Fifty Sheets of Plasterboard

Nice today without being baking hot. Perfect for finishing the wattling in between the huge oak studs in the partition that divides the kitchen from the big sitting room. Weaving the hazel rods in and out of the horizontal oak staves is quite tough, but now it is finished and awaiting its daub of earth it looks great even as it is. Which is a good thing as the earth is baked hard with the heat. Even though Cathy sometimes sighs with exasperation, I like to use the traditional methods when working on old buildings. I remember my Dad telling me that when his Dad first saw plasterboards being used on a job, he solemnly shook his head as a master plasterer and said that they would never catch on. I remember plasterboarding a laboratory ceiling years ago. It was massive, and Danny and I had to carry a great stack of eight foot by four foot plasterboards, two at a time off the lorry and through the corridors to the Lab. Only Danny's constant joking and impressions of the people we knew kept our heads up, and with many sheets in we started to pass them up the scaffold. Lifting them up, we would then press them up with our heads before nailing them with galvanized clout nails, this being before the advent of screws for boards. The trouble was, as the work progressed and we became tired, so Danny's antics became funnier, and with us both straining under the weight of nearly the last board with tears in our eyes, Danny's arms gave way and the board crashed over his head. Lowering my end, I was worried he was hurt, but the sight of his dusty white head with a collar of broken plasterboard round his neck, made us both roar so much we could only push the board over the edge and let it smash to the floor. Unfortunately just at that moment the sour faced project manager walked in and started on about how much the boards were, but as I had paid for them I couldn't see what his problem was.
Just had a call from Cathy. she says they are not coming tomorrow, it will be later in the week. Got so much to show her and loads of food in my little fridge too. Oh well, C'est la vie.

Martyn Walker is the author of Stopcock available globally on Amazon