Gnarls Barnley

Two months, two whole months ive been here in the countryside, I can barely believe it!

In return for the very comfortable and hospitable home I am helping out, and Marc and Laura are so relaxed I kinda take it upon myself to do what I think needs doing and it seems to be going down well. a bit of cleaning and a bit of cooking here and there, some decorating and fixing things.  We are working on the barn at the end of the garden, and what a mighty beast it is, over 20 years old and in definite need of repair. Marc and Laura work from home all day, I potter about and at weekends we launch ourselves full pelt in a  somewhat amateurish and enthusiastic attempt at rebuilding and repairing the roofless and skeletal barn.  until one evening, we were chatting about me being single etc and Laura had a swipe on my behalf on my Tinder account.  Over the next few days I had many matches and spoke to a few, a pleasant and somewhat entertaining diversion. One chap was a carpenter and when I told him of the barn he got quite animated and gave all kinds of advice, culminating in a social distancing date of sorts where he drove over (only about 15 mins) and we went for a talk and a walk.  He seemed more enthuse about the barn than may disarming company so I duly and socially distantly showed him our efforts.  He expressed concern and shored up some of the perceived weaker areas and gave us a load of advice.  The next day (I told you he was keen) he called and said he was worried and would be over at the weekend - this wasn't by invite but bemused and also slightly concerned by this we allowed it.  Let me tell you the barn is large, and we were confident but soaking up the advice.  Lets just say Mr Carpenter decided that the barn was rotten, we needed. a new barn, he would help us build a new barn, to our design and specification free of charge. We were stunned and readily agreed to all his ideas - some of which were fabulous, a bigger barn, dormer window, a mezzanine!! woohoo.

I spent Friday taking down the old barn, carefully with a crowbar and hammer, it took all day and was exhausting. Finally it was on the ground.  Mr Carpenter arrived and helped me to clear the area, I cooked food and we had some wine, he slept in my camper van on the drive in readiness for the next days work. 

Saturday came and we headed to get timber, loaded up and back we built frames.  Soon the grand design began to shrink, why didn't we have a flat roof, what about three box shapes. All the beautiful ideas turned to dust and as we were being offered free help it was very difficult to argue agains this.  Laura did, thank heavens and nicely put ti that we wanted a pitched roof, a single barn building and all the tings we had discussed.  Mr C didn't like that Lau didn't agree with his awesomeness and accused her of getting 'the hump' We learned how to deal with our carpenter friend and by the end of the weekend we had an acceptable skeleton.  Mr C however was not quite the convivial gent he had been - especially when I refused twice to 'come for a cuddle' in the van and we made several amends to the barn being built the way he wanted to do it. When he left on Monday we were slightly relieved as it did feel like he was a stroppy site foreman and we were the confused apprentices!

So, we had a barn, a new fresh pale wood skeleton, we had Youtube and we had hope!