This may be my last ever blog!

Yes, this may be the last you hear from me.  Bob's just put a log on the woodburner . . . . trouble is it has a branch sticking out so it's too big to go in and the other end is already alight so we can't take it out!  So, I'm typing through a haze of smoke as we wait for it to burn enough to push right in so we can close the door, either that or it burns the house down!  Farewell!!

Oh, well OK then the drama's over - I just managed to knock a bit off the burning branch which was enough to be able to push it back a bit and close the door.  The fog's now clearing and I think we may live to see another day!

We have our first paying guests coming next weekend . . . . well, not paying, but Carol and Graham (my sister and husband . . . her husband, not mine of course) are staying overnight so that's quite exciting isn't it?  So, we've been working hard on the oak room for them to stay in.  It is now all skimmed and decorated and has a door.  The electrician came on Wednesday, so the light, sockets and underfloor heating all work now.  Talking of heating, the underfloor heating has come on over the last few nights.  You can tell it's been on in the morning as nowhere is chilly, but I wouldn't say the floor is really toasty.  I guess it has quite a slab of concrete to heat and so will take a few days to do that.  Glad it's doing its thing and coming on automatically and working out for itself how long it needs to be on, etc.  The plumber also came on Wednesday and he has drained the whole solar system, flushed it through with fresh water and then pressurised it all with fresh glycol.  He's taped the posh insulation on all the pipes and tweeked a few parameters and has high hopes that all will now be well.  It has been working fairly well to be fair, but it is really too late in the year to tell if it really is all lovely, so we'll wait and see what happens next summer . . . . . . . . .

I've had a really busy week workwise - this is supposed to be a part-time job, doing just 21.75 hours a week, but this week I've done 40 including being in for 7am on my day off!  Next week four or five new people are starting, so perhaps it'll calm down a bit.  Tee hee, we won't be the new kids anymore and people'll be expecting us to know what we're doing!  I've just found out that in the lead up to Christmas the shop opens at 7am which means that the people who go in early to fill the shelves, as I do sometimes, have to be in at 5.30am - oh joy!!!

Won't think about that just yet!  Here's the rest of our week in pictures:

Bob playing with fire again!  He's actually retrieving the old
suffolk latch which we salvaged from one of the old doors.
It was fat with a million coats of paint and the best way to strip it
is to chuck it in the fire.  It's now about half the size and attached to
the bathroom door.

We suddenly realised that the stone wall in the oak room was
covered in green slime - well not slime any more because it had dried.
It would've been sensible to clean it off before we built the room wouldn't it and I do remember thinking about it, but it never got done.  So, with rubber gloves and old washing up brushes we set to with stone floor cleaner and it does now look much more like an inside wall thank goodness!



We went to the blacksmiths today to pick up a curtain pole and saw
these bright little numbers and thought they'd make the view from the
oak room a bit more cheerful!



. . . . . and guess what I'm doing again?  Next lot of curtains
is on the go - for the oak room of course, but I'm not sure if I'll
actually get them finished in time for next weekend.  We chose the material
yesterday, but they didn't have enough so they took our number and said they'd
call as soon as it came in.  Not long after we got home, they called to say it was in - now how's that for service?!  Someone else had actually ordered some and that's what
arrived, but they didn't need the whole roll so there was enough for us too - handy!

Now, just look at this cheeky chicken!  Tuesday was a lovely day so we
had the kitchen door open and spent the whole of our lunchtime shooing the
chickens out of the door ending up with a washing up bowl of water as a persuader!
Next thing we know, a chicken appears from the other direction and hops up into the
stair opening to look at us and check if there were any sarnies going spare.  She'd gone through the open door to the middle barn, down the steps, along the hall and then up onto this bit of wall!!  On the same day, Bob found a wren in the middle barn (where they nested
earlier in the year) - well they'll have to think again because they won't be able to get
in there next Spring . . . . hopefully!

