Just look at what we woke up to this morning . .

Just look at what we woke up to this morning . . . . . .

         . . . . . . . after 25 degrees last week, this is a bit of a change!  It carried on snowing quite heavily all morning before it turned to slushy rain.  This wasn't nice fluffy white snow, it was wet, cold, horrible snow.  I think it's supposed to be quite cold tonight too, so it'll be ice tomorrow.  It's a real shame because all the blossom has just come out on the trees and bushes and this could well do for it.  We have a lot of bushes that were cut down to the ground before we moved here which we think are damsons, but they have only just got big enough to have blossom and, therefore, fruit.  They were covered, so we thought we'd know for sure what they are before long, but maybe we'll have to wait until next year now.  Our bit of woodland is also carpetted with violets, primroses and cowslips with wood anemones and sorrel coming through, just lovely.  They should be alright I think as they are sheltered by the trees.

We got our new energy certificate and the new scores on it, taking into account the solar panels, are 100% of this building's potential - pretty good, eh?  I'm actually not too sure what the potential score really means, because we could, obviously, improve our score by installing photovoltaic panels which would mean we exceed the potential . . . should that be possible?

Roses round the door

For the last few days we have been doing outdoor stuff as a change from all the crawling round in the batloft, etc.  The weather has just been so fantastic, it seemed a shame to waste it inside.  I took the thermometer just outside the kitchen door the other lunchtime and it was 25 degrees . . . . in March!  Mind you, it's all changed now and it is really hammering down outside.

We have finally planted the roses that Bob's
dad bought me for my birthday last year.  They
are deep orange, small flowered ones which
should look lovely when they've grown up a bit.

AFTER we'd planted the first one we thought we ought really
to point the wall behind it before it grows.  Bit of a silly way
round to do it I know, but I did I say once that we weren't
too good at forward planning!  My shoulders went pink while
I was doing this . . . March sunburn!

On the other side, we had help from the chickens.  Bob
just tipped the soil in and they did a good job of spreading
it out and levelling it off!

And here's where we're up to now.  Bob has been step-building
again, curved of course.  We have a bench that will sit nicely
between the steps and the kitchen door - ideal for breakfast or
lunch outside.  The ground level will be a bit higher so you
won't see so much of the edging on the plant bits which is made
from the offcuts from our hogsback ridge tiles on the roof for the rounded
corners and cut up floor tiles for the straight bits.

It's quite exciting to see some of the outside coming along at last.  We have some flat pieces of limestone which were used for paving and so we are going to use those outside the kitchen door.  That should be fun because to say they are random is a definite understatement!

Oh, nearly forgot to tell you - we have got our planning permission through to build the workshop . . . . three weeks early and with no onerous conditions attached.  A-mazing!  We have also had a copy of our Energy Performance Certificate.  There are two main sections to it, one is the energy rating and the other is the environmental impact (or CO2 emissions).  You get a rating for each in a similar way to fridges and washing machines with A being excellent and F being very poor.  They also give you a score for each against a potential score for the type of building it is.  We were within a point of both potential scores which I think is really pretty good, especially when you consider that she forgot about the solar panels which should improve both scores.  We should get the revised certificate with them on tomorrow hopefully.  So, we got a high C for energy and a high D for environmental.  That doesn't sound too brilliant, but for an old cottage it's actually pretty good.  We checked the scores for some purpose built eco homes and they only got Bs.  We also checked an old cottage in a nearby village and that got an F for both!  So, we are quite pleased with all that.

How filippin' posh are we?!

Oh, we are now sooo posh!  We have lights in all our rooms and working sockets too.  It felt so strange after the electrician had been on Monday to finally coil up all the extension leads and bulbs on the ends of cables.  We have never been here without trailing cables before.  The electrician actually seemed quite sad to be saying goodbye (after all these years!) and said we could do his barn up when he gets one (which is quite a compliment).  He seemed quite pleased when we said there was still the workshop to do and we were hoping he'd come back to do that.



