Goodness, it is warm.
It is so warm that even though it is evening, and I am on the taxi rank, I am still hot and sticky, and I even had a shower before I came out.
This was because we had been at the camper van all day, obviously.
It was very hot at the camper van. It was rather like being inside a baking tin in an oven.
It reminded us of summer days in France, when I was trying to make cheese, but couldn’t, because you were supposed to heat the milk to thirty two degrees and keep it there for half an hour. This presented a difficulty because the temperature was standing peacefully at thirty eight degrees even in the shade of our stone-flagged rural kitchen.
The camper van is a large aluminium box. We could not work on it in the shade of the shed, because Mark was mending the roof, and the shed is not sufficiently tall for this to be possible.
He was on the roof welding plates on to the old window holes. This was not a tranquilly cool and refreshing activity.
I was inside the van with the welding machine, cutting up the roof joists from the inside. It is not necessarily a good idea, to be cutting the supports out of a roof when somebody is wandering about on the uppermost side of it, but you will be pleased to hear that no misfortune occurred, and we are unharmed.
This project meant a great deal of faffing about above my head with a hot grinder. It was heavy, and persistently showered me with burning sparks.
I put up with this because I think it might have lived up to its name had I been obliged to put a boiler suit on over the top of my T shirt.
Mark soaked his T shirt with water before going on the roof, like the sort of fish that you cook by wrapping it in wet newspaper and putting in an oven. When the newspaper has thoroughly dried out you take the parcel out and the fish skin comes cleanly away with the paper. It is a splendid dish for those who are responsible for their own washing up.
I do not think Mark’s skin came off with his T shirt, and he had prudently remembered to wear a hat over his bald patch.
We did not make very much progress. This was because we had to keep stopping to tell each other how hot we were, and even that was just an excuse really. Actually it is quite hard to keep doing manual labour on very hot days. Hot weather is glorious when you are sitting around on a lawn underneath ancient shady oak trees with a glass of Pimms in your hand and the sound of a brook burbling just at the bottom of the garden. It is still glorious, although marginally less enjoyable, when you are covered in showers of hot aluminium dust and balancing on a ladder with a grinder in your hand, and the roof from which you are carefully trimming the joists is far too hot to touch.
I cut out all of the joists which were in the way of the new living room roof light. We have measured everything up to install the new frame for the window, and next time we go we will be able to start building it.
Mark helped with the measuring because I am rubbish at it. Even with Mark’s help and the places where he had written CUT HERE with an arrow pointing to the line I still got things wrong. I do not have three dimensional thinking at all, and I could not imagine how the new window would squeeze around the gap left by the old one, until eventually all of the old bits were out and I could see the gap for myself.
Incidentally, it is a jolly good thing we have not yet installed the new bathroom roof window. The doorway for the shed is lower on that side than the other, and it looks suspiciously as though it might not fit underneath it.
We will worry about that another day.
I was trembling when I finally staggered down the ladder, and Mark looked at my attempts at cutting and laughed, because it is difficult to cut in a straight line when you are having to hold the grinder steady above your head, especially when red hot metal bits are raining down all over your face.
I do not find it very easy to cut in a straight line when everything is helpfully laid out on a table and drawn out with razor precision.
Mark said he will probably be able to sort it all out with the welder later.
Having a shower when we came home was blissful.
I might have another one when I get home from work.
