Don't you hate how just when you have a bit of money to play with, your teeth decide to have an emergency! I just broke a cusp of one of my pre-molars eating a pizza! Not even a crunchy crust - just there one minute, gone the next. Bother.

I had hoped to have a lie in today to make  up for yesterday's which was interrupted by the alarm I had forgotten to turn off. But this morning my internal alarm decided waking at five thirty was a really good idea. I guess it was the sunny morning (mild frost).

Still at least it was a sunny day, so I did a bit of tidying up after the so-called gardener (who appears to have appropriated my gardening fork, long-handled shovel and flat bladed shovel) and called in to visit a friend to drop off a pot of paint (the charcoal colour I used on the finials) as she was saying the other day it was just the colour she wanted for her front door. She is under strict instruction to return it as I also plan to use it on the kick plates in the kitchen when I get around to having any (post lino-laying).

But apart from that, I have done next to nothing all day as I seem to have pinched a nerve in my back and so have sciatic pain. So lifting and heaving seemed inadvisable. Hopefully it will have sorted itself overnight and all will be well tomorrow.

The NBN saga continues. Having cancelled my appointment on the 16th, they assured me they would contact Dodo and reschedule for me. A week later, having heard nothing, I contacted Dodo who were surprised to discover I had not been connected. An appointment was arranged for 13 October, with the justification being that they had lost  the connection and would not be able to resume work till then. So you can imagine my surprise when I came home on Thursday and spotted them installing an antenna next door! Another phonecall did not result in any useful outcome so I will be calling my local member tomorrow and see if he can sort them out (or at least frame some pointy Questions On Notice in the House).

Meanwhile the painter and the roofer have finished up so I allegedly have a leakproof house (though in the absence of rain it is hard to know), and it is a pretty house as well.

 The painter got a little carried away and talked me into engaging a 'landscaper' of his acquaintance. This turned out to be a long-termed unemployed lad who has set up his own business in gardening. A great idea - pity he is not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination. He did some useful stuff for me like demolishing the roof of the shed i had demolished a couple of years ago (but could not find the pinch bar, and when I did it was too hot and snaky to be playing with it and ...), and laid the remaining retaining wall blocks (which he did well, but with a fine disregard for my instructions to drop down a course so naturally ran out of materials before he was done). Then he ran out of work, and since I was out at work myself he asked for further instructions from the painter, who suggested he showcase his skills as a paver. As a result i now have a new back step, but he used the handmade bricks I have been carefully garnering over the years and two of them have now broken as he did not fill the centre terribly well. On the plus side he turned out to be an excellent joiner, and I asked him to come back on Saturday to finish fitting the mouldings on the front door (which are now visibly missing as a result of the highlighting paint job). Unfortunately he decided to throw a sulk and did not turn up, so he is no longer working for me. The painter (also a renderer) will be back some time in the not too distant future to provide me with hearths for those fireplaces whose hearths have disintegrated, and meanwhile I will get a friend to come in and fit the mouldings and architraves that require it.

On Friday I headed down to Hobart to have an EEG - nothing to be alarmed about, I am participating in a study on the Aging Brain and they were trying to work out which bits of my brain are used when I am learning something new - in this case a sequence of moving dots. I will be heading back there next Friday for the second part of the experiment. I will take a scarf with me next time as the gel they use dries into large white lumps on your head.

The windows and new roof have made an astounding difference to the internal temperatures of the house and the temperature variation (much reduced). So for the last two nights i have not had to light the fire (though I have tonight as we are heading to zero). I will be interested to see if I have as much condensation on the windows tomorrow morning as have usually been the case.

I bought two sets of shed shelving as Bunnings was having a sale, and I have spent the last two days wrestling them into shape (turns out you really should read the instructions, even for such apparently simple objects!), and they are now laden with my small power tools, painting stuff, paints, fixings etc. A sheet has been hung on the back of them so as to avoid passing intruders from spotting things through the alarmingly revealing window on that side. I will progress that tomorrow so I can find my way around the 'spare bedroom' without risking life and limb again.

It also helps to be able to move additional stuff into that space and out of the main house.

