Wednesday 20 May 2009

screen door!!!!!!!


people - behold - in all its glory, the marvel of a screen door. now i know the canadians among you will be bemused, possibly befuddled by this, but back here in the old country this is cutting edge. spain and italy have screens, so it seems implausible that there is some european moratorium on the use of mesh screening in window and door applications, yet they consistently elude us in the uk. when we have previously enquired about the possibilities of their installation, we are considered mad, and quite possibly dangerous. (see poppy seeds, below. btw - i have since discovered that what the uk calls blue poppy seeds, canadians call black poppy seeds - they are in fact the same thing. thank you geo for clearing that one up.)

we have sighed, and added lack of screenage to our growing list of british eccentricities, joining their brethren of separate hot and cold taps with no mixer tap and the complete absence of plain cheerios (honey nut? check. 4 grain? check. plain? what are you - some kind of freak??? *sigh*)

but the buggies, they continued to fly into our house by their multitudes. fruit flies - arch enemy of the home brewer. something had to be done. i concluded that if i had to buy the damn door in italy and carry it back i would, so long as there was a screen door by summer. as i was hunting online for said door (i'm more of a carry-on girl myself), i found a site that sold screen door kits.

the kit arrived, and it was proper. way too proper for n and i to unleash our grubby mitts all over it. i left strict instructions for n and our friend j, who is diy-inclined, to make the door up while i was gallivanting in canada for several weeks. sadly, screen door construction paled in the light of an empty house, a full bottle of whiskey, and axies and allies. i can't complain, i would have done the same thing.

so today, n and i, inept as we are at anything requiring manual dexterity, tools, measuring, etc etc etc - we girded our loins, we read and re-read, we measured and re-measured (and re-re-measured) and we tackled the kit.

and it went quite well actually.

now for the windows...

3 comments:

Geosomin said...

No screens? On anything?
That would drive me spare...the whole reason we have our deck is because it is screened in, away from the bugs. BUgs and I do not coexist. Altho I imagine the mosquitos don't quite reach such toxic levels there do they?
Now I wonder how long it will take until one of you walks right INTO the screen door :) (Me? at least once a summer onto the deck. The cats have knocked it right off the frame mid chase!)

But the lack of plain Cheerios? THAT is just plain sacrilige. If you some, I can hook you up, in exchange for some worcester crisps...

grapecat said...

you are prophetic - humph went through the new door early this afternoon. It is repairable, and is back up, but it is a good thing that dog is so darn cute...

yes, a worcester crisp/cheerio exchange might be just the thing...

ps i forgot to get your strawberry beer recipe - will you part with it? pretty please?

Geosomin said...

Sure thing...I'll hunt up my beer log on the weekend...:)

I believe it was a wheet beer kit with fruit added, but I have to check amounts and all that good stuff...