Guess what we've been doing?!

So, what have we been up to in the last week?  Well, the plumber has swung it so Warmflow will send a new manifold for the solar panels and he should be here on Monday morning to swap them over.  Fingers crossed that's the end of it and it all works afterwards (think I'll cry if it doesn't!).  We have also given the hall another coat of white-wash, well, cream-wash actually and we have laid most of the floor tiles in there.  Bob went to get some more grout for them but the flippin' shop has closed down - how inconsiderate!  It has been taken over by someone else and should open again on Monday, just hope they stock the same stuff otherwise we'll have a real patchwork of grout.  

Last weekend was our wedding anniversary and to celebrate we decided we should get up at 6am so I could go to work and then in the afternoon we did log-chopping - we know how to live you know!  Actually, a bit of log chopping and stacking is quite a nice job to do together (we seem to have been doing a lot of separate things over the last few weeks.  It's also quite satisfying to see the pile grow, knowing it'll keep us warm next winter.  These are the logs our neighbour dropped off a couple of weeks ago so they won't be dry enough for this winter.  We also have some more to chop from when the quarry cleared some trees along the side of our lane a few months ago.  We have put down some pallets and knocked in some posts next to the hedge and, when we've chopped and stacked it all, we'll put some sort of roof on and that will be log pile number one done.  We have some logs we split last year (so OK to burn this year) so we need to make another log store near the house for those and then we'll probably make another one up near the chicken house - you just can't have too many log piles!  Do you know, I've even felt a bit of 'log pile envy' now and then when I see other people's stacks!

We also collected the doors last weekend (in the rain!).  It took some doing apparently, but they've come up really well.  Some had been stripped previously and coated with a water-based varnish which doesn't come off properly with the caustic stuff usually used, so the poor chap had to buy some Nitromors and scrape them clean.  They were still quite wet when we got them back so the are now drying out.  In the next few days we need to paint them with watered down vinegar to neutralise the caustic and then when that's dried off we can get on with fitting hinges etc.  They should look quite good, most are pitch pine which is just much nicer than the new pine you get now and will be much more 'in keeping'.

So, that's about it for this week - oh, nearly forgot to tell you, we have done something else!  Nothing much, but we moved into the house yesterday!  I was so excited and it was brilliant and didn't disappoint.  Bob has been almost nervous about moving in.  I think we've planned this for so long and had so many hopes for this cottage he was a little worried it may not live up to our expectations.  I managed to twist his arm though and we had our first night in there last night.  We are kind of camping out in there - no wardrobes so we have a couple of those clothes rails, no stairs so we still use the ladder, no kitchen cupboards so we have plastic boxes, temporary shelves and the broken freezer as a store cupboard, but it's all fine.  We were going to wait for the solar stuff to be sorted out, but as we hadn't a clue when it wouldl be done and the weather has definitely turned autumnal we decided not to wait any longer.

As we were taking stuff out of the caravan, we realised just how manky and horrible the caravan has become.  Bob was quite horrified and now doesn't like coming back in here.  I say 'in here'  because I'm typing this in the caravan.  The phone man is coming either today or tomorrow to move the connection to the house and sort out the internet and phone sockets (we've put the cables in ready), so until then we have to nip up here.

Bob took the bed apart, cleaned off all the mould and dust and
gave it a coat of wax so it now looks lovely again and smells
fresh and clean.

We had to take the door and frame off the caravan
to get the fridge out because . . . . .



. . . . . it only just fits (about 3mm clearance!)



Trying to sort out where to put everything, we wondered about
this as a novel knife block!  What do you think?  If we practiced,
maybe we could just throw them to put them in place.  By the way,
there is a split (or shake to give it its correct name) in the oak
just here, we haven't just stabbed the knives into solid wood!



First lunch in the house - very civilised to sit at a table to
eat.  The caravan table was always full of paperwork, the
laptop, etc so we generally ate off trays.



First cooking in the new kitchen.  It seemed really strange to have
to walk about to cook after the tiny space in the caravan!  That worktop
is pinched from the caravan - lovely and just what we had in mind for our
cottage kitchen.  It was actually a really good idea of Bob's as it gives us a
worktop and cupboard - it'll be a while before we have proper cupboards.  I'm
in my work clothes because I was just getting the naan bread started before
having a lovely long drench in our lovely big shower, ahhh I could get
used to living here!



So much of the planning for and talking about our move to a cottage in
the country was done while cooking a curry on a Saturday night, both
in our old house and in the caravan, that we just had to cook a curry
as our first proper meal here.  Having finally made it and with a glass of
wine in hand, we couldn't help but feel a little bit pleased with ourselves!

