Summer 2006

It was a big disappointment to meet Julian from Genasys on site, and to discover that we couldn’t have hydro power (the stream had dried up) or wind (too much turbulence from the trees). Are all our eco principles going to be compromised? I suppose we have to be glad that Genasys are so straightforward and honest.8^th June 2006

Optimism restored after a meeting with Chris Morgan of Locate Architects. Chris has very high sustainable credentials and a lot of blisters and splinters to prove it. Not only a desk architect, he has plenty of experience of a variety of sustainable buildings and has reassured us that we can keep our eco footprint to a minimum in lots of other ways. It’s about sustainability, not zero energy. Sanity rules!

30^th June 2006
Daughter Emily has volunteered to do the Tree Survey which is required for the Planning Permission (“it’ll look good on my CV”) so we have been busy buying an old white Discovery Land Rover (John is eating much humble pie after his comments about 4 wheel drive owners) and a small caravan to give us a base.

Finally made it onto site late on Friday night. The Discovery towed the caravan without any problems and also behaved itself except for a few eccentric electrical matters to do with the rear wash wipe. (Now fixed). The midges ate us alive and we just drove on to the old driveway and hoped for the best.

Next morning we just had enough time to get the Disco facing the right way when it was time to collect Emily off the Arran ferry. Gave Caroline Ungoed-Thomas (an expert on organic gardening – what luck!) a lift to the Islay ferry and ended up showing her the site. She pointed out that the Japanese Knotweed would need immediate attention (where did that come from?) and offered her son as a labourer for part of next summer! After a trip to Tarbert to watch the footie and check out the Seafood Festival, it was back to do more work on the Tree Survey which took the remainder of the weekend. Suse and I went into tourist mode after Emily caught the ferry back to the mainland on Sunday and more or less stayed in it until Chris arrived for a site visit.

4^th July 2006

We spent a whole day walking and talking with Chris, gradually formulating ideas for a layout using the old driveway as the principal point of reference for the house position and taking on board Suse’s Feng Shui requirements.

Suse went back to the Central Belt to work. I tried to forget everything and settled down to ten days of slashing and burning rhoddies, strangling knotweed, ripping out some indeterminate shrubs and hacking rose hedging. When you look at the before and after photographs, it’s difficult to tell the difference but we have the new piles of firewood to prove it! Pleased to discover that the old driveway is still intact under its covering of vegetation and that the stone to rebuild the collapsed section of garden wall still seems to there.

Discussions about the road and services went well with the neighbours who were all very welcoming. Weather was pretty good on the whole and the midges are tolerable so long as you let them have their way when it’s their turn to play.

14^th July 2006

Brought a load of firewood home and am now planning the next round of activities which should lead up to the submission of the planning application and rebuilding the stone wall.

Back in Bathgate, Emily has been completing the Tree Survey and Suse has been checking out methods and timing of attacking the knotweed.

20^th July 2006

Went through to Glasgow to inspect the McAlpine archives for clues as to the planting but while it was very interesting we need to go back to the original owner/builder Peter Mackie, the whisky magnate, for any detailed information. The son, Robert McAlpine, used Glenreasdale as a hunting/shooting estate. He was a keen and good tennis player as well as sailor, so this place would have been perfect.

Planning
Sunday 6^th August 2006

Chris persuaded us that building in rammed earth would not be the best idea in this part of the world and that, in fact, building in local timber would be almost as sustainable. If we could source local larch, which has its own preservative, we could build most of the house from that. Having finally got draft plans from Chris, we sent them to the planner and called in to chat with him on Friday on our way up with Mum. He isn’t very happy about it, doesn’t think it follows the vernacular style, being 2 storey instead of 1.5 and isn’t very interested in our ideals of a sustainable building in a simple style with easy to build and easy to maintain construction. We’re a bit shocked!

We took Mum for a drive round Kintyre and began to see how dominant the 1.5 storey dormer style is. There isn’t much new housing in the area but almost everything follows that style. Need to think about this. Mum and Suse returned on the bus, which goes from the foot of the lane to Glasgow, after taking over 100 cuttings for new hedging. Mum kept saying, “What a big job you’ve got on!”

The bus journey back was busy but we enjoyed the scenery.

John stayed on to rebuild the wall of the walled garden with Jo and Ste Shaw, a friend of Emily’s, and to slash and burn rhoddies. Chris is updating sketches.

We booked GL Surveys to do the site survey on 18^th August. They went up on Friday morning and completed the survey by lunchtime. It was drawn up and emailed to us on Monday. That’s service!

We had a meeting with Chris on Tuesday 22^nd to discuss the possibility of going for a 1.5 storey house. He’s drawn up some plans with clunky dormers at the back of the house but the upstairs space is messy and, while John is okay with it, Chris and I are less keen. Apart from the clunkiness, they will be awkward and expensive to build and to maintain.

We’re also looking in to the waste water situation. We had planned to utilise the grey water recycling system and the black water self contained system as used by the Earthships. Chris isn’t keen to have the greywater in the house so I’m trying to find out about systems like ecoplay, which take shower water and use it in the toilet.

Meanwhile we’re thinking about the things we need to do to at home in Ballencrieff in order to sell it and we are helping to put in the bathroom in Emily’s house.