Creating something new, day 18

2 days later

Back on the islands. Boomerang.

There's a hell of a lot of work happening on the island. But sure, there are 70+ men working, where most work long 14-hour days, every day, and there are no unions, safety regulations or the like. Its not pretty or nice, but a lot of work and progress is made. I don't like that my future life will partly depend on slaves, and above all live in buildings built by slave labour. But its also a great gift from the King that the kingdom supports the construction, and it would be idiotic to refuse for many reasons. At least I can minimize slave labour and slaves when the Academy is running, even if it's a lousy excuse to wait, but I can make sure that those who work for me are free men and women. And in the future give slaves on my islands better protection. I will change so my law includes that slaves can't be forced to sex, they can refuse and not be punished for it, and they also can't be misstreated, and probably that slaves have the right to one day off every other week, but it doesn't have to be the same day as everyone else, but they will have a day off. I really want to improve working life for everyone. I'll have to talk about it with my 'sambo's'. Sambo is a very common Swedish word about two people living together, and it applies to a larger group too, but 'Sambo' usually means a romatic or sexual relationship. Sambo is a shortening of Samboendeförhållande which is 'living together relationship', and has been common since the sixties in the nordic countries. The english language equivivalent is Cohabitation and Partner. Sambo's doesn't really fit, but better than using other words to others or in my mind, and the norse word is pretty much 'my woman' in a very possessive wording. Its weird that they use their word for husband for a female concubines man, but not their word for wife for a male concubines woman. But, then again, legally the man owns the woman, no matter if she's his wife or concubine, but the same doesn't apply to a male concubine for a female lord. She doesn't own him, and their relationship is more like an official lover than anything else. Double standards again.

Anyway, as soon as my mansion is completed enough to live in, I will move there. I want to feel settled. Feel at home.

It wouldn't surprise me if it is only 6 weeks until then or something like that. Probably not completely finished, but it is probably possible to live in the parts that are. The interior will take time, and the finish of all exterior walls more time, and the pavilion and courtyard and will be later. When a King stands behind something that can be built quickly, well, then it happens, but in pure accumulated working time, its been around 6 years of working time for five people with a 40-hour working week, even if everyone doesn't work on the mansion. This is not a huge castle in stone that is cumbersome and takes time, but everything is done by hand, all the way down to splitting wood to make planks, which they then plan and make pretty.

There is already a wide, well-used path over Small Ackerek, but it will be a proper paved road in the future, and there is so much manpower available that the stone road from the harbor to my mansion is almost finished. Of course it is a bit unnecessary with a paved road, and in many cases more unpleasant for carriages and horses than a smooth fine gravel road, but stone is nicer if it is done properly and they are leveling and cementing the upper layer so drainage is better and the surface smoother. I want the main road across the island to be good and wide, while small unimportant roads from it can be gravel or simple tracks. I expect that there will be quite a lot more transport and inhabitants here in a few years, and might as well make proper infrastructure from the start.

Two fenced pastures for animals have been completed, and the women who take care of the worker's food and laundry, have already planted the vegetable garden with some vegetables and started making an orchard. They gratefully thanked me when I rewarded them some extra silver for their commitment, and they will plant more. They're also collecting berries in the forest when they arn't busy with other things, but it is mostly for their own use. Better they gather and benefit from the berries, than that the berries fall and rot.

Apparently, the most time consuming work is the foundation of my mansion, but they are walling up the cellars and making everything flat enough. At least there is plenty of stone, but the stone floor inside in the wing, on the patio and on the pavilion will be slate tiles so it will be smoother and finer. Sure its luxurious, but I prefer really flat floors. Those who are doing the stonework and leveling the cliff, will level out and build a courtyard of stonewaste and gravel, and make sure that the drainage is taken into account. There is a fairly large pit to fill in the northeast corner, but the courtyard is low priority. It will actually be a fairly okay and large courtyard that is quite square with about 25m or so sides, but depends on where you count that the mountain ends. The east side, which is a cliff of a few meters, is clearly the boundry on that side. I'll need to add a wall or railing there in the future.

Most of the rain on the roofs towards the courtyard will be led down to a reservoir in the basement by the stairs, which should be kept filled and replaced by rain. It is simply a reservoir if there is a problem with the pump or the waterpipes freezes etc. Remaining rain from the wings roof and the southwest side of the main roof goes down into a similar reservoir in the corner of the boiler room, but it will have less volume. The easternmost part of the main building's roof is only led out over the cliff edge and south over the cliffs. The roof of the pavilion together with the roof of the greenhouse is led south and if it rains a lot, there will be a small stream down the cliff towards the depressions brook west of the mansion. They have at least understood to make ditches and small pipes under the road to lead rain to the other side, instead of flooding the road.

