Painting

My recent lack of blogging is due to busyness or that is my excuse anyway. I currently have immediate family staying and therefore I don't feel ashamed in asking for some labouring help. We have decided to paint the rendered part of the house. Although it is all built in granite half of the house is covered in mossy stained grey cement render. Whilst removing the forest of grass, weeds and old cement sheeting running alongside the walls we found these lovely chaps.

The first one is a female Marbled Newt, Wikipedia says that "Marbled newts use the stars to orient them on the way to their breeding pools" which is rather wonderful, you can certainly see the stars from here. The second is a fire salamander which has poisonous skin so we were very careful relocating them to the other side of the house until redecorating is complete.

Getting the balance right between renovating , improving and maintaining an old house is difficult. We inherited the grey cement render so I am really enjoying turning into a bright attractive area. Where we have the original beautiful granite showing however I shall just be re-pointing the crumbling mix in between the stones.

Above is the before, below the after, and we still have a second coat of paint to apply.

We may not yet have the money for the place to be re-roofed but huge leaps forward such as we have been doing this week gladdens the heart when you can see a major improvement. I spend a lot of my time running to stay still, caring for the animals, vegetables and land maintenance (bramble bashing). When a big change happens it is lovely to sit back and admire the difference, perhaps with a glass of local wine anyone?