Highcroft Castle - Week Six

The weekend was a pretty busy time down here in Tasmania. There was the state election, the annual Duck Race and of course the annual Doll, Bear and Miniature fair in support of the Eskleigh home. Now in it's fifth year, it was billed as bigger and better than ever, but frankly I was a little disapointed. The miniatures side of the fair was always in the minority, but of the thirty-five stalls, there were only five selling miniatures of any kind. For the most part the miniatures they had on offer were full price rather than the usual sorts of stock clearance discounts found at earlier fairs. In fact I could buy some of the items on offer a lot cheaper from stores online and that includes the cost of postage. All this is just as well really because disapointing or not, I still spent more than enough money! This mostly went on small but expensive items like cats and some toby jugs. As usual there was little to be found that was designed for a pre-victorian era setting. Inbetween browsing the fair and trying to decide which politicians would mess things up the least, I did get some work done on Highcroft. I set the main goal for the week to be getting the tower and stairs permanently fixed to the top of the 'basement box'. This seems an easy enough task, until I tell you that before I did this I wanted to tile the floor in the 'passage' that connects the stairs, tower and main building and before I do this, I need to build the steps from the main building to the tower unit and before doing this I thought it best to paint the outside of the basement box. Largely, all this means is that I spent a lot of time waiting for stuff to dry: the glue holding the stairs together, the paint on the box, the clay for the tiles. The tiles were made from air-drying clay in terracotta in the same way as the tiles for the floor of the lowest level of the tower. While waiting things to dry, I worked on the main building exterior and the fireplaces in the main hall and kitchen. There is now a front door instead of a gaping hole and stained glass in the lower windows. For the fireplaces I added 'hoods' to all three and generally finished them off (except for adding fires to them). This means that the great hall construction/decoration is almost finished, I just need to add 'frames' around all the arched doorways, lights and a little trim here and there and the room will be ready to have furniture added! The tower rooms, kitchen and treasury are similarly well advanced, needing between them a strong door, arch 'frames', steps and a little touch up paint. I haven't decided yet, but my next goal will either be to make all the arch 'frames' for the many doorways or to finish the exterior of the tower.