The quote on the shed came as a bit of a shock to the system, so the rear awning will be a distant dream I am afraid, if I want to line out the two remaining rooms and have a vaguely civilised interior. Sigh. But the shed is essential whereas the awning is only highly desirable, so thus goes the budget.

Both the roofer and the painter turned up today so a time was spent marshalling ladder space and priorities before they set to work. The painter was an hour ahead of the roofer though, so he got precedence. Despite the potential for chaos, the roof now has flashing on the chimneys and on one gable, and the guttering that has been loitering in the grass down the side of the house for the last five years is now finally mounted in the brackets that were positioned for its use way back then. Not plumbed in, but still a huge improvement.

I fled the scene and went to the men's shed where I made up a piece to mount on the bottom of the front door to provide additional rain protection. I do have a storm seal, but despite this in particularly high winds and rain there are puddles indoors. This should sort that out once and for all.

The painter puttied up the window to be repaired which was nice of him, and makes it look rather more substantial, but it will all have to come out again when I pull the window apart to repair it, so I rather wish he hadn't.

The starlings who have been lodged in the roof are still making attempts to get in at the side of the house, but so far have not succeeded, and once the other length of guttering is in place will have no hope. Meanwhile the cats are lurking at their entry point in the hope of catching them!

First coat of the main colour is now on, and looking good, much nicer than the rather buttercup yellow that the last so-called 'stone' colour was. The grey undercoat represents the 'oxblood' and the white will be 'antique white' around the windows - the door will be all three colours, and the reveals in 'antique white'

Friday was a glorious day, but the painter had to finish off a job in Hobart so missed the painter  missed his chance, but the roofer was up bright and early and soon it all looked like this!

 Looking at the lack of framing it astonishes me it has not all collapsed years ago! But that one flimsy batten has now been replaced by three before the sheeting went on.

 And this was all done before lunchtime! So he got stuck in and did the other side of this gable as well.

 Since the presence of workers on the place meant sitting idle was not an option, I also got to work and roughed out the basics of a drystone wall that will enclose the higher ends of the patio which will be paved at some future point when the painter gets back with his mate the landscaper. The practical motivation for this is getting rid of three piles of masonry near the rear entrance which obstruct access for new tanks and also harbour snakes in the appropriate weather. Once it has been built up to a suitable level to provide a boundary for the paving I will reassess the situation and see if perhaps it can be a wee bit higher, thus providing a low wall around that corner of the patio. Also to be incorporated is the cast iron bath I removed from the skillion when I first arrived - to provide a garden bed on the edge of the terrace. If the low wall can be built up to the same height as the edge of the bath it should all look as if it was designed that way! Meanwhile the hand-made bricks which comprise another pile of masonry, will be converted into as much path as is possible toward the edge of the boundary.

While we were all beavering away, the man from the shed company arrived and we wandered around with tape measures muttering about prices and process. The bad news is that he feels that between workload and Council processes it may be as late as the end of January before I get my shed. So once this flurry of activity has been completed (painting and roofing) it may well be some time before anything else happens, sigh.

The roofer returned yesterday and finished off the other side of the remaining gable, so I now have new sheeting (and internal gutter) on all four faces of the roof! No flashing, guttering or ridge capping though, as that has to wait till Monday. Meanwhile we had torrential rain this afternoon, but no leaks! woohoo!

He also installed the finials, back in their original location - I have to say I am very happy to have them back as they really do finish off the house nicely, and stop it looking like a tumbledown humpy, converting it into a house of elegance and grace (on the outside at least).

Meanwhile the wind is flapping the sarking above my head and driving me potty, but that will stop once the flashing is on, and then I can concentrate on stopping up bird entry points that remain and sweeping out their nests before installing the insulation batts the roofer kindly threw into the cavity while there was sufficient opening to get the bags in. But today I have done very little in that direction (other than wander around in the roof space) as I woke with hay fever brought on by a combination of roof dust and pollen which is falling off the neighbours' macrocarpas by the bucket load.

