THE OAKHAVEN LOG

FIRST SUMMER

The book was kept on a shelf at the end of the plot. Anyone could write in it. Between the middle of June and the end of July, three people did.

JUN 16 1994

The long table was out on the grass before any of it was needed and then it went back nearer the wall, and then out again, and the ground is not level anywhere along there so it was rocking the whole night. The fire was lit in the morning. Nobody sat down until it was nearly dark.

Somebody said the bread wanted another half hour in and it came out fine.

I have started writing in this because there was time to sit while the rest of it was going on. It is a book that came in with the boat things and there is most of it left. Anyone can write in it who wants to.

The boards were carried down before noon and the trestle came after, and whoever went back up for it went on his own. The tall one in the green shirt kept the fire and stayed at it all evening. Two of them went to the spring twice, which they would not have had to do if the first lot had been left in the shade where it was put.

Two of the cup's were cracked and most of them drank out of whatever there was.

There was singing at the fire after. The dog got under the end of the table early on and would not come out for anybody, and it was still there when the tables were being carried in.

18 JUN

Long table back under the porch. Two of the boards have cupped and want planing. Stacked with weight on them.

Cut wedges for the trestle. Oak. Four, two used.

Door on the store still catching at the bottom. Took a shaving off it. Catching still.

Ash split and stacked at the end of the row. Wants a year on it before it goes in anything.

The hinge on the shutter is the wrong one and has been since it went on.

Boat the week after next.

Nothing on the roof yet.

23 JUN

Trestle done.

Wedge under the short leg. Oak, not seasoned, so it will want doing again before the cold.

Most of them up the hill from early. Bench out from under the porch. Left out. Light was off the yard by the time the first of them came back down, one of them carried.

Rain tomorrow or the day after.

Stick cut to length in the afternoon. Four foot two.

Someone new off the boat. A bag, and that was all of it.

Tools on the bench. The plane wants setting.

24 JUN

Dry.

Plane set. Went at the two cupped boards. One came right. The other has gone too far at the end and will have to be cut back.

Rope off the store hook and not back on it.

Someone at the bench. Nothing missing.

Wedges under the trestle holding.

June 30

The blackberries were not ripe enough and went in anyway.

Three baskets came down from the top path. Two went in the first pot. The rest stood in the shade and were used later, by which time they had gone soft.

The water is drawn from the well and not the spring. Nobody said why.

Sage goes in whole. Onion skin is kept back from the kitchen through the week and dries on the sill. Both go in cold and are brought up slow. Brought up fast the colour sits on the top and comes off again in the first rain.

One sheet came out grey. It had been in with the burgundy and should have been lifted earlier.

The line is hemp and it stretches wet. It was taken up twice. The top line wanted someone up the ladder and it was not me.

Nine sheets on the line by the middle of the day. The tall one counted eleven and eleven is what went down for the pegs.

The pegs are willow and split easy. Two split.

The path has been dry all week and the dust comes up onto anything hung low, so the bottom line should not be used for the white.

The cloth is folded after and put somewhere I have not been.

JUL 05 1994

They moved the bench along the porch to get at the boards underneath and it has not gone back, so there is nowhere to sit at that end unless you sit on the step, and Julian said on the day that he would put it back. The boards are still up.

The one who came in on the boat has been down at the beds most mornings now. Nobody put her there.

Somebody said the well is slower than it was.

Two of the shutter's are off and leaning against the store where they have been since the falls.

It has been fine all week.

Erik has the bad end of the porch for his tools now, which was where the wood was going, and the wood is out on the grass under a sheet.

JUL 07 1994

Somebody put the bucket under the leak in the night and it was full before anyone was up, and it went on in the same place all day and most of the next, and by the end of it that was the only thing you could hear on that side of the room. It was emptied four times. Nobody moved the bucket.

Julian was out early looking at the water coming down the path and then he had them digging, and the trench they cut runs from the top of the path down past the stilts and out to the rocks, and it took most of the morning and it works. He stood and looked at it a long time after. Somebody said it should have been dug in the spring.

The rain came on the tin and did not stop.

They were all in by the middle of the day. The porch has the bench along it and the step and that is all there is. Once people are sat there they do not get up. I did not get up either.

Tess came round with tea in the enamel mugs for the ones who had been out in it and went back out twice more with the thermos. The girl in the burgundy raised her mug at the camera. She has done that before.

The dog slept on the rug and was the only thing dry in the room.

The pot catches now, from wherever it was stood too near the heat, and it is scrubbed after every use, and the water for it has to be brought up from the well because what is in the butt is no good for that. The one who does the cooking has never scrubbed it.

Somebody said the chickens would be in under the stilts and they were.

It is a small porch and there was nowhere else, and by the second afternoon nobody was saying much, and two of them had been on the bench since the morning and stayed on it, and I had my things at that end and left them where they were.

Late on the second day it went off into mist. The children were putting leaves into the trench and following them down, and one of them called out every time one went through, and that went on a long while after the rest had stopped watching.

They went down for the wood that had come in. Most of it is stacked at the end of the path now. Two of the better pieces are still down there because they were too wet to carry up.

The bucket is still under the leak.

July 16

Sage is finished for this year.

The lavender was cut on the Thursday. It wants cutting when the bottom flowers on the spike have opened and the top ones have not, and not after rain, and not in the middle of the day. It was a dry week so that was right.

Cut a hand's width above the wood. Below that it does not come back the same and the plant goes bare in the middle after two years.

They were done in bundles of about forty and tied twice, once up near the heads and once at the bottom, and hung head down under the eaves on the north side. It has to be the north side. In the sun the colour goes out of them in a week and then it is only stalks.

Twenty two bundles. The one who cut them said twenty six.

Hemp string, not the flax. The flax slips when the stems dry down and the bundle comes apart in your hand.

The line under the eaves had the sheets on it and they came down for this and have not gone back up.

It takes three weeks in a shed that is not damp. Ours is damp at the wall end so the ones at that end will want turning.

Nobody has said what is being done with them.

20 JUL

Nothing come in.

Went round the roof line. Two of the sheets on the north pitch have lifted at the lap and one of the nails has drawn. Put a new one in beside it. The old one I left where it was because it will not come out clean.

Measured the gap at the store door again. Three eighths at the bottom, less than that at the top, so it is the frame and not the door. It has been the frame all along. Taking a shaving off the door was no use and I knew that when I did it.

The ash from June is where it was. Wants another eleven months.

Went down as far as the landing and came back.

Bench legs stood in the sun to dry. They were not wet.

The plane wants setting again already. It has been set twice this month and it is the iron and not the setting.

Boat tomorrow.

21 JUL

Salt, four sacks.

Flour, six. One of them wet at the corner and put at the front to go first.

Oil, two tins. The thin sort again.

Rope. Went down for rope and came up with string. String is what there was.

Lavender down, most of it. Tea down and back up again, all of it, and it is on the shelf where it was.

Pots down. They took every one.

Coils on the store hook, seven. It was eight in May. I have not

Picked this up after. Seven on the hook and one is out with the long line at the top field, so that is the eight, and I had counted the long line already so it is seven and one lent, which is the same thing said twice.

Leather for the strap is the wrong width. It wants doing before the cold and it will have to be cut down, which is waste.

Stopped twice coming up from the landing. It was the flour.

Somebody stood with the camera where the sack was going down. Went round him.

Beans still green at the top end. They will not come to anything this year.

Tools on the bench.