In the future, it would be possible to make a small pond on the cliffs south of the mansion or possibly just below the steep cliffs on the east side and redirect rainwater to fill the pond instead. They have removed the pines closest to the mansion, but let the deciduous trees grow on the rocks and below. Maybe I could make a garden along with the pond by building a wall along the cliff edges south of the mansion and filling the inside with dirt and soil? It could be a nice little garden with vegetables and some fruit trees, instead of boring rocks.

Explain the updates for the mounts for wind turbines, and I may need mounts for more things like antenna masts, which is easy to arrange for now before it is built. All the chimneys have also made me realize that they will of course need to be sooted, so I give updates for simple work platforms outside the gable, and along most of the main building's roofridge on its south side and between the chimneys for the kitchen. It also makes it easier for me to mount the wind turbine and perform maintenance on it and other things such as future radio antennas. It would have been a big miss to forget about chimney sweeping and roof access. The work platforms themselves are just a few thick horizontal wooden poles that give a 4 dm wide surface to stand on, and it will be possible to step out of the mainbuildings gable window to the main platform on the wing roof which is a little wider and then via a ladder that will be hung up when needed, climb up to the other workplatform 3 meters above. The kitchen chimneys are a bit harder to reach, but the plan is to crawl out of the attic window above the kitchen. Not optimal, and will probably have to hoist up larger sweeping tools, but it was an easy solution to avoid making a separate roofdoor or external ladder for roof access. If I need to build something on the pavilion roof in the future, then that too will get some form of ladder or work platform. The wooden roof on the pavilion is much less critical to get it right from the start, than the mansion's roof, which I've started to think about trying to upgrade to copper.

To motivate the workers a little extra, I tell Pedr that if they do a really good job, and the mansion is finished enough before the Tosra meeting that we can move in and then live here while the rest is completed, I will pay for them to have a feast with grilled pig, mead, music etc, and all workers will get time off to celebrate and have a bonfire and other things they think fit the occasion. But it is very important that it is well and nicely done work - it is not enough that it is finished. Good work is the priority. They can't be cheating or negligent work.

The carpenters who build practise houses really like the design of the 6x4 houses. They like the look of flat walls, the comfort and the light inside, even if the space is relatively small. Most people are used to having large open longhouses with an open fireplace in the middle, with dirt or stone floors and the animals living there in the winter, or simple small huts without windows with only four walls and a roof with a hole for light and smoke. These arn't such a house. But the workers are ridiculously skilled with their axes, chisels, hammers, drills, knives, planers, etc, and they of course have a couple of men who are skilled blacksmiths and metal workers. One house only need windows to be finished, but they have built things and buildings in wood for much of their lives. These houses will have single glaze windows, with shutters outside. Glass windows cost and I want to know how much it makes a difference for heat next winter, so it may be an idea to equip one of the houses with double glazing and measure the temperature drop over a cold night.

All three houses will be ready to live in within a week, and with the shutters, it works well enough in this weather even without glass windows. I offer Masterbuilder Pedr to use one of the 6x4 house as his home during construction, and I also offer him to let some of the best craftsmen use the other two houses, which will surely be appreciated by the craftsmen who have brought their wives with them. The mansion is expected to be completed later this autumn, so we will move in there immediately instead of moving to the island now and live divided into two of the small houses. Moving into the mansion directly feels like the better idea, especially since I will need access to the craftsmen in Borgarsandr in the near future.

I need to order a hell of a lot of copper pipes and copper plates. I'm really want to make the whole roof in copper instead of wood, to avoid having to think about the roof for a long time. I'll have to see if it is possible to make a big deal for a lot of copper, preferably all copper things at once. It would also be damn impressive with a copper roof, especially in the beginning before it turns black before it turns green. One milimeter thickness is enough, but they may prefer to make them thicker for easier manufacturing. I'll have to check if a copper roof is a possibility. No matter if there will be a copper roof, they will install a lightning rod, and the ground is wet just below the cliffs on the west side, but the east side is more suitable as it is straighter down instead of making a detour via the pavilion.

We have a nice relaxing evening down by the cliffs in the south. We bathe a little, practise swiming, grill meat and bread by a fire, and on the open surface further inland I show the cross-shaped Boomerangs Bodil helped me make, and it soon becomes a fun and much appreciated challenge for everyone, with a lot of frustration to thrown correctly and with the right angle, and to think of the wind. Its hard because the Boomerangs are deliberately made with a slightly different pitch to see which one works best. Eventually, after many many throws, most have managed to catch a boomerang at least once. There will definitely be more made, but they will be made in harder woods and probably oak, and there will also be attempts to make Boomerangers for hunting, which don't come back as they're designed to go straight and far. The modified wooden dishes work like frisbee's, not good, but they do work, you just have to be a little careful how they are thrown. One of them doesn't survive the evening's exercises, but my company is a little impressed when I manage to screw the frisbee and make it land in a bush twice in a row, and we all have a lot of fun trying to catch the frisbee.