Fixing the roof

This is probably going to be a saga (but not as bad as Fixing the Tower). I need a roof refurbishment of a ground floor "outrigger" kitchen, see the photo below. In the past I would have done this myself, but ill-health and retirement means I'm not going to be repairing slates myself.

Step one is asking for quotes...hence the photo on here. For more on slate see River Dee Geology - although it is likely that "modern" slate is Spanish.



Scaffolding
However you look at it "scaff" costs a lot more than paint, so paying for a good paint system is going to put off the cost of "scaff" until the job needs doing again. The best price I could get on "scaff" was DTS who made an excellent job of it. However I did have a problem with the paint.

Roofing: Went for this lot


Sounds silly, but perhaps the best test is how they walk around on a roof. Many years ago, when I was a rock-climber, I knew where to walk on "edges". Crippling arthritis changed that.

Now for the History Lesson (as this is Mr Dodd's firm) - Todd and Dodd are surnames closely associated with Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria and are thought to derive from an old word for a bush or a bushy tailed fox. Seventy percent of the Dodds in England in the 1891 census in England were to be found in the two counties of Northumberland and Durham. It is most likely that the surnames refer to a fox rather than a bush and it may be that the first bearer of the name Todd was noted for his or her fox-like features. Perhaps they had bushy hair or were elusive, and sly like the fox. Another possibility is that like many foxes they were inclined to solitary behaviour, and were often seen 'on their tod' but this phrase is Cockney rhyming slang and derives from the name of an American jockey called Tod Sloan. 'Fox' surnames connected with the north include the surname Fox itself, which is primarily associated with the North and North Midlands. Todhunter is a Cumbrian name and along with the surname Todman means foxhunter. The form Dodd is primarily associated with Northumberland where the Dodd family were one of the four major Border clans of North Tynedale. Burbank Peel, a fortified tower on the Tarret Burn near Bellingham was their ancestral home. Legend has it that the Dodds were descendeed from Eilaf, an Anglo-Saxon monk who was one of the carriers of St Cuthbert's coffin who fled from Lindisfarne at the time of the Viking raids in the 9th century. It is said that Eilaf pinched some cheese from his fellow monks who prayed that that the culprit be revealed by turning him into a Dodd - a fox. Prayers were answered and for a short while Eilaf was turned into a fox. From that day on Eilaf and his descendents were known as Dodd. Eilaf later set up a church at Hexham that was passed to his son, They ensured that Hexham was governed directly from York rather than Durham.