This is one of the lounge lights.  They are made by an old company who used to make gas lights and have now moved on to electric versions modelled on their old styles.  Of course they will have glass bell-shaped shades and possibly different bulbs, but there's no point in getting too posh all at once - we do still have building work to do in there!  Just below this light (although it's not easy to see here) was where the wrens nested last year.  I did have thoughts of leaving the nest, which really was a work of art, and somehow covering it with glass or perspex, but realistically, it's probably not a brilliant idea as it would probably rot or something.  So last week we sadly pulled the nest out which was a shame.  I did manage to get a photo of the babies peeping out of the nest, so we are going to print that and hang it near where the nest was to remind us of our little visitors.  As you can imagine I had to nip in and take a pic really quickly before the babies ducked down out of sight, so it wasn't the best photo, but Ben kindly did a bit of work in photoshop or something to take away the glare form the stone and make everything a bit clearer so it should be fine.  Also in the above phot you can see we have put one small piece of plasterboard up on the lounge ceiling.  This is because a smoke detector has to be wired in that corner as there's a bedroom next to it so it was easier to put the plasterboard up before the electrician came.


And here's our chandalier in the end bedroom (ex-padded cell)!
This also has clear glass enclosed shades which are safely
packed away.  We're really quite pleased with how it looks
hanging from the new beam.  We bought this light fixture what
seems like years ago, so it is really exciting to finally see it
in place.  Makes my fingers itch to get decorating!



And here's the batloft and that wall I spent two days
pointing and smoothing off.  We quite fancy painting this
wall quite a dark colour and making this bit into a cosy squashy
den eventually.

So, with the electrician's visit out of the way, that's another deadline met and past.  Our next major deadline is Building Control sign-off which we have to have within three months.  Since moving here we have had self-build site insurance which covers equipment hire, contractors on site and quite a lot of public liability and is, therefore, quite expensive.  As of next week we have more traditional buildings insurance.  I assume that you usually have to have your Building Regulations sign off certificate for normal insurance, but this company will cover you so long as you get signed off within three months.  So, that's our next aim.  For that we need the electrician's certificate which he is now doing, that energy rating certificate I told you about which is in hand, a stench pipe which we've almost done (just need to get a couple of pieces of cast iron downpipe to finish that) and, of course, some stairs.  That will no doubt please a lot of people no end - it seems to be the thing that bugs the most people, except us!  Mum will definitely be excited when the stairs are in because she will be able to see our upstairs for the first time (dodgy knees don't lend themselves to climbing ladders really) and lots of other people seem really concerned that we don't have stairs.  As I said, it doesn't bother us really - we're quite used to our ladder.  Once they're done, the building inspector will have to come round and check all sorts of things - oohh it'll be like taking an exam!

Non-building things we've done include starting to thin out some trees across the path which make that corner quite dark and damp and spoil the view.  Bill and his new lady friend came round for dinner - she seemed very nice and we had a really good evening.  We were a bit concerned that Maggie may have popped round as we know she is really curious to find out what the new lady is like - now that could have got awkward,  but we got away with it!  We just got quizzed about her the next time we saw Maggie, but told her in no uncertain terms we weren't going to discuss it.  It's quite difficult trying to juggle staying friends with both of them!  We've also had the woodburner flue swept, and not before time apparently.  The other thing we need for Building Control is the commissioning certificate for the woodburner which the plumber was supposed to sort out but hadn't.  So the chap came today to do his smoke and draw test.  When he lit the bit of newspaper the smoke just billowed out, filled the room and set all the smoke detectors off!  That's not supposed to happen apparently.  So he checked the flue and pulled out loads of tarrey clinker and then swept out a tonne of soot!  Oops.  Apparently having the backboiler means the tar builds up more than normal (the water cools things and that's when tar forms) and so we should sweep the flue twice a year to include the middle of winter, but nobody told us that.  It is, apparently in the maintenance manual which comes with the woodburner . . . . we don't have one!  Once he'd swept the flue though it performed beautifully and the certificate will be in the post.  I was at work while this happened and when I got home I chucked a log on to up the temperaature to cook the potatoes in the oven and the temperature shot up past the top of the scale . . . so, it's made a difference.  Bill came round for a chat just as we were about to have tea, so by the time we ate the potatoes were very, very crispy - they actually didn't have much potato left in the middle!

