Discovery (Day 972)

Another cold start this morning, and as my  beautiful wife took the woofers for the morning wander up the hill, I set about getting coffee and heaters on the go.
HV was soon off to Coldomo to do hossing, and I trundled to town to collect some bits and bobs. Arriving home later I sat in front of the heater waiting for the postman to come with the bit for the boiler. Sigyn seemed to be feeling the cold too, and she lay in front of the heater (see extra) until HV came home and we had a bit of lunch. 
The postman finally arrived and I got the boiler up and running again as HV headed off to walk the dogs. 
Later, and as HV went off to work, I decided to disassemble a built in cupboard in our kitchen. The cupboard is built into the space under the stairs and is where we have been keeping dry food, cereal, flour, tins etc. It is a great storage space, but too often we find evidence of mice (and rats) in it, and I decided that it would be great to be fix the floor and the walls to eliminate the problem. Stripping the cupboard out, I noticed that the back wall which was covered in a thin sheet of wood panel, was moving. Nothing is ever simple! I stripped the panelling off, to find old timber stencilled with the words "RNAS SCAPA" and a serial number. A quick google search suggests that RNAS Scapa was an airfield in Orkney between 1914 and 1919 and used as a kite balloon base. An interesting bit of history. I would guess that when the base was demolished, the timber was recycled. Removing the loose timber opened up the whole area below the stairs. It may be that once tidied up a bit, the cupboard is left in its new, larger incarnation.
The house is slowly warming up, but having been cold for so long, it is going to take a while.