Yesterday's trip to Hobart was a little expensive what with getting the doona recovered (and restuffed, as apparently it needed more filling), returning the lock to Bunnings and adding two more timber benchtops to the back of the ute, as well as collecting the animals. The run home failed to beat the rain but at least it was only drizzling when I got here. So the animals were left in the ute as I did my closest approximation to scurrying (those benchtops are both heavy and awkward) into the house with my booty. This meant that when the animals were finally unleashed they were able to enjoy my full attention - at least till I had to go clean the bank.

The roofer rang during the course of the day to say the materials would be delivered this morning and he would be there by 8:30. All went according to promise, but unfortunately the heavens had unleased 60mm overnight and it was still falling, so the roofer went home again. The delivery happened at five in the morning! I woke to the sound of male voices outside the house discussing the scaffolding down the side of the house (they were trying to work out if they had the right address). Assuming they were planning to steal the scaffolding I wrapped myself in my dressing gown and dignity, opened the front door and asked if there was anything I could do to help. Soon sorted out the understanding and left them to do what they had to do (which fortunately they did remarkably quietly). Poked my head out the door once daylight arrived and found a cardboard box clearly marked 'Keep Dry' in the middle of the guttering (which was deep in water). Fortunately nothing critical was damaged.

Then the window man called in, looked at the window and told me I could fix it myself as there was nothing wrong with the timber. So I will do that once I have a shed and it is not mid-spring.

Meanwhile the rain slowed a little this afternoon, so I headed in to pack the linen that had arrived at the cottages, collected some meat and other ingredients and came home to cook myself a morroccan beef dish involving oranges and prunes. And very tasty it was too. Photos of the flooding tomorrow if I am still upright as both the painter and the roofer have promised to be here to take advantage of the forecast sunny weather.

I spent much of yesterday morning wrestling with locks, with the result (having tried all manner of options) I now have a lockable laundry door, but the handle still doesn't work from the outside due to a missing bit (the one for the new locks was not interchangeable no matter how I held my mouth!). It turns out that sugar ants produce wax - and had industriously glued up the lock irretrievably, so a new lock mechanism was the solution. Similarly, the kitchen door locks again as I managed to clear out the obstructing bit of wood.

That done, and no snow in the offing, I cut more of the back yard, then gave up and treated myself to another lunch in town.

Today was the History Room and I managed to finish off the back of the jumper and cast on the ribbing for the front. Several interruptions due to visitors calling in, but i also managed to alphabetise the As and Bs in the filing cabinet (they adopt a fairly cavalier attitude to the alphabet in there, with the result I have had difficulty finding cards at times).

 While there I had a text from Heather offering me this set of shelving for the future shed - at $10.00 I snapped it up, as they are almost a hundred new (I have a slightly larger one in the hot water cabinet which I use for linen storage).

And this little gentleman's wardrobe is now in the bedroom, replacing the open rack on which I have been hanging my shirts and jackets. It may end up in the shed, or another room in the reshuffle, but in the mean time at least I no longer have clothes dallicking around the place and making it feel cluttered (well, more cluttered than it has to).

I will be collecting up the various small tools lying around the floor in the house and putting them onto the shed shelving also, which will significantly reduce the trip hazards.

Tomorrow the painter is due back (with the gardener in tow to assess the work required and provide a quote on paving etc), but the rain forecast for tomorrow night is now forecast for mid afternoon, so I am not sure if he will come after all. I expect he will let me know. Meanwhile I have a cottage to clean tomorrow morning, and will be heading down to collect the animals, drop off some dry cleaning and perhaps get a quote on repairing a down doona I have that need recovering. And will also drop off the leftover lock for a refund. With rain in the offing I will have to make a judgement call as to whether I pick up additional kitchen counter tops and risk them being damaged en route.

It was mainly washing and cutting grass today - at least till lunch time, by which time the weather had deteriorated to the point that outdoor activity was no longer viable. So I headed into town and treated myself to a bowl of soup at the Pancake and Crepe shop.

Home once more, I harvested a bit of firewood and went indoors where I lit the fire and did some knitting. I have almost finished the back of the aran jumper, only about 10 more centimetres to go. Then there is the front and two sleeves, but at least it looks as if the wool will last the distance, and that is after accidentally knitting five centimetres additional length which I could not be bothered unpicking as I have a long torso anyway.