Dermot cut the whole in the ceiling, had everything positioned for the minimum of tiles to be cut, minimum wood beams to be disturbed. He really thought about it. So with a little bit of effort, and a helpful little Brid, and some grunting they got the flue in. I was out weeding a much needed garden, and I saw Brid was half out of the roof, she was thoroughly enjoying her unschooling day, up in the roof with Daddy.
Next was the flashing. Nearly done...he was excited. He thought he was doing well, until he looked down....and there was a huge hole where the flashing should have been. It had come out of the ring seal that was made to fit the chimney flue. Oh dear!!! I heard no further noise and as I had been praying prayers of protection for him while up on the roof, I thought I had better look. The look said it all. He was despondent.
I encouraged him to cover it all, and come down from the roof.. He looked exhausted and had nothing more to give physically or mentally. He cleaned up his tools, I drew him a bath and gave him a cold drink. He sat there going over what had gone wrong. He called my Dad and they worked out a day to fix it. BUT .....an hour later it rained and we had a hole in our roof. Oh well, it wasn’t a good hour. But Dermot managed to cover the hole. Next morning we put our heads together and tried to reassemble the flashing- it just wasn’t working. I saw sense pretty quickly, and rang the company. “No Sir,” I heard a voice say to Dermot, “It is faulty, we will send you a new one”.
Dermot got the part from the supplier, bringing Dad with him, and they happily finished off the job. We lit our fire as it needs to cure slowly. So we were to light 3 cool fires for 20 / 20 and 40 mins. Then we were set. So a Fireplace we have, and we have been waiting and dreaming since 1993.
It has been a delight, and after all the effort Dermot can see how much he learnt about his own strengths and weaknesses. Thank you, Dermot for spoiling me. I love you.
Now onto wood collecting. ........only joking, until next time.
