{"id":21220,"date":"2023-05-29T22:24:35","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T20:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=21220"},"modified":"2023-05-29T22:30:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T20:30:07","slug":"creating-order-from-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/creating-order-from-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating order from chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve had another very productive, but tiring week-end and as I sit here enjoying a wonderful cool late spring evening after a scorchingly hot day, I feel that I deserve the cup of tea that I’m also enjoying. For the past few weeks I’ve been focused solely on one thing, namely to deal with everything that would create external demands on me so when the time comes I can concentrate exclusively on my house.<\/p>\n

That’s why I fitted a new floor in my large trailer, so I can take it to Bordeaux to pick up the two Ikea fitted units for bedrooms 1 and 2 in a week or so’s time. It’s why I gave my car a thorough clean inside and out after something like a year and it’s why I cut the grass when I did, although it’ll need to be done again this week. And it’s why I completed all the work on the outside lighting and the satellite dish so all of my exterior jobs are done for now leaving me free to concentrate on the interior.<\/p>\n

In the same vein I had some specific tasks planned for this week-end, starting with the trailer. Although the new floor will be perfect, the mudguards that had been damaged and in one instance, wrenched off by careless Brico Depot staff, still needed repairing. I received the materials for this a week or so ago in the form of some clear epoxy resin and some fibreglass mat and I wanted to do the work now while the weather is warm and dry.<\/p>\n

My idea was the straighten out the damaged fixing points and epoxy large metal washers over the gaps where the mounting holes should have been and then add more mat and epoxy on the backs of the wings to make the mounting points even stronger. It seems to have worked well. The resin is now glass-like and the wings now seem to be very strongly attached, possibly more strongly than they were originally. The following shots show what I mean. <\/p>\n

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That just left one small final job to be done on the trailer – namely fitting the four internal tie-down eyes in its corners. These are essential, especially for preventing large, heavy loads, like a ride-on mower, from shifting around and being damaged. They’ll also be needed when I pick up the cabinets from Ikea. It’s a pity that I didn’t have any Hammerite paint handy. I have a can in the storage but it’s not accessible right now, so maybe I’ll paint them later when I can get to it.<\/p>\n

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But now onto the week-end’s star job. The framework of the last ‘tonnelle’ that blew over in the winter high winds had been lying upturned outside my caravan door ever since it happened. I’d removed the fabric walls and roof at the time and as far I can recall, I don’t think they’d suffered any great damage, although I’ll need to check. The same didn’t go for the tubular metal framework though.<\/p>\n

Fortunately I’d never got around to disposing of the framework of the first ‘tonnelle’ that blew over back in 2021 and although much of it had been destroyed, there were adequate undamaged parts left over to make the current one good. The ridge pieces of both ‘tonnelles’ were broken due to appallingly weak welds (Chinese, so you get what you pay for I guess) but I think I’ll be able to repair the current one with some narrow strips of thin sheet metal and a few pop rivets.<\/p>\n

So today’s main job was to begin resurrecting the damaged ‘tonnelle’ starting with getting the main framework back upright, complete and back in position. This needed its original contents, my large glass-topped garden table and chairs, to be moved and the area cleared of all mess and rubbish and here’s where I’d got to by the early evening.<\/p>\n

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The weather forecast for the next couple of days is for highs of 28 degrees Celsius and fairly light winds, so with a bit of luck I should be able to get the main work done and possibly have the ‘tonnelle’ standing again by the end of the day. I’m not quite sure where to source the thin metal from for now but I think that strips from an old tin can might do the job perfectly.<\/p>\n

That just left the other job that I needed to do today, although actually I did it first. Ever since the plasterboard guys installed the interior walls and partitions back in February the house’s interior doors had been stored in my last remaining ‘tonnelle’, often in appalling weather conditions. In fact its roof was ripped off by the wind and before I could get a chance to repair it, it was open to the sky and rain fell for some time onto the doors, which I’d wrapped in a waterproof plastic tarp.<\/p>\n

Waterproof doesn’t always mean waterproof, though, and I’d been wanting to get the doors back into the house for some time. The wild-card was that I couldn’t do it, though, without my large trailer. You can see where this is heading…<\/p>\n

When I pulled them out this morning and uncovered them I was delighted and relieved to find that the waterproof tarp had done its job perfectly and the doors were totally unmarked and as dry as a bone. They were a bit unwieldy to get on and off the trailer single-handedly but I succeeded and here they are safely stored in bedroom 2 where they can stay until the floor tiles have been laid in the house.<\/p>\n

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I think it was getting the ‘tonnelle’ framework back upright and back in position that did it, but in a way I feel that the the pressure that had been hanging over me, for some time actually, is now beginning to recede. If I can get the repair work that’s needed on the ‘tonnelle’ framework done tomorrow, that really will put the cherry on top of the cake and I’ll be able to focus just on the interior of the house. Well, after I’ve cut the grass that is \ud83d\ude15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve had another very productive, but tiring week-end and as I sit here enjoying a wonderful cool late spring evening after a scorchingly hot day, I feel that I deserve the cup of tea that I’m also enjoying. For the past few weeks I’ve been focused solely on one thing, namely to deal with everything … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21220"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21251,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21220\/revisions\/21251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}