Lime mortar and all that jazz!

The builder is on holiday and work on the house is almost at a standstill, whilst dehumidifying.... but.....we have a second year architecture student showing a lot of interest in our walls!
It is great having Rob with us for almost 2 weeks. He has enjoyed looking at the hosue and he and I (Sue) have had several long discussions about whether we can leave some of the original brickwork and timbers of the house exposed. You may remember the portion of wall in the dining room from a previous blog entry.
Anyway, today Rob rolled up his sleeves and started to wire brush the brickwork and clean the timber framing and now it's decided. We are definitely going to leave that bit of wall exposed. The bricks are a lovely warm colour, once they are brushed.
Rob and I discussed mortar, as it is incredibly loose and flaky and there are sizeable gaps where it has crumbled away. It is obviously very old, quite white in colour, but with hair and small grey grit mixed into it. I picked up a bit this morning and put it in my handbag, just in case! (As you do!)
This afternoon I was looking for some dowelling for a project and went to Focus DIY, where it was incredibly expensive, so I went off to a timber merchants at the other end of town. They didn't have any, but recommended another builder's merchant nearby. I found my dowel- much cheaper- and went to pay.
As I was paying, the lump of mortar in my bag came into my mind and I asked if anyone knew where I could get a similar mortar. We had a discussion and then the chap paying for an item on the next till said, "I know a chap who specialises in matching old mortar." When he turned around, it was Meirion, the builder who had also looked at the house, when we were considering buying it, who we had also seen once at Hope Community Church. I even remembered his name! We had a long chat about mortar, the house, church, and what happens when you die! He had the lime man's phone number on him, was fine about us not choosing his comapny to do the renovations and left me his number, as he has done a lot of repairs to lime mortar on listed buildings!
It was a God arranged meeting!