I woke up on Saturday morning, very groggy and tired and feeling clumsy.

Perhaps sleep apnea ? I know I am getting fatter and fatter.

To try and spark myself up I spent an hour vigorously spreading the piles of mulch I have created.

I have this theory that if the areas under the trees are unprotected, the trees will become stressed and drop more leaves.

I am hoping that, by covering the ground with mulch, the trees will not feel the need to drop so much (remember our native gum trees are not deciduous).

I did a little bit more work on tarting up the test window frame - filling in holes with bog and rubbing it back.

I also treated a few nail heads that were impossible to pull out - I nail punched these below the surface and then bogged over them.

Also I needed to spend a little time rehabilitating my small router. Last week I did not tighten the chuck sufficiently and a router bit came loose and gouged the collet up a bit.

This needed some patient work with a jewelry file to sort it out.

Finally I was ready to build the small section of test wall I am going to use while experimenting with flashing in the test window frame.

I retrieved the notebook that I had recorded the rough window dimension in to while I was out on site recently.

Despite looking from cover to cover multiple times, I could not find my notes - I think I must be losing it.

Consequently I had to make a trip out to site. This totally disrupted my momentum.

However, once on site I realised that this was not such a bad turn of events.

I remembered all sorts of items that I had made a mental note to bring back home.

So apart from recording the dimensions again, I brought back a number of essential item.

After a break, I set up the small router to install some small grooves down the side of the window frame.

These will be incorporated in to the flashing.

I still need to do one more underneath the external sill to create a drip line.

At this point Ian rang up to ask me if I would like to deal with cleaning up the large jarrah log we had been discussing.

I am intending to have this milled in to 40 mm planks to use in the stair case.

However, I was unsure if the log was still usable - it has been lying on the ground for at least 10 years and could have been completely rotted.

Ian did a great job cutting off the large root system with his chainsaw and then moving the log around so that it was idealy positioned for milling.

The timber was in better condition than I expected. There are a number of radial cracks that might still thwart my plans but seeing I need only fairly short lengths (1 metre) I might still be in luck.

Time to call the milling guy and ask him to assess the log.

Many thanks to Ian !.

After seeing Blade Runner 2049 (2 hours 43 minutes - but did not seem overlong, good movie) I drew up a plan to emulate the section of kitchen wall out on site.

I am working under a veranda at home that is only 2.3 metres high at its lowest point and the walls out on site are 2.7 metres so I was forced to compromise on some of the heights - but the rough window opening is exactly the same.

Also I marked up all the pieces of timber ready for cutting.

Monday

After work I assembled the test wall.

Using a cut off saw and a framing gun it all went together very quickly.

I used some of the offcuts to create a stand and also for noggings.

Tuesday

During breaks from work I installed some 35 mm packers on the jambs (I had built the rough opening based on the presence of the coil springs) and lifted the test window frame in to position.