This is a 'school night'!

Yes, I start work tomorrow (sob), so it feels a bit like the last night of the summer holidays when you're at school.  Got to lay out my uniform (well, something smart) and books (well, P45, birthcertificate, etc), have an early night and no drinking (not that that applied when I was at school obviously!  Hmmm). . . . and well, I might finish the wine I've already started.

So, here's what we've been doing with my last few days of freedom . . . . 



My sewing room - just ignore the ladder which is our stairs for
the moment, apart from that it looks quite cosy in there.  So,
kitchen curtains are done and now I'm doing the bedroom ones.



And here they are.  They still need the hems doing and the lining
sewing in, but I've broken every sewing machine needle I have
doing them, so it'll have to wait until I've got some more.  The pattern
is embroidered on with wool, so where there are several layers it
is really thick and that's what's done for the needles.

 

This moring we had a sort through our stored furniture and decided
to get this set of pine drawers out.  Bob's Mum bought these ages ago and sanded
and varnished them.  They were a little 'orange', so Bob decided to have
another go and they look much better (you can see them in the photo above).  They
date to the mid 1800's so a similar age to the cottage.  When Bob took the knobs
off we saw the original finish - white paint covered in varnish and worked to look like oak!




We also found this corner cabinet which Bob made before we moved.
The elm is from a village called Shelton (our surname), so we had to
make something for ourselves from it.  It has survived storage really well
and looks just lovely, we just need to find a corner for it - surprisingly difficult
as there aren't many right-angle corners here!  Not everything has survived
so well - I re-caned a little chair (another of Bob's Mum's purchases) before we
moved.  It took me ages, but looked quite good finished . . . the mice liked it too!

 

And we've tried the bath - had to put the immersion on to heat
the water because the solar's not doing anything at the moment.
Oh, what luxury - it's wider, deeper and longer than our old bath,
so you can really submerge in it.  I can't wait to get a cold now and
need a hot bath!!  Not really, but it is nice to have.



We've had surgery today

Indeed, yes, we've had major surgery today - limbs amputated and everything.  You'll have guessed, I guess, that I mean tree rather than human surgery.  There's an overhead telephone cable runs down our little lane and there are rather a lot of branches either leaning on it or propping it up.  A while ago we pointed this out to the Quarry Manager (the quarry owns the land on that side of the lane), so he obviously took it on board and a team of three came this afternoon with their chipper and cherry-picker.  They have only made a start, but already the lane looks lighter - you can see the outside world down there!  They said we could have some of the timber so we went along and collected that up when they'd gone and there should be more when they come to do the next bit.  The lane looks a real mess now though.  Over the last week or two it had really dried up, but last night's torrential rain and their tyres with the addition of twigs, leaves and woodchips have made a real mess.  Not to worry though, the council roadsweeper'll be round I'm sure . . . . . not . . . . . I don't think we don't exist as far as they're concerned except to pay council tax!  Potholes get filled and lanes swept elsewhere and the snowplough clears other lanes, but not here - they actually left the piled-up snow across the entrance to our lane one year!



Bob doing the housework -
hoovering up the concrete dust before sealing
it with watered down PVA
(or cleaning it so the chickens can pooh on it!!!)



We've started the dreaded job of laying the kitchen floor - not actually as bad as feared, but still quite time-consuming.  I think most of the really worn tiles broke when we took them up.  The rest vary a fair bit, but we started with some of the thickest, used a thin mortar bed and so we can, hopefully, even them out with slightly thicker mortar.  Before we took the tiles up, I quite liked them.  By the time they'd been stacked outside for a winter, covered in mud and green, I'd gone off them a bit.  Even when we'd cleaned them and stacked them I was a bit dubious - they still looked quite grubby. 

A dry-run of laying some quarry tiles in the kitchen



But now that we've laid a section, I'm coming round to liking them again.  They certainly have character!  They are probably about 150 years old, so that's understandable.  They will definitely look right with the old bricks of the inglenook, the oak and the limewashed stone . . . . just quite different to the wipe-down lino I'm used to!!

We have also got all the limewashed areas up to the same stage.  Laura and I did a couple of coats on some bits a few weeks ago, so we had to get the rest up to the same stage - done.  Next is to have a go at colouring some limewash with the hope that we'll end up with a lovely cream colour.  We now have some yellow ochre, but I haven't a clue how much to add.  Really is a leap of faith because you can't tell what it'll look like until you've done it and given it a day to dry.  When you first put it on it'll look really bright yellow (as all you'll see is the pigment) until it starts to dry and the white of the lime starts to come through.  It'll be a bit nerve-wracking I think . . . . or quite exciting?  I like yellow anyway, so it can't be too bad and if it's too bright I'm guessing you could do a coat of plain limewash which should lighten it - oh, we have so much to learn!  You'll know it's been a disaster when I start telling you we've decided to plasterboard those walls!

