Saturday is shopping day.

And so it was today. But in a dramatic change to my usual habits, shopping day was a quick one-hour thrash to St Eloy late in the afternoon just as it was starting to go dark.

Yes, I woke up this morning-ish to a beautiful bright blue clear sky and that meant "sod everything else - up on the roof!" I wasn't intending to miss this unexpected stroke of fortune, even if it was freezing clod and everywhere was covered in ice that started to melt and soaked me to the skin again.

In not all that much time, comparatively speaking, I had another 6 rows of tiles on the roof. They aren't particularly pretty but they are on, and that's the bit that's important. The weather was far too good to miss.

But do you like the IKEA bags? Very useful they are, for all kinds of purposes. And I have one fastened to the top of each ladder and they are used for holding the slates and nails so that I don't have to keep on going down to the scaaffolding. And two ladders? There are two bays and each ladder is tied to the handrail of each bay. The difference with the metal planks that I have compared to the wooden planks of the other scaffolding is that the ladders don't dig in - they slide across the metal. So you need to tie them onto the scaffolding to stop them sliding off and of course if they are tied, then they can't be moved from one bay to the next.

The other ladder hanging off the scaffolding is part of the side of the decorator's platform that I have in the house. That was useful lower down the roof - I could hook it over the uprights and work off the top but now I'm out of reach of it.

On the way to the shops I realised what a good buy this LIDL quilted overall was. I switched the wipers on to clear the screen but they were frozen on to it - it was that cold, and I hadn't noticed once I was curled up inside it. I'm well-impressed with that as well.

But I was absolutely whacked, aching everywhere when I had finished. So much so that on the way back I noticed way across the valley that the fkloodlights were switched on at Marcillat's football ground. There must have been a match there this evening and with nothing on at Pionsat that would have been the cue for me to go for a night out. But I was too whacked to move and I just came in here and crashed. That's a rare event too. But then again, I said that I would pay for the effort that I'm putting in on this roof.
So now there are just three or so rows left to do, and they'll be for the morning of the next working day.