Far Lands

Sorry about all the numbers in the title - I am 2! The builders have been v busy - soakaway is done (including pipe across the drive) - this is for 'top' water ie rainfall, and goes into a hole at the top of the bottom paddock. And the slabs are complete - the foundation layers for the walls and rooms to sit on. It's been interesting watching the progress - amazing number of layers; including MOT (aggregate), waterproof membrane, sand, insulation and metal grid and then cement. The building Inspector has been up at least 5x so far - reminds me of having my homework checked!

...went to mow a meadow... And that man was my Dad! And together we did a few other things too - continued building my 3rd set of (rustic) steps up into the orchard, covered the latest wood stacks, erected a fence to prevent those ******* sheep eating my young hazel trees, and chopped & stacked more firewood. In return (in what I like to think is ascending order) he got an England victory over the Ukraine, glorious sunshine and my cooking. If you want to mow the meadow, please get in touch!

The builders have started at speed! The drive is in chaos - skip, digger, small crane, portaloo, builders vans and builders! They have already removed 6 massive skipfuls of rock and dirt (including a half-car sized boulder), had the building Inspector visit 3x (he is happy) and laid some of the foundations (cement lorry has been up 2x). And it's only day 3.

It's all about to happen. The builders have started to drop off the scaffolding, and are due to start on Monday morning (18th June). The first thing to happen will be moving the oil tank (but keeping it connected for the time being). And we now have an outside socket - because apparently builders like the occasional cup of tea! A quick reminder of the proposed works:- single story, 2 room extension on the back of the house (utility room / gym and boiler room) wood pellet boiler (to replace oil boilers on both house and cottage) solar thermal panels (on roof adjacent to solar PV panels) new water system (800 litre tank and water pumped, UV filtered and ph corrected) new water pipework shower in the cottage new kitchen This will mean the oil boilers, the oil tank, all the old water pipes, the cold water tank and the hot water tank will all be defunct. If anybody wants anything...!

We all know that it's bread and circuses that keep us happy and in our place. With the supply of bread just about sorted (at least in the UK), that only leaves circuses for the imagination of the the current monarch or dictator. So, the occasion of the The Royal Jubilee provided a good excuse for a double BH and various types of merrymaking. I even paused (under protest) from work on the smallholding! Hope you had a good one.