There are several different kinds of plastering. ‘Dot and dab’ refers to a base layer of plasterboard which is attached to a wall using ‘dabs’ of adhesive. ‘Floating’ is a technique where a backing or undercoat plaster is applied to walls. ‘Skimming’ or ‘reskimming’ refers to the very thin final decorative layer of plaster.
Dunbeath
Dunbeath is a village in south-east Caithness, Scotland on the A9 road. It was the native home of Neil M. Gunn (1891-1973), writer of The Silver Darlings, Highland River etc., much of whose stories are embeded in Dunbeath as well as its Strath. Dunbeath has an extremely rich historical landscape, the website of countless Iron Age brochs and also an early medieval reclusive site (see Alex Morrison's historical survey, "Dunbeath: A Cultural Landscape".) Of Dunbeath's landscape, Gunn wrote: "These small straths, like the Strath of Dunbeath, have this intimate beauty. In boyhood we get to know every square backyard of it. We encompass it physically and our memories hold it. Birches, hazel trees for nutting, swimming pools with trout and also an occasionally visible salmon, river-flats with the wind on the bracken and disappearing bunny scuts, a riches of wild flower as well as tiny bird life, the skyrocketing hawk, the unanticipated roe, the ancient graveyard, thoughts of the folk who as soon as lived far inland in straths and hollows, the past and also the present kept in a moment of day-dream." ('My Little Britain', 1941.). There is a community museum/landscape interpretation centre at the old town institution.