A Golf Ball And A Pea.

You know that autumn is here when you have to add wiping the condensation from the bottom of the windows to the list of morning jobs as was the case this morning. Not surprising as yesterday evening the stars had been shining in a cloudless sky. 

It did feel cold this morning and I'm glad all the tender plants are either in the porch or in the cold frame.

The day itself has been sunny with not a drop of wind so it wasn't worth moving the washing from the drying rack in the utility room to the outside washing line.

Today was a good day for working on the garage windows. This job has been a series of underestimations. (The photos below are of the worst window.)

Firstly before I had seen the windows from the outside I underestimated just how bad the damage was. Still worth trying to repair.

Next I underestimated how much of the wood moulding I would need. Fortunately it only came in 2m lengths and as I replaced the missing or rotten wood along the whole length of three panels I ended up with just 1cm left over. I also put in a 13 inch piece of bigger wood in the corner.

My next underestimation was of the amount of the wood filler I needed. I used the whole of a 1kg tin and a bit more I had left over from before but I still need more. I've ordered another large tin just to be on the safe side. At £26 for the bigger tin it's not cheap but it does the job and saves having to put in new windows.

My final underestimation, though that's stretching the meaning a little, was not realising the clear liquid I used to harden the wood earlier would leave white marks all over the tiled sills. It would have been easy to just wipe the tiles at the time but instead I had to give them a scrub as I don't like to leave things messy.

By the end of the afternoon the less damaged window has been filled and sanded and new wood put in the other window. The bottom piece for that window has been filled (mostly) and I just need to repair the upright pieces.

 

And the strange post title? Those are the measures given to mix the wood filler. A golf ball sized lump of the paste and a pea sized squirt of the catalyst. A very sensible pair of measures as everyone knows how big a golf ball is and peas are more or less the same size. You can't mix up too much at a time as it hardens quite quickly. 

After reading about specific (and expensive) black spot/algae remover for concrete tiles I had a go at seeing if bleach would do the trick. And by gum it does. I did a bigger section overnight and you can see from where I missed a corner how effective it is. There are only 20 of those very textured slabs at the bottom of the terrace steps and considering that even with the pressure washer I can't get them clean, this is a good solution.

I bought some reduced spare ribs yesterday and they've been simmering away in the slow cooker for our dinner tonight. I wondered if it was safe to cook meat on the low setting as per the recipe but a check with the meat thermometer showed that the temperature of the meat was in the 70s well above the recommended 63C.

Peter has been out rowing this afternoon (they're the tiny dot in the photo below) so I'm guessing he's looking forward to dinner too.