Our first night in the house felt like staying in a holiday cottage (a very nice one of course), you know when you can't quite remember where anything is or how things work and it's all a bit of an adventure.  We lit the woodburner just because we could, not because it was cold and it was lovely and cosy, but we did both wake up far too warm this morning!  We slept well though and the rain in the night didn't wake us up nor did the squirrels (they haven't learnt to throw hawthorn berries that far yet!).  The light through the rooflight above the bed did wake us fairly early, but it was nice to just lie there looking at our new surroundings . . . . well, it was once I'd put my glasses on!  There was a buzzard flying overhead which I could see while lying in bed - not bad eh?

Oooh! Our shoulders and necks ache

The plasterboard arrived first thing on Tuesday morning (I hadn't even had chance to dry my hair - what will they think?!).  The lorry parked at the end of the lane and the chap brought them down on the little forklift and plonked them on a pallet to keep them out of the mud (which is absolutely everywhere).   The sky didn't look too promising, so we thought we'd better move them inside before it rained.  We had to carry them up the garden and into the middle barn where there's space to store them flat.  Forty plus 8' x 4' sheets seemed to take forever, were quite awkward and quite heavy.  I kept saying 'Have we done half yet' (just like a kiddy in the back of a car asking if we're nearly there yet), but as it started to spit with rain, the pile didn't seem to get any smaller for ages.  They'd actually given us a couple of extra sheets - 'B*st***ds' was Bob's comment when he realised.  With our arms twice as long as they used to be, dislocated shoulders and sore fingers, we didn't quite see the extras as a bonus (as we should have done and obviously do now).

So, then (well, after I'd dried my hair of course) we cracked on with plasterboarding the bedroom ceiling.  That has to be the most awkward area, so we thought we'd get it out of the way.  We cut the boards to size downstairs to make it a bit easier to get them up the ladder.  As you know, nothing in this house is straight, especially the purlins and so there was then a lot of holding the board in place, taking it down, shaving a bit off here and there, back into place, more shaving and so on.  Not a quick job and is like weightlifting at the gym (not that I know much about that!).  We then ran out of 9mm plasterboard because, with the purlin in the middle it doesn't fit very economically.  Most of what we ordered was standard 12mm, but we thought 9mm would be better for the ceilings as they're lighter (and 3mm extra headroom might make a huge difference!).  So, we'll have to go and collect some more but it'll have to be the smaller boards - we can't really expect them to deliver just three boards.

Last night we had tea at neighbours, Bill and Maggie's with the mohican daughter.  Maggie had got a half price leg of lamb at Sainsbury's and needed someone to share it with, so like good neighbours we said we'd help them out.  Deeee-licious, I can't remember when I last had roast lamb and it was very nice.  Then they came to the smallholders meeting about poultry with us - they're thinking of getting some chickens.  This was the first meeting since the 'People's Revolution' (see 'What a Lovely Day' - 9 Feb), and was really good - a really nice atmosphere and very sociable, with no negativity.  This afternoon we had a break from plasterboarding to help Phil and Ann with their lumberjacking.  Three sycamore trees on their land had to be felled because they were close to power lines and they have spent the last few days chopping the timber up for firewood - loads of it!  So, we had an afternoon in the sun splitting the bigger logs (the contractors had cut them into manageable lengths) while Phil chopped them to size with an axe and Anne stacked.  We only got through a tiny portion, but every little helps.  It's about time we repaid some of our debts - they saved some nice straight pieces for Bob for furniture making, they keep an eye on our chickens when we're away, they helped us put the oak frame up and Phil is going to give us a plaster skimming masterclass . . . . yep, we probably still owe them. 

Molly is looking a bit better, just old now.  We decided to worm them which you're supposed to do every now and then and Molly had one of the classic symptoms . . . . . look away now and I'll whisper . . . . a mucky bum.  You're supposed to mix the powder with their normal food and give them that for 7 days, but when we tried that ages ago they all just stopped eating it!  So since then, we've measured out the week's worth (which is less than 10g) and each day mix a seventh in with something we know they'll like.  The only trouble is that Molly's now a bit slow when it comes to getting stuck in and grabbing treats.  So we've been dividing the medicated bread or whatever into four and trying to give them each their own portion.  What a laugh!  One person has to take Molly to one side and give her hers while the other deals with the other three which mainly involves keeping them away from Molly once they've gulped theirs down - you really need six hands and four feet to keep them away.  Oh, that sounds terrible - like we kick them out of the way . . . .honestly we don't we just 'herd' them with feet!