planning

Planning our next visit to NZ..its getting nearer and nearer and my head is in a panic about how we'll afford it.
Pirate reckons that this will be his last visit, being 80 next year.   I say "never say never"...but I can see his point ,it is one heck of a journey. 
Our usual 'digs' wont be available, friends are downsizing...others are not well...lets say we'll be living exceedingly frugally!!

The full preserve jars are stacking up..shelves are being built...not easy on a flimsily built house with limited space. I'd like to get back to more bottling ("canning") next year instead of freezing.
I've bottled and processed one batch of fresh apple juice to see if that works. I'll have to stick with freezing in plastic bottles for now until I'm sure, but I want to get away from plastic and from worrying about power cuts and wasted food.

The next vege beds in the garden are planned and staked out, but Pirate says no work on those until the kiln is ready!   I've designed them so that I can put a mesh polytunnel over them..I know, that's plastic..but with the kids next door I'm not risking glass!!

We've been given some unused surplus engineering bricks and a few breeze blocks.  These are from a garden we cut grass and tidy. The owners will be moving in a year, have already sold, and are tidying the property slowly before handover.    We'll be sad to see them go,they are good friends...and also we work on their garden in exchange for specs...they are opticians!

The bricks and blocks will support the new  kiln flue. I have HTI ( High Temperature Insulation) bricks to build the flue that will go horizontally from the rear of the kiln to outside the shed wall. Then it will be metal flue from there up,which I also have.
After building that it will be down to mending the bricks that were damaged when the kiln fell on its side during the last move, and working out how to prop up the subsiding arch.

All good plans...all feasible..

 I haven't got my head around any of my printing work for months.  Head space is limited!! It is giving me that itchy feeling of should be -