Hives tackles the guttering...

Hives (or 'Captain Hives', as he prefers to be known)was working on the guttering today. He said that the guttering had seen better days and needed a good coat of Hammerite paint to sort it out. The guttering isn't easy to get to so he cobbled together all sorts of inventive ways to get to the high bits. He nearly had me in an early grave! He hung off a rope tied to the chimney to get to one side of it and hung out of windows by his feet to get to other bits. How a man of his age managed it I don't know! But he did, and I'm very grateful.

He's amazing but he's fond of telling tall tales so I'm never sure what to believe. He says he started his career as a Boatbuilder but after an unfortunate accident with some hot boiling glue he had to give it up as his hands were left badly disfigured. Not long after that he joined the crew of a fishing trawler and worked his way up to Captain.... That's how the story goes anyway. Some of the stories he tells makes me think it was a pirate crew he joined though so I'm never sure what to believe.

I was so glad when he finally managed to make it all the way around. I think that last bit was the worst, he had his step ladder perched on top of the coffee table and then tottered about on the top of it all. Scary to behold!

He says he was used to leaping around in the rigging and he was perfectly safe up at the guttering but to be honest I had my eyes covered for most of the time.

I know you'll probably be wondering what the green stuff is around the bottom of his legs -I did too when I first met him. He says it's a habit he got into on the boats, he wraps tape around his ankles to stop the rats running up the inside of his trousers! I don't know what bothers me more about that...that I believe him, or that he believes there are rats loose and ready to run up trouser legs!

Ah well, that's another wee job done. Thanks Hives!