Day Four: Archaeology

Rain or shine, as the case may be, the work wasn't going anywhere without us. Today was the former, in large quantities that sometimes came through the ceiling in places. Anyhow, we came armed with new heavy duty dust masks (you can never be too careful) and new overalls (for all that Hard Yakka we’re doing.)

In case you have ever wondered.... ripping up floor boards is not as fun as it may sound. I’m all for destruction, but levering them up carefully with a massive crowbar was more back-breaking than enjoyable. It was mildly satisfying, but the best part about this task was revealing the myriad of bones and other mysterious items that lay underneath amongst the dirt. More on those later.

Dad provided some assistance by rendering some cracks in the wall and threading a rope through the pulleys in a window sash - don’t know the technical term for this, but I was glad I didn’t have to do it.

Lucy and I continued to dig out three large rubbish bins worth of dirt from under the floor, which was all the rubbish bins we had, so there remains a large pile for another day. I played archaeologist and found about 5 marbles which was pretty much the only thing that kept me going with the shovelling. We also found two old medicine bottles, half a comb and a lot of little animal skulls. There were a staggering amount of bones under there- none of them human (I'm a tiny bit disappointed.)

We rolled off two thick, wet, heavy layers of carpet from the living room, and left one more, as well as THREE layers of lino and two of newspaper; all of which conceal the floor-boards below. That's cushioning one's feet in the extreme.

Then it was more wall scrubbing -I feel I am becoming something of an expert- before knocking off early (at 6pm). Four consecutive days of work have left my body feeling more than a little exhausted. 
Posted by Alice