Quck update on the bird-front.  The wrens are still sitting on the nest in the lounge.  They stay there when we are in and out doing stuff taking no notice of them, but if we stand in there talking to visitors they fly out and wait until we've gone to come back.  I was a bit worried that we may have scared them off while Mum and Dad were here as we didn't see them for the few days after, but this morning we spotted a little face looking out at us.  I would think that, if they haven't already, the eggs should hatch any day.  It must be a couple of weeks since they started sitting which is about the right incubation time.  I expect we'll see a flurry of activity with both adults constantly in and out very soon.  The blue tits in the quarry-sign pole are busy in and out, so I think they may have babies.  There are also a pair of blue-tits nesting in an outside wall of the house which we haven't re-pointed yet and maybe another pair in one of the top barn walls.  There's no sign of activity on the old beech tree, so I think both sorts of woodpecker and the nuthatches have scared each other off.  Chickens - Bonny was looking a bit forlorn again this afternoon and Bob has just got back from shutting them up for the night and says she was under the house with two of her shell-less eggs - no wonder she was feeling off-colour - course one of them may have been from last night and we just didn't notice it.  Hopefully she'll be feeling better now with that out of her system!



Our second bath in two days . . . . forgot the wine, tut!
Do you like the 'public toilets colour scheme?
The green's the moisture resistant plasterboard which has a chamfer on the edge
(filled with plaster to level it for tiling - the pink line), then the ordinary plasterboard
above.  I expect you'll be surprised to learn that we've decided not to keep
this colour scheme but to go for white tiles instead!



Scary Monsters!

No, they're not the scary monsters, cheeky!  That's Mum and Dad, who've been here for a few days.  We put them to work cleaning the kitchen floor.  We had lovely weather, so it was a good time to do wet stuff.  We borrowed a pressure washer and got a production-line going with Mum on the washer and the rest of us laying tiles out on pallets, turning them over, loading them into wheelbarrows then barrowing them down and stacking them outside the kitchen door.  It was certainly easier than scrubbing them by hand and made easier by having help.  So, we're now ready to lay them.

We spent some time this afternoon in the kitchen trying to decide on where our centre lines should be.  Nothing lines up, there are no right angles and none of the walls are straight so it's a bit difficult to decide.  The oak post in the middle of the room won though, so that will be the centre of the cross.  We also got the kitchen sink out of its box and balanced in in place on some work benches to decide where it should go.  We're going to sit it on brick pillars with wooden doors between - we saw similar in the cafe at Laura's monastry which we liked and thought we'd copy, so we marked out where that'll go.  We have a problem of lots of deep recesses in the kitchen which will be awkward to get to . . . so, lots of storage space for things that don't get used very often, but nowhere for the everyday things.  One such place will be next to the sink down the side of the inglenook.  Too big to waste, but awkward to use!  The access to it (under the worktop) will be quite narrow.  So we think we will invent some free-standing shelves on little wheels - three sets which will wheel into the opening and then push sideways into the awkward space.  The last one (ie the one that's easiest to get to) will hold the bins.  So, to get to the others you pull the bin trolley right out, pull the next one sideways and then towards you out of the opening and so on.  It's not ideal, but is the best we've come up with so far - work in progress I think. 

This morning we trawled around electrical and plumbers merchants getting prices for sockets, light switches, etc, etc, looking at light fittings, extractor fans, showers and so on.  Now need to decide where to get what and get on with buying stuff.  The electician is coming on 25 May to start 2nd fix and the plumber is booked for 6 June.  He did come on Tuesday to fit the bath and shower tray - bit frustrating as he didn't have a waste for the bath and the one Bob dashed into town to get wasn't right.  While Bob was out he got on with the shower tray, fixed all the little legs onto it, put it in place and put his spirit level on it and realised that it was bowed in every direction.  In effect there was a slight hump in the middle of the tray, so we would have ended up with a swampy moat around the edge!  Must have been a manufacturing problem because a cast resin tray wouldn't bow from poor storage.  Anyway we rang the plumbers merchant and they said they'd get another one for the next day, so the plumber picked it up and came back and fitted it as well as the bath yesterday.  So, at last we have a bath and we enjoyed relaxing in it this afternoon, lovely and deep - what luxury . . . . . shame there was no water in it!  Oh, we also ordered the floorboards for upstairs (should arrive on Saturday) and booked the electricity company to come and fit an Economy 7 meter (Friday, 13th!!!  Is that really a good idea?).  We need E7 for the underfloor heating which acts like a storage heater.  So, a busy day, but not really much to show for it.

Now to the scary monsters!  Just look at this  . . .