Heating for this winter weather

The electrician finished connecting the underfloor heating before he went on Friday.  Luckily for us Friday night was forecast to be really quite chilly, so we set the controls to full to see what happened.  Next morning the house was actually quite warm and you could definitely feel a difference in the floor . . . . . more that they weren't cold rather than that they were warm.  But what a relief!  I don't think I'd quite realised how much at the back of my mind I was thinking that it might not actually work.  For months when we ordered it all, we had real, real trouble with the company with them not being able to tell us what length/type of cables we needed, then sending extra cables/wrong cables/unlabelled cables.  You then lay the cables (and test them) then slap 2" of screed on top (and test the cables again), but it is all a bit of a leap of faith that they'll work at the end of the day and it really would be a major pain if for some reason they didn't!  Last night we left it on full again and again it was warm this morning.  So, we have now turned it all down to about a quarter capacity to see what happens . . . . . hopefully, it either won't come on at all (I think the weather is supposed to warm up tonight) or it'll just come on for a very short time.  Now I'm thinking 'What if it comes on for the full time again?  That'll mean that the controller doesn't work'.  I'm a bit paranoid about this heating, but that comes from the company not giving us faith in their product and their ability right at the start - it'll be fine!?!

We now have all the lights working, but need to do a fair bit of sorting out where light bulbs are concerned.  The move to low energy bulbs and the dictatorial way the industry is regulated now means that it is really difficult to sort out bulbs that actually do what you want them to and it is all soooo complicated!  We have a light in the bathroom that takes so long to warm up that it should just be bright enough to see by when you've finished having a wee, washed your hands and made a cup of tea - useless.  We have a light in the hall which is OK and is bright enough, quick enough but has writing all over the collar which is easily visible and looks horrible.  We have several light fittings which need a nice-looking bulb as part of the overall look, but you are no longer allowed to buy globe-shaped opaque bulbs.  There are possibilities out there, but of course you need to try them out in-situ . . . . at about £7 a go that could work out expensive.  Oooh dear, I've just realised what a moan I've been having, sorry!

While the electrician was here Bob kept out of the way by fitting some of the window catches upstairs which looks so much better than the little blocks of wood we used to have there.  Most of the windows just open on one side, but this is our bedroom window and has to open both sides to provide a fire escape.  This means that the left-hand side needs bolts to secure the window.  This window now makes us laugh a bit - it's a little busy with fixtures and fittings and really looks as though we just ordered one of everything in the catalogue and whacked it on!  I think there's a bit of space in the top corners which I'm sure we could fill with some sort of ironmongery!

I put the silicon around the shower tray and in the corners and as predicted made a real mess of it - I should be able to do it, I can ice a cake so what's the difference?  So, one of my jobs for next week is to try and sort it out.  Luckily I didn't do the bath in the same manner and so should hopefully have learned from my mistakes.

We have had the weekend off again as my son, Ben and his girlfriend, Lucy have been here for a few days.  Ben helped us move the woodburner over a couple of inches which was a great help - it is just so heavy and a real dead weight.  So, it's staying where it is now I think.  Yesterday we went for a good walk around Hawkstone Park which is full of Victorian follies in the shape of caves and pitch black tunnels right through rocks, meandering paths and worn, wonky steps, a tower with over 150 steps leading to fantastic views over the Shropshire Plains and little huts half built into the rocks.  Something different around every corner and a good way to spend a few hours.  We were going to look round the local annual antique show today before Ben and Lucy went home, but it has been pouring down non-stop so we have done nothing at all.  It's not good for you!  We feel shattered after doing nothing but cooking a fry-up and reading the paper.  Back to work tomorrow.  We have a new work schedule for the time before the plumber comes.  Tomorrow involves some roof work.  When they put the frame for the solar panels on the roof they disturbed the ridge tiles and very quickly put them back and pointed them.  The temperature then was way below that recommended for lime mortar, so we need to check the state of all that and re-do it if necessary.  We also need to silicone around the rubber grommets where the pipes go through the roof as you can see daylight through which probably isn't good.  We are also going to paint the bright orange rubber grommets black with some tyre paint to try to make them blend in a bit.  They are all fairly quick jobs, but it'll need both of us - one on the roof and the other passing things and checking what it looks like from the ground.  I did most of the ridge tiles in the first place, so I might do the roof bit if I'm still brave enough to get up there!

Floor screed

Well, I'm afraid laying screed doesn't seem to get any quicker.  The good news is that I don't ache quite so much as I did after laying it - still can't really walk properly, but not quite so bad!  We did the floor in the oak bedroom and it took just as long as the first lot - it was smoother though so that's good.  We then did the second layer in the padded cell.  Did I explain that the end barn had to be tanked because it is built into the hillside, so the walls are covered in dimpled white plastic attached by red plastic 'buttons', so it does look like a padded cell.  I'm on the lookout for a straight jacket now!

