Further progress on the decking and some thoughts about communicating and friendships on the Internet

Even with the pretty awful wet weather we are getting here in Brittany at the moment I am still progressing nicely with the decking and Summer house project.
After getting most of the decking complete I have started on the Summer house. I have revised my original ideas and am making it quite a bit smaller as the times when we will be using it most will be on nice warm sunny days so we will want to be out on the decking not inside.
I am making it large enough to take two nice sized chairs that we used to have in a conservatory in our last house and with enough room to stack away the outside table and four chairs in the winter period.

I've now got most of the shiplap cladding put on the walls so the next job will be to board in the roof. I'm going to cover it in mineral felt so that it blends into the surroundings. After that I shall be making up the double doors to the front, these will swing back within the width of the side panels so will be out of the way but give a good open access to the front.

If anyone is interested I have a series of youtube videos showing the construction of this, here is a link to the latest one.

https://youtu.be/4GXGKulop-g

Actually this brings me on to the second part of the title, I recently had a comment from someone in Newfoundland in Canada, now I get lots of comment but this person took the trouble to give a bit more information about their life there and as a consequence I am now communicating with him by email on our different lives separated by several thousands of miles.

I am also in communication with people who live in Texas, Chicago, California, Oregon, the UK, France and Germany to name a few.

There are many reports on what awful things are on the Internet but to me it is a wonderful place to meet like minded people from all over the world. I have met, online, some wonderful people and had some great conversations who I would have never known existed without this medium.

All it takes is a little bit of effort in starting a conversation. I would encourage anyone to explore this either as I do through my youtube channel or here on my blog to engage in some conversation with someone that interests you.

Of course it goes without saying that you need to take precautions about giving out too much information about yourself until you get to know someone but that applies when you meet someone face to face as well.

For me the internet has opened up a whole new world and hopefully will continue to do so.

I try to respond to all messages, and have many interests..........so............. 

A bit more progress

We have had a couple of days of dry weather which has enabled me to get on with the decking, I have decided that the octagonal end section will be stepped up from the other decking to give it more prominence.

The first job was to construct the framing which I did on a level piece of ground outside of my garage.

What I hadn't bargained on was how big and unwieldy it would be when it was finished, at one point I considered rolling it like a giant wheel down to the bottom of my field but decided that it would have all probably fallen to pieces by the time I got it there, so i Improvised some supports on a wheelbarrow and managed after about 20 minutes to get it in place.

  

It wasn't easy being on my own to either get it down there and put it into position but it all ended up well.
Here is a link to my Youtube video of it.

Once I got it in position and held with a couple of temporary cramps I could start screwing it to the existing  decking and then make a start on putting in the supports.
Standing on top of it gives a really lovely view over the stream and the trees around it and I can already imagine myself relaxing there with a glass or two of wine on a warm summer evening

I'm feeling quite good about myself this week. I have a small meadow and woodland area at the bottom of our property that is accessed by a bridge I have built over the stream that divides it from the rest of our ground.
There are several trees that have fallen across the stream that need to be cleared and will also provide logs for our woodburner. I have been down there with a chainsaw sawing up logs however it is a lot of very hard work to carry them back to the house.

However there is access across our farmer neighbough's field where the stream is piped for about 15ft that I can drive my tractor over.
I went round to see him this week and managed to ask in French if it would be ok for me to drive my tractor across the field so I was more than pleased when he not only understood what I said but said yes I also had the bonus of being asked into his house for a glass of 50 yr old home made "hooch" that his father had made, extremely potent I might add!