, our bedroom kept +12 Celcius for a week.
ids do.