Yesterday we did the screed in what will be the lounge . . . . it took absolutely ages and it was dark before we'd cleared away!  I have to admit that one of the main problems was that the concrete we'd laid was not very level which makes it awkward to level the screed.  Then the piece of wood I was using to level off had was bowed and followed the dip in the floor so the first strip of screed followed that dip and it took me ages to work out why I couldn't get the next strip to level with it, and then a while to sort it out.  Then just as we'd done that, Elvis came to have  a look!   I got up to shoo her out but she doubled back behind me and left her mark on my lovely smooth screed!   Aaarghh!  I was not best pleased, but really it was quite funny.

So, today we had 4 tonnes of sand delivered and another 28 bags of cement and all the time we were unloading it I kept thinking 'oh no, we are going to have to mix, shovel and lay all this!' .  We had to move some of the sand because it was completely blocking the bridleway so we got shovels and started but after about 5 shovelfuls each we just looked at each other and shook our heads.  We were just so tired after yesterday, it was really hard work.  We did clear enough space for a horse to get through though.  We have also had a bit of a tidy up and cleared the stone extension - that's our next floor to do.  Now that the floor is hard in the oak bedroom we have put everything in there (on pallets so the floor can continue to dry out).  I don't think we will be doing then next lot of screed until Monday, so hopefully we'll feel a bit more energetic by then!

Nice timber cladding

We finally finished the chestnut cladding with some extra timber we collected yesterday.  Freshly sawn it looks lovely and bright and clean, so I'm happy with that bit and so could take a photo!  This side was really fiddly to do.  Because it butts up to the stone wall, we had to cut the end of each board to fit in and around each stone.  We bought a tile profiler - the gadget that you hold against the wall and push the pins across until they touch all the ins and outs then use that to draw round onto your tiles or, in this case, wood.  We did buy two because you are supposed to be able to join them together which would have been really handy.  Having read the extensive instructions (all one and a half lines) about a hundred times and fiddled for an hour, we couldn't see how to join them at all so had to make do with a single one.  We drew the profile onto card - much easier to keep offering the end of a Stella box up to the wall than a 10ft plank - then when we were happy translated it onto the wood.  This whole process is very time-consuming (made worse by having to walk all the way round the building and back up the path each time any sawing needed doing - so much easier if you could just saw the wood right next to, and on the same level, as the building you are working on!  Guess it keeps us fit!).  It was worth it though as there is quite a snug fit between the two buildings (and some squirty foam from the inside sould seal any gaps).

We have laid the first lot of underfloor heating - quite exciting, it feels warmer in there already!  Only joking, it's not connected to anything!  Dad was able to lend a hand which was useful as we hadn't a clue what we were doing and he has, having had a similar system in their house for quite a few years.  This is a bit of a leap of faith - electric underfloor heating seems to be quite rare as most people have pipes filled with hot water heated by gas or ground/air source heat pumps.  We don't have enough of the right sort of ground for ground source (or the right sort of money for a borehole for groundsource) and all our extensive research into airsource just threw up problems.  This system will run overnight on cheap electricity, so shouldn't be too expensive to run.  I don't know anyone who monitors so closely the energy consumption of their house as Dad and I can't imagine he would be so happy with it as he is if it wasn't economical and so I'm putting my faith in him!  No pressure there then Dad!

On Tuesday we helped some neighbours put in their staircase.  They are doing the same as us and living in a caravan while they renovate an old cottage and barns, but are further on than us.  Again this was a job I thought we'd finish by lunchtime, but we were still at it at teatime and nowhere near finished.  The stairs turn two corners, have six newel posts and had to fit in a tight space, so it was really awkward.  The upstairs floorboards were also in and overlength which made for a fair amount of fiddling around before we could start.  The staight bit of stairs were ready assembled, but all the rest had to be assembled in situ.  A right jigsaw it was too with several pieces all having to go in at the same time - good job there were five of us!  When  we drove past yesterday, there was smoke coming from their chimney for the first time . . . . . not fair!  They've got their woodburner in and working!

So, tomorrow we are laying screed again.  This time on top of the underfloor heating in the oak frame room.  Let's hope it's a bit quicker than the first lot . . . . . . I'm not saying we might finish by lunchtime again though!