Farewell to the garbage container?

Saturday morning I got out the shop vacuum and started to get to work on cleaning up the dust from the demolition.  I have cleared all the old plaster off the majority of the walls, leaving only the plaster intact on interior walls in the little room that will house an attic bathroom, and in the staircase.  There is still steel brush work required, but as we had guests over yesterday I wanted to get things a little more shipshape for showing them around the place.

Fortunately the shop vacuum has a nice long hose, and a very long rigid handle, plus attachments that have scrubbing brushes on them, so while standing on the scaffolding I was able to reach all the way up to the very top of the attic space, and get that black dust and soot and cobwebs that was stuck to them.  The difference isn't all that apparent from the floor, but I can see that the wood now looks a nice warm red-brown colour, and isn't charcoal grey any longer, and there are no more cobwebs.

One interesting item that turned up during the attic clean is this crate: it's labelled as having come from the Nobel factory in Sweden, and originally seems to have held 25 kg of dynamite!  I wonder how it made its way to our attic?

We had the Edwardses over for raclette last night; they came in the mid-afternoon, and we had a drink upstairs in the attic to celebrate its opening before heading back downstairs for snacks and then dinner.  The original plan was to go run our 8-10km route with Lawrence and Tiffany, but the weather was really bad; freezing with slushy snow, so we opted instead to light the woodstove and just stay in.  Malcolm wasn't here this weekend, so Maggie and I took his double bed in the third bedroom; Lawrence and Tiffany took our queen-size bed and put Eden's travel crib in the same room; Duncan gave his double bed to Laila and Thalia, and slept himself on the hotel folding cot in the living room.  Eight people is definitely most we've had stay overnight, and it worked out just fine.

We had two visits with the Edwardses in as many days, as on Friday Kiana and Bryan and I went out to their new house in Jodoigne and we had a go at using the jointer/planer.  Kiana has a large slice of tree trunk that she wants to use as a countertop in their powder room, and since it was cut with a chainsaw from the green log it has dried out, and changed shape considerably.  Our mutual friend Jan has moved in with Claire in Brussels centre, so his wood shop machines are now making their home with Tiffany and Lawrence in Jodoigne.  Tiffany has been wanting to explore wood work for many years and now happily has access to so many large floor machines, and I hope to make use of them myself in the future.

This evening we are heading into Brussels to have a last beer with Gediminas and Rasa before they leave tomorrow to drive to Vilnius.  His appointment as ambassador from Lithuania to Japan (and to Australia, New Zealand, and a few other countries) has been confirmed, and they move out of their house in Brussels tomorrow morning.  They will spend a little time in Lithuania, and then fly to Tokyo in a couple of weeks.  We are of course thrilled for them both; it will be difficult I am sure to adapt to the new language (especially the kanji icons) but it's really a marvellous opportunity for them.  Simon will be staying to continue school in Maastricht, so we will see him frequently, we hope.  And who knows?  Perhaps a Japanese vacation might be in order in a little while?

Maggie has been doing some sewing recently; she made a lovely black dress from the same pattern book that produced her white and purple NYE dress.  Here she is standing on a table, asking me to mark the hem; as it turned out the dress hem was fine the first time, so it needed no further adjustment.

Duncan is feeling better now; he missed three days of school last week, as he fell ill with (I suspect) the same bug that laid me low the week before.  He was feeling well enough on Saturday to make it to karate, so I'm sure he'll be back at school tomorrow.  I will be wire brushing the walls and vacuuming up more dust, and dumping it in the container.  As well there is the matter of the coal that we found in the little front room of the cellar; it is full of dirt and dust, so I'll be using a riddle screen to separate out the dust and dirt from the usable coal.  Our stove won't burn it but our friend Benoit has a coal stove in his guitar showroom so I'll give it to him.

Here's wishing you a happy and productive week!