. . . . it's one of those May Bugs I told you about.  Somehow it must have got one of its feet stuck in the seal around the window and so was buzzing there for ages while we looked on horrified and took photos.  It kept buzzing really loudly trying to free itself and then it just sat quietly waving its antennae.  I felt quite sorry for it and couldn't just leave it there so, very bravely I thought, I got a ruler and opened the top of the window and gently pushed it along to free it - I guess it could have lost a foot, but it would certainly have died if it had stayed trapped.  All the time I was hoping it wasn't going to fly in through the window as soon as it was free.  Phew, it didn't - instead it went to get its friends and they carried on bombarding the window!   Yeargghhh - horiffying, but quite fascinating (when there's a pane of glass between!).

BRRRRRRR! It's still cold!



OK, we've had enough winter for now thanks!  Today has been pretty miserable weather-wise - it's actually been above freezing which is warmer than it has been for a while, but it has been raining which means the snow is slushy (with ice underneath) and where there's no snow there's mud.  I slipped over on the snowy ice carrying our hot drinks - no damage done, but in the two seconds it took me to stand up again, shlurrrp, my clothes had soaked up about 6 gallons of icey water and I had snow up my sleeves . . . and I spilt the coffee!



Kitchen studwork - looks as though we're trying to
do a really naff, exposed timber, pub style room!



We have been a bit frustrated because of the weather.  Earlier this week, we had to make some mortar to make good around the holes we'd made for the plumber and electrician to poke cables and pipes through walls.  Trouble was that the sand was frozen!  So, we had to break off lumps of sand and put them in the cement mixer and I stood there pointing the hot air gun into the mixer while the sand tumbled round warming up.  We then used hot water to mix it with.  Oh, I don't know if you're supposed to do all these things, we just make it up as we go along!  We also wanted to get on with the roof insulation, but before we can do that we needed to squirt some expanding foam right into the eaves to close up any little gaps between the wall and the slates (don't want wasps crawling in and making nests).  Of course if you read the instructions on these products they all say to store between 5 and 25 degrees!   Ha, ha - we don't have anywhere that doesn't go below 5 degrees in this weather . . . . unless we take a carrier bag full of tubes of silicone, cans of squirty foam, etc to bed with us!  Then of course you can't use the foam when it's colder than 5 degrees - that'll be about May then.  It only takes 10 minutes to do the foam, but we just couldn't get on with it.  With today going up to a balmy 3 degrees, we decided we'd just have to get on with it, so we plugged in all the big builders lights we have and pointed them at the eaves in the hope of raising the temperature a tad (they do get quite warm - really useful for thawing out fingertips while working) and so that job is done - seemed to work OK.  Don't know if you have ever used this stuff - it's brilliant stuff, but you do have to be careful not to overdo it.  When we put in the tiny windows in the extension we used it between the stone and the frame.  Bob did one and it looked OK, he went off to do something else and when he came back the foam had expanded and almost covered the whole window - it looked so funny and he was horrified!  So, when we'd finished doing the eaves we did go outside and check that it wasn't billowing out under the roof and down the walls! 

Today, as well as the squirty stuff, we put up some more bits of oak in the kitchen.  These will house the above counter sockets and light switch.  I also treated all the oak beams and posts in the kitchen to a coat of danish oil for a bit of protection.  I was a more than a little horrified at how dark it went - it honestly looked as though we'd used some cheap teak-colour stain and it looked so nice before!  Thank goodness though, as it has soaked in and dried, it has lightened a bit and it now has a warm colour (rather than plain orange!) - phew!

Studwork in the stone extension - the phot is taken
from the corridor and nearest to us is what will
be the bathroom and beyond that is the utility room

The plumber has been here for a short time (two afternoons) - he has to keep going off to sort out burst pipes!  He has got on quite well though and we now have pipes all over the place as well as cables.  He still has to sort out toilet waste pipes and run the pipes for the solar panels, but that should be quite straightforward as Bob has done all the holes through walls and so it is a fairly straight run.  The solar panels should be delivered on Tuesday.  They are actually evacuated tubes rather than flat panels - we're told these work better in the winter than the traditional ones (I wasn't really expecting either to work in winter, but apparently they do which is a bit clever isn't it?).  As our roof faces south (pretty much) we will qualify for the Government payment for microgeneration which should amount to about £400 a year for 20 years (as well as cheap hot water) which is not to be sniffed at.  Initially, we didn't want to put anything modern on that side of the roof, but there's not much point in putting solar panels on the wrong side just to keep the old-fashioned cottagey look.  If they are to go on any roof, then they probably blend in to slate better than any . . . sort of, and we have made sure all the frames, etc are black.  They'll be fine . . . . I'm sure they will . . . . . won't they?