Oh, I still have a job after next week . . . . until 28 April!  It's really quite unbelievable, but apparently they don't have next year's budget yet.  One of my temporary colleagues (there are three of us) resigned today which has them on their toes a bit! 

Isn't it nice now the evenings are lighter?  All the birds are in full voice and very busy doing what they do.  We were woken this morning by pigeons doing an awful lot of flappy stuff in the trees - guess there'll be baby pigeons around before too long!  We usually lie in bed in the morning listening to the greater spotted woodpeckers hammering away in a nearby tree and this morning a green woodpecker was cackling away close by.  Bob has heard the first chiff chaff of the season and the nuthatches have, once again, been showing interest in the old woodpecker hole in the dead beech tree.  Everyone's busy, busy, busy.

Right, this is going to be a quick update and a few photos.  It's getting late and I've been at work, but I realise it's ages since I updated this.  So, what have we been doing since Elvis departed?

Well, we had a good day in the garden - as well as burying a chicken alongside the other four and a squirrel (which Bob dug up by accident when he was preparing Elvis's final resting place!) - we spread the last of our horse manure round the fruit trees, put some two year old leaf mould on the very clayey border outside the end bedroom and weeded and dug over the little veg plot.  We also dismantled the compost bin and took all the lovely stuff from the bottom (neither of us have ever made such lovley looking compost before!), re-mantled (is that the opposite of dismantled?) the bin and put the latest stuff back in for next time.  All jobs we've been meaning to do for a while.

Bob has done most of the panelling to hide the tanking in the
end bedroom.  Within hours of getting this far he was using it
as a shelf!

He has also started on the panelling the other side of the wall
to hide the homemade tanking.  The frame is up for it and he's just
started putting the tongue and groove on.  The first bit takes ages
because that goes against the stone wall so has to be shaped to fit.

This is our media centre!  This is where the TV will go in the
lounge, so lots of sockets needed as well as ariel, IT and phone.
We were going to set all the boxes into the stone, but it's impossible
to get them all level/parallel, so we decided this was easier and neater.
We'll hide it later with a cabinet or something.  We were quite impressed
with ourselves for remembering to hide some speaker cables in the walls,
we're not usually that good at this forward thinking business!  The electrician is coming to 2nd fix in here on Monday so this need to be done by then as
there are sockets and switches in the panelling.

Bob has also built the step from the end bedroom into the
lounge and this is him NOT using it as it wasn't quite set at this
point.  The top step will have a brick facing and they will have
wooden tops . . . eventually.  We have a few steps like this and
this is the first one where we've thought to sink some bits of wood
into the concrete to give us something to attach the wooden top to
. . . . it's also the last step we need to do.  See, I said we weren't good at
this forward thinking! 

While Bob has been doing all this and in between M&S work, I've been hiding cables in the stone walls by pointing them in.  I've also had two days in the batloft sorting out one of the walls.  It will be painted, but needed tidying up (raking out and re-pointing/plastering)  considerably in readiness for that - no pictures of that because I was busy doing it!  It's quite cramped up there and at one point I couldn't stand properly because my knee just wouldn't work for a while!

