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| Welcome to our new house! |
Invited to Hallowe'en party tonight at the cottage across the lane by the Chainsaw Man - bring a bottle and a dish to share! Fancy dress!! HELP! Made a cardboard coffin and filled it with funsize chocs instead of taking food, made a broomstick and cloak (black plastic and gaffer tape) and a witches hat from Sainsbury's - sorted! Chainsaw man takes all the children on a scary walk through the woods past our cottage every year, so we put a builder's light in the house (extension to the caravan so we could switch it on from there) and made a body from a hallowe'en mask and black plastic to hang from the 'kitchen' beam. It looked brilliant with the light shining out through the holes in the roof. You could see the 'body' swinging from the beam from the path. We waited ages in the dark for the children to come past and then flashed the lights on and off - apparently the were suitably scared!
Met lots of neighbours at the party all friendly and offering help and most of them having done or doing similar and a surprising number living in static vans (all sympathetic about the cold!). Seems that lots of houses were sold by the quarry last Autumn and several people had to move out. The man who sold us our cottage also bought another in the woods and gave the tenants notice to move out - naturally they're quite bitter about it. Mr D bought the neighbouring cottage and intially told the chainsaw people they could stay there as long-term tenants, but then gave them two month's notice at Christmas last year. They are now living in the static caravan at the cottage across the lane (where the party was). It's all a bit sad, but there seems to be a good community spirit and the party was a brilliant way to introduce ourselves to everyone (won't recognise them though as they were in fancy dress and it was dark!). A vampire who lives on the so called 'mountain' the other side of the woods was there, his zombie son still lives on the 'mountain' - all a bit surreal.
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| See, it doesn't look too bad from this side! (Photo taken in August 2008) |
5 November Chased up BT - supposed to be connecting the phone this week . . . . won't be done until 28 November!! It was the national number I rang and not really understanding or helpful. Will try Richy to see if he can chase anything.
6 November Walked down for a cuppa with Bill and Maggie (we met them at the party and they are renovating a cottage down the lane and living in a caravan). They had just heard that the Environment Agency can take 4 months to make a decision on septic tanks - better get on with our application.
8/9 November Laura to stay (my grown-up daughter)
10 November Arthur and Jan visited (Bob's Dad and Stepmum)
Latest with BT - one lady confidently thinks it is all ready to connect and is sending an engineer on 17th to do that! Also have an engineer appointment for 20th. Talk on the news today about 10,000 BT redundancies and the need for more efficiency - know what they mean!
14 November Spoke to a Planning Officer - can't start any work until a Rare Species Survey has been done - looking for bats, owls, great crested newts (this is a hotspot for them). Just need to write in with proposals for the septic tank. Think the Environment Agency only gets involved if there is a water course in the vicinity (Bill & Maggie have a stream running through their garden), so hopefully that won't be a problem. Of course, if there is a chance that great crested newts are hibernating in the garden, we won't be able to do anything until the Spring! It would be lovely to have all these creatures in the garden . . . . but in a couple of years, not now!!
21 November WE HAVE A PHONE!!!!!
Bat woman came round - very enthusiastic! Had a good look round, took lots of photos and found one piece of bat poo! We now know how to tell the difference between bat poo and mouse poo - if you rub bat poo between your fingers it is dry and flaky (just insect wings and things), mouse poo makes a bit more of a mess. Basically: Optimum time for survey is April/May when the Summer nursery roost is established (can't disturb this). In November bats are beginning to hibernate (can disturb them if you have a licence). If you have a Summer roost you can only work on the roof, etc during the Winter. So, ideally for bats and bat woman, we should wait until April to have an emerging survey done. If we have a Summer roost we should then wait until Oct/Nov to do any work!! Not possible from our point of view! Peta (won't call her bat woman anymore) was not prepared to say in writing that she had found no evidence of bats, but said that as the existing plans have a roof void of perfect dimensions for a bat roost (we were hoping to have this room open to the roof), as we wanted to clad the extension in wany-edge board (which warps to provide lovely homes for bats), as we were prepared to make bat boxes and were generally bat-friendly people (Bob nursed a poorly bat when he was a teenager and we have bat books), she would write in her report that we could go ahead using bat-friendly best practice methods. She wasn't sure the Council Planners would agree to this as November is a 'sub-optimal' time for a survey. She rang later to say she had spoken to the senior case-worker on the original planning permission - he sheepishly agreed that permission should not have been granted until the survey had been done (this is now the law apparently) and so, on the back foot, he agreed to her proposal. So, all we have to do is pay her lots of money, provide a nice, big loft exclusively for bats and specially lined for them with bitumen-coated hessian and call her out when we are doing crucial bits like taking off ridge tiles or if we find a bat. Good news though - no great crested newts as there's no pond within 250yds (except the one across the lane which is too new) so we can do septic tank.
Just phoned Orange about broadband . . . . . BT have put in an old-fashioned DAX line which can't support broadband so they will have to change the line! AAARRRRGH!! So, better phone everyone tonight while we have a working phone line!
19 December Brief update of the last month: (see, my resolve to write this diary was slipping already)
Broadband - still not connected and Orange now say it may be the end of December! (we had a login at the library and went there to check e-mails, etc)
Bat Survey - answered all conditions on the original planning permission and included the bat report and took them to the Planning Dept and they looked through it and said it looked OK. Letter confirming this received this week. Now need to get drawing done for Building Control. Tim (architect) came round to look - could fill in a Building Notice for septic tank and roof and then do the rest with the planning application for the extension (we didn't like the original plans and so wanted to change them). We ran our proposals for the changes to the extension past the Planning Officer and he thought it looked OK and would probably pass, but he had to show then to the Building Conservation Officer. Apparently, she doesn't like our plans as they are and we're waiting for a letter from her explaining why.
We now have a new friend - a cock pheasant to comes to check out the bird table every morning . . . . it's so stupid and doesn't even flinch if you throw things, shout, clap, flap - nothing. The only satisfying way to get rid of it is to run down the road after it shouting and flapping your arms!
Motorbikes now moved up to the top barns - quite a job which took all afternoon. Tried putting boards down (too slippy), carpet (just rucked up behind), wriggly tin (too slippy). At one point, we had the Harley at the point where we couldn't get it further forward and we didn't think we'd be able to get it back down! HELP!! In the end we had to sacrifice a piece of brand new roof felt to finish the job. Anyway, we now have two very muddy motorbikes in the top barn.
Steve the plumber came to look and will come up with a design for heat pump/solar panel/woodburner combination.
Structural Engineer coming round after Christmas.
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| Goat visitors! The Chainsaw people used to take their dogs, child and two goats for a walk past our house most days. One day the goats decided to stay and the only way we could get rid of them was for Bob to walk them back to their home! |
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