With plummeting temperatures (!) forecast from the weekend, we thought we should enlist the services of a professional to help with the final stage of our autumn weatherproofing programme. Francie Melville is the kind of can-do, no-fuss character anyone would enjoy working with, and with his help we finished tarring the roof, got a coat of gloss paint on all the windows at the back of the cabin, draught-proofed the front door and three of the windows, and scrapped, repaired, sealed and weather-coated the remaining front-facing section of the weatherboarding, which we would otherwise have had to leave for Spring 2012.
After our experience last winter, when the cabin literally froze and Lynn's tolerance of island living was stretched to breaking-point, it's good to know that the temperature inside won't auto-adjust to the temperature outside, and that there (hopefully) won't have to be buckets and tupperware bowls placed at strategic points in the living room, kitchen and my office.
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Thanks, by the way, to everyone who offered advice in the event of total water immersion of a mobile phone. My own phone will be returned to Planet Orange in the morning, where I imagine they have some kind of intensive care unit for smartphones - I see rows of water-damaged androids tucked up in bowls of rice; soothing background music; and an army of specially-trained attendants doing the rounds at intervals with moisture meters. Every so often a smartphone will splutter and light up, and another team will wheel it out, spruce it up and release it once more into our world..