We have also filled in a form from the council about energy efficiency - it's a requirement of Building Control that we get this energy rating form done (by paying the council £180!).  Now, I can understand that it's a good idea to get developers building lots of new houses to fill in these forms and pass energy efficiency 'tests', but somehow it seems a bit of a waste of time in our sort of situation.  For example, one question asks about the percentage of draft proofing?!  The house has two chimneys and Building Regs insist on 4" holes drilled into bathroom, utility and kitchen walls for extractor fans, so it's not going to be that draft-proofed.  What do you expect your pressure test reading to be???!!!  We don't expect it to be anything because we don't expect to get one done.  Who wants to live in a hermetically sealed house anyway?  I've seen pressure tests done on TV where they pump air into the house and measure how much leaks out - OK for the new passive houses (which probably are hermetically sealed), but pretty ridiculous in an old house!  Now then, calm down Janet.  Anyway, we've sent that off and just said we didn't understand the above questions - we'll see what they say.

I still haven't heard if I have a job after next weekend - my Manager said they'd try to let me know next week? !  Guess that'd be useful!

Enjoy your weekend and the lighter evenings from Sunday.

Elvis has left the building

Aaahh, poor little Elvis has moved on to the chicken run in the sky.  We weren't really surprised as you'll have gathered from my last posting.  Each morning we've been expecting the worst and this morning it happened.  For the best though I think as she'd been getting less mobile.  At least we didn't find her dead in a heap at the bottom of the steps or anything, she was lying comfortably in the woodchips in the nest box looking very peaceful, so I guess she just died in her sleep - well that's what I like to think.  Usually, we don't let the chickens sleep in the nest box, that is just for laying eggs in.  In the main bit of the house is a perch and underneath that is a plastic grow bag tray.  Chickens do most of their pooing at night and my goodness can they poo!  So, it's better for everyone if they sleep on the perch so the poo goes into the tray and we can easily clean that out each morning.  If they sleep in the nest box it gets all mucky in there which isn't nice.  Elvis did like sleeping in there though so usually when we shut them away at night we put a board between the main house and the nest box and then later on when they've put themselves to bed we go up and close the pophole and take the board out so they can go in there in the morning to lay an egg.  For the last few days we have let Elv sleep in there, mainly because she couldn't hop up onto the perch and so would have had to sleep in the poo tray - yuk!

So, we were a bit sad and reflective this morning, made worse by also hearing that Sophie, the dog who was supposed to come for afternoon tea last week also died a few days ago.  Elvis had a lovely life while she was here though and entertained us all no end.  She was such a poor little thing when she got here, tiny, skinny, bald and picked on by everyone - just look at her on this picture (she's the runty one nearest the camera).  Who'd have thought that she'd go on to be the leader of the pack with two teenagers to look after!





Well, she looks much better here doesn't she?

Inner illumination

Woo hoo!  The batloft ceiling's finished - plasterboarding, skimming and everything.  We now definitely have aching shoulders.  To skim the bottom half you have to sit on the floor and reach out far in front of you, putting pressure upwards at arm's length at the same time.  Good job to have got done and, yes, of course we're celebrating in traditional manner - cheers!

Next jobs are to chase cables into the stone walls in the lounge and end bedroom (do you notice I'm now calling them by their room names instead of 'barns'?).  This can take a while because you can't just angle-grind out channels - that would look awful on bare stone or whitewashed walls.  So, we have to find a route as direct as possible, but round the stones and then dig out as much mortar as we can so the cables sit well in the gaps.  I then take a photo before we point them in so we can always look back at them to see exactly where the cables are should we need to.  We have the electrician booked for the last week in March, so that gives a deadline to work to.  We do seem to get on better when we have a deadline.  I think I'll do the above while Bob gets on with panelling in both rooms.  As I said before, we had to tank the end bedroom because it's built into the hill.  On the wall between there and the lounge the tanking comes up about a metre (that's about as far as rising damp rises), so we need to cover that up and will do that with tongue and groove panelling.  That's an easy way to hide cables as well which is handy.  In the lounge the other side of that wall will be panelled in the same way.  In there we carried the damp-proof membrane from the floor up the wall, so that will be behind the panelling.