We bought our other woodburner this week, so now the shop has two for us in their storeroom - we sit in the caravan huddled round the oil filled radiator and think of our woodburners!  We also had the bath delivered, so we can think of hot bubbly baths too.  Oh, and we've ordered our one and only radiator, so soon we'll be able to think about that too.  Because the kitchen wood burner has a back boiler, you have to have a 'dump radiator'  for it to lose some heat to if necessary.  This will be in the en-suite upstairs and we have gone for an old-fashioned cast iron one rather than a modern panelled thing.  This is our Christmas present to each other - as it costs four times as much as an ordinary one, it is the only way we can justify it!

PEEPO!
Bob's trapped inside the wall!



The patter of tiny feet . . . . . . on the roof!

Well, here are the twins -  I told you they were mountaineers and explorers!  While there is no real nastiness between the two sets of chickens, Bonny and Peggy do tend to keep out of the way out of Molly and Elvis and usually that is by going upwards.  So, on top of their hen house, balancing on the top rung of the back of the bench outside the caravan, on top of the fence, on a pile of wood . . . . and on the caravan roof!  They started by jumping up onto the water butt, then a short hop up onto the huge oak barrels (which are waiting to be water butts) and then, much to our surprise, up onto the caravan roof where they happily pecked around for a while.  They had no problems getting down - they just flew across to the fence opposite their run.  The rooftop foray is now becoming a regular lunchtime activity.   None of the other chickens have ever really done this sort of thing except the one time I told you about when we'd just got Sid (see 'Two eggs ... now only two chickens').  I guess this is just one of the differences between real chickens and ex-batteries - they have never been stopped from exploring upwards.  As their ancestors and wild cousins roost high up in the trees, it should be natural behaviour.  Just have to remember when one goes missing that we have to look up as well! 

Aswell as going on the caravan roof, Peggy and Bonny seem to have found their way around the place pretty well and, most importantly, know their way back to the run.  So, they are now free to roam around like Elvis and Molly all the time we are around (we do still check on them a bit more often than usual though).  The weather has been pretty yuck the last few days and so it's a bit miserable for them all.  I found the twins sheltering in a half oildrum behind the caravan today, just peering out miserably at the rain - they looked as if they were waiting for a bus!  Yesterday we were just telling our neighbours how reliable Elvis was on the egg front - she hasn't missed a day for weeks.  Guess what?  No egg today!

I've just realised that I haven't put any 'work' photos on here for ages and, after Graham's request for more pictures (see comment on 'The chickens have names'), I will try and remember to take some tomorrow and show you what we've been doing.  It's not very interesting, that's the trouble' but I'll see what I can do.  We have put all the metal studwork up in the padded cell - it looks even more weird now because, as well as the 'padding', it now looks as though it has metal bars all over the walls.  It was quite easy to put up, basically you put a channel along the floor and another along the ceiling and then the I-profile uprights just slot in and slide along to where you want them (the insulation slots between the uprights and you screw the plasterboard onto them too).  This means they don't have to be screwed onto the wall - good idea not to put loads of screws though the plastic bubble-wrap stuff that is suppposed to make the walls waterproof really!  The only complication with this room compared to a normal room is the sloping roof which meant cutting angles on the uprights for the gable end and putting wedges above the top channel so it pointed downwards rather than into the middle of the room along the other walls.  Bob has now started making holes all over the place for cables and pipes - not easy when the walls are 18" thick stone and some of the holes need to be about 6" diameter!  Still, not point in paying the plumber and electrician to do them when we can do them ourselves (now, when I say we . . . . well, it's a bit like digging, I mean Bob).

The plumber came round yesterday to go over final details and he has gone off to order the solar panels and hot water tank.  We also spent yesterday morning at the plumbers merchants (yes, all morning!!!) and have ordered toilets, sinks, bath, taps, etc.  Oh, it's so complicated!  "If you have that sink it has two tap holes . . . . we really wanted a mixer tap . . . . you want a mixer tap - need a different sink then with one tap hole . . . . do you want a pop-up waste or click-clack  . . . . what? what happened to a plug on a chain? . . . ha, ha - haven't done them for ages . . . . . OK, so, click-clack it is then . . . . right, but that mixer tap, it has a pop-up waste . . . . what? it's a tap, what's that got to do with the waste? . . . .  most traditional-style taps come with pop-up waste . . . . so, OK, we'll have a pop-up . . . . shall I cancel the click-clack then?"    and so on for almost three hours!  We should have ordered a shower tray and screen, but we just didn't have the stamina!  Anyway, all that should be delivered on 2 December which is quite exciting.  I've been trying to work out how long it'd take to fill the bath from the kettle?!  Too long is the answer and so I will have to continue to dream about soaking in a deep, hot, bubbly bath with a glass of wine and nothing to do . . . . aahhh, that'll be the day!