Far Lands

Chaos here this week - workmen in every nook and cranny. No hot water, so I am washing in the sink with the help of a kettle. Requires a strategy! By coincidence, Sarah has decided to go to the gym a lot this week. One surprise in the kitchen - Martin discovered an arch which we are now keeping. My theory is that the kitchen was once a garage of some sort, because this arch looks to be an external entrance as opposed to an internal feature. Farlands - a palimpsest of surprises! At least this one did not require a hefty sloe gin to revover from. Finished McEwan's Amsterdam - another of his short, sting-in-the-nail novels - very addictive!

The project is crescendo-ing to a finale! But, this week will be big. BIG. The boxes (ie boiler room and gym) are just about finished - concrete floors were poured on Friday. The porch as you can see below is also taking shape. Tomorrow morning will see the arrival of about 15 workmen from 4 different firms to start filling the boxes with our new boiler and water systems, and of course my new pull-up-bar!

...well, at least to the local second-hand bookshop. 12 books in about as many minutes! More of them in a mo. But first, the chaos. The builders have knocked through from the kit room into the hall - dust everywhere despite several walls of plastic. So many walls of plastic and sheets that going up and down the stairs has become a time-consuming adventure (perhaps similar to negotiating a Turkish massage-parlour boudoir). It has also necessitated me to make a packed lunch in my own house! I'm trying to keep the builders morale up - entertainment this week has included me taking down the washing from the whirlygig whilst wearing a pair of gloves. My explanation is that I was mowing the grass, it started to rain, and I did not want to get the white-wash grassy. All of this chaos and mayhem has driven me to ice-cream with everything, and a trip to the local bookshop - how about this for a fab book list:- Amsterdam (McEwan - just about completing my collection) The Bridge

An AB day ( Absolutely Bonkers day in James and Sarah textspeak - please share yours!) yesterday. Full speed ahead on the extension - on site were 3 x builders, the plumber, electrician and joiner. The share price of both Tetleys and McVities jumped 10%. Lots of progress - they have now broken into the house in the kit room, plaster-boarded most of the two new rooms, and the doors and windows are being fitted. I love the new gym room door (I will be massaging it later with Danish Oil). I hope it's ok to love a door. After all, some people love their neighbours. (But they probably don't massage them.) Other House Manager action included cottage guests arriving, cutting and fitting inspection pipes for some of our communal water source taps (in the field above Eva), and the usual activities on the veg and fruit plot (harvesting potatoes, spinach, beans, tayberries and loganberries; planting out more chard and spinach and weeding) (and murdering slugs of course).

One of the more unusual ideas suggested by Seymour in his Self-Sufficiency bible is the bud grafting of pear scions to hawthorn hedges. The principle of grafting is to bind the cambium layer (between bark and the wood) of both scion and stock. Over the weekend I had a go! Step 1 - obtain pear scions - 30cm 'bud sticks' of this year's growth Step 2 - cut a T shaped slit in the hawthorn stock (ie shoots on the hawthorn hedge) Step 3 - cut small (2 cm or so) shield shape pieces of the scion to include a bud (no leaf) Step 4 - insert shield into T slit Step 5 - bind with grafting tape I did 20 over the weekend! If it works, we should get pears on our hawthorn hedge. Not only that, but Sarah will eat my hat (albeit with a little creme fraiche).

...on the extension:- the first Velux window is complete, and by the end of this week the roof should be fully slated. Wednesday is due to be the first fix (self-explanatory if you know about these things. If you don't, then basically, the builders are laying their first bet (with me) as to their date of completion.) ...and in the garden. My hard-working father has been to stay again and together we built another set of steps in the orchard - named by him The Olympic Steps (I think because of the amount of hard work he put into them).

The 1st reckoning for the PV panels has arrived - 1 year since installation. The predicted target was 2391 KWs for our 3.76 KW system (which suffers from 21% shading). With the unpredictable weather over the last few months, and in particular the South-lurking Gulf Stream, the target has looked totally out-of-reach. However, we almost hit it. Our 1st year total is 2327 KW (just over 97% of target). And if you like statistics:- the best week was 118 KWs (week beginning 23 May) the best day was 19 KWs (3x) (30 April, 21, 23 May)  average required was 6.55 KWs a day average reached was 6.4KWs a day And in terms of the investment:- our outlay should be repaid in about 12 years (depending on weather and solar panel degradation) of the 25 year government-guaranteed (we hope) FIT (Feed In Tariff) scheme. Graphs, pie-charts, venn diagrams and johari windows to follow!