This morning we went shopping for all the bits and bobs of electrical gubbins we didn't already have including a light for the 'crog loft' which we'd completely forgotten about.  We also got a little LED light for the draft hole between the bedroom and the lounge.  Because these two rooms were barns they have these little holes built in to allow air to circulate.  We copied them in the extension, you can see them on the picture with the brick surrounds.  Anyway, from the lounge there is one hole through to each of the bedrooms - not really ideal when guests are staying!  We thought for ages about how to 'block' the view - brick them up, blinds, shutters.  Then we came up with the idea of putting opaque glass in them.  But what sort?  Ordinary bathroom glass would look a bit naff. 

So, we went to visit a glass maker during the Open Studios weekend a couple of years ago and between us came up with a cunning plan.  We have found various bits of iron, nails, etc and even some little tiny 'horse-shoes'.  They may actually be donkey shoes or even the bits put on work boots, but they were quite cute.  Anyway, Jan (the glass maker) agreed to have a go at incorporating some of them into glass panels along with bubbles and coloured glass.  After several tries, she gave up on the horse shoes, but did manage to incorporate some of the old roof nails.  We got two done for one of the holes and this is where the LED light comes in.  That will go between the two and illuminate from within - bit trendy innit?!

We managed to plan a bit of time off as intended, but it didn't quite go to plan.  We had invited some neighbours (Roy, wife, daughter and dog) for afternoon tea on Wednesday, but unfortunately they had to cancel at the last minute because a little girl they look after had to be collected from hospital after a fall at school.  So, we did a session of skimming instead and then hauled Phil and Ann in off their walk to help us eat the lemon cake I'd made!  Yesterday we went to the seaside.  We went to have a look at the bit of coast that is closest to here - due west to the Barmouth/Harlech area.  The plan was to start at Barmouth have a walk along the beach, get some lunch at a teashop then go on to Harlech and explore the beach there and finish with tea and cake before driving home.  Barmouth was quite a nice little seaside town . . . . from one end and then you get to the Las Vegas Amusements, nightclub and tattoo parlour end.  Not to worry though, there were loads of little cafes, but not a single one was open, not one!  Luckily there was a nice deli/cafe open in Harlech later (good job, because by then I was busting for the loo!). 

Bob's just pretending to look cold, it was lovely
and hot really!

Barmouth has a very long railway bridge over the estuary which you can walk over, so we did that.  There were lovely views back up the estuary to the mountains beyond and then the other way out to sea (obviously).  When we were about half way across a little two-carriage train came out of the tunnel at the Barmouth end and pootled over the bridge.  It just looked like a model railway setup.  We did have a walk on the beach too, but by then it was really quite windy and chilly.  So, on to Harlech which is a much smaller, nicer town.  Had lunch, quick look at the castle and then along to the pottery to see if they had any nice mugs or jugs . . . .closed, aaarghhh!  Guess March isn't a good time to do this!  So, we were ready to come home by 2pm!  We thought we'd stop at the Canoe Centre near Lake Bala to see what we could see and have a cuppa in their cafe while we watched the watersports.  We were on our way there to go white-water rafting the very first time we saw this place.  The cafe there was . . . you've guessed it . . . . closed!  So, we watched a raft and several canoes go down the rapids and then came home.  Not exactly the day out we'd planned, but that said it was a lovely drive through Snowdonia - beautiful, beautiful countryside.  It is really lovely round here, but within 40 miles you feel as though you are in a different country - well, you are, you're in Wales - but you feel you're a lot further from home. 

Poor little Elvis isn't doing too well.  She seems to be doing a penguin impression most of the time, all hunched up and she doesn't move around much at all.  We have to carry her up and down the steps.  She is still eating though.  She's just like Molly was in her last few days and so we're not expecting her to be around much longer.  She has been a real little character and a real fighter.  It's funny, all the ex-battery chickens have been real characters, but the two 'normal' chickens we have just don't have anywhere near as much personality.  I'll keep you posted on the Elvis front.

Rhubarb cruelty

So, another week gone and more progress on our remaining rooms.  We managed to borrow a scaffold tower from a neighbour on Monday morning and so could get on with skimming in the afternoon.  Having the twin towers up did make things much easier.  The two of them just fitted with about 3mm to spare (we had to make sure the wingnuts on ours were a certain way or they wouldn't fit, it was that close).  This did make moving them a little tricky - push one a couple of inches then the other and so on.  But it did mean that we could reach the whole length of the ceiling in one go and so could do each portion in one go.  There are four 'portions' to the ceiling - above and below the purlins times two for the two sides.  When we were skimming before, we tended to do one session and then do something else for the rest of the day.  You can only do so much in one session or the plaster starts to dry out before you are ready to do the next stage.  This time we managed to get more done in each session and also to do more than one session a day, so we had it all done by Wednesday.  We were really pleased with that because we did think it'd take us all week.  So, that room could now be painted I guess - exciting (I like that bit!).

Instead of painting though, we moved swiftly on to the bat loft ceiling.  We have got all the insulation in which has been a truly horrible job!  It has taken longer than the skimming! There is not much head height up there - before the insulation Bob could stand up (just) in the middle, but as we put each layer in obviously the ceiling has got lower and now, after 6" of insulation, Bob can't stand up anywhere.  We have stuff stored up there - cast iron downpipes, rolls of damp proof membrane and roof breather membrane as well as boxes and boxes of Laura's clothes.  So, all that needs moving around as you work.  To make life more miserable, it's a really dusty job and in a confined space that's not much fun.  We are using solid polyeurathane(?) insulation with silver paper on each side.  You can cut the 1" stuff quite easily and cleanly with a stanley knife, so that's not too bad.  When it comes to the 4" stuff though you have to use a saw which makes all this horrible dust.  It's quite static too so it clings to you.  Last night when we'd finished my black trousers were beige - I had to take them off and beat them against the outside wall (good job it was dark and no-one came past!).  So, we are really well and truly pleased that that job is over and done with and our work clothes are now in the wash!  Think that's all the insulation done in the house now.  Seems a little strange not to have piles of the boards all over the place.  We bought most of it about two and a half years ago when it was on special offer and it has been stored under the caravan, in the top of the wriggly barn, in the end bedroom, everywhere ever since.  Now we just have a few offcuts left which we can use when we box in the soil pipe (for soundproofing rather than for thermal insulation as the pipe goes down the corner of the lounge!) and we will also put some round the bath when we put a panel on the side to keep the water hot for longer.  So, next is plasterboarding which will also be a bit awkward, but the dust isn't so horrible (it settles!).

We are having our first rhubarb crumble of the season for tea tonight.  We have quite a bit of rhubarb which is sprouting nicely, but a few weeks ago I decided to try forcing some.  That is, keep it in the dark and it grows quickly trying to find the light and stays pink and tender.  Oh, that sounds a bit cruel doesn't it, like veal calves or something?  So, I have used the bit we cut off the neck of the septic tank (before it was used, don't worry) which is a fibre glass tube about two feet across with a bit of wood across the top - it doesn't look pretty I'll admit, but then neither does anything in the garden yet!  It has worked anyway and we have lovely pink rhubarb.  Next lot's going in some vodka ready for warm sunny evenings to come!  You make it like sloe gin, but with vodka and rhubarb and it is delicious chilled with ice in the summer.  We are still cooking most evening meals on the woodburner - I think we've only used the other cooker for one meal in the last month or so which is quite good isn't it.  I am currently perfecting naan bread cooked directly on the hotplate which works really well.  In a way, it'll be a shame when the weather is too warm to light the woodburner.  On the other hand, I can't wait for the better weather.  Last week was lovely here and really spring-like, but we were confined to our dark hole for most of it of course!  The birds definitely think Spring's here and are in full voice until after dark which is lovely.