Merry Christmas!

Poor John has been struggling on alone with Suse in her sick bed. but for once the Fates decreed that he could work in dry and relatively warm weather.

We always wondered what would happen if one of us was ill and we had a taste of it when Suse’s urinary infection wiped her out for a week. We made up the bed in the caravan  and she slept there day and night and John was persuaded to put a cover over the gap in the roof at the compost loo shed. Various options were considered but these involved moving to relations, friends or a hotel and Suse just wanted to sleep so we got through it here with that single modification.

On the house front, John got the polythene covering over the remaining open bits of the house and, when the wood order arrived on Thursday, the excellent driver John Minski of Thornbridge Timber managed to reverse his lorry up the driveway to the site and unload the OSB and I beams before turning round and heading back to Grangemouth, all before lunch time.

Ali delivered one load of dung before the trailer broke down but hasn’t been available to help John load the roof. We couldn’t make contact with Robin either so John has soldiered on alone. The first thing was to get the pools of water out of the tarpaulin, then peel it back and lay the OSB before relaying the tarpaulin. This had to be done in stages as the tarp is just too big to manage even with no wind, so we were grateful for the calm dry weather.

Suse emerged on Saturday, having organised the Christmas cards and got a magazine ready indoors, to plant up the willow maze. John is still a bit sniffy about it because he wanted a bamboo maze but we have a wonderful selection from Val and for practical purposes, it doesn’t matter whether it is planted up as a maze or not – it will be the right kind of planting for the wet area between the ponds. The maze has a violet room and a golden room and the rest is a mixture of varieties. There is a dead end and a loop that takes you back on yourself. I can’t wait to see it grow but it will need managing to keep it tidy as well as functional. We can always do something with bamboo later…

Another job which had been kind of ignored was fitting the noggins to support the edges of the OSB. A fiddly job, especially where there are extra I beams under the fireplace, but needs to be done, so we got the ground floor finished. While the floor was up, we saw that things had been getting  pretty wet under there before we got the tarpaulin and side panels on, so we decided to leave some of the flooring up over the holiday to let it dry out thoroughly.

Summing Up
We had hoped to be further on by now but our target was to have the house wind and watertight by the turn of the year. We’ve managed that (ignoring the fact that the house is just single storey at the moment!) and we will have a pretty clear run once we get going again next year.

Because there is still a lot of clearance work to be done and the digging for the septic tank and soakaway (reed bed) are in the way, we haven’t done as much planting either. On the positive side, the fruit trees are in and the beginnings of the fruit garden, which will take the form of a hedge along the vegetable garden, are also planted and the vegetable garden will be ready to plant next year.

We have made a good start with the firewood (ash) and some of the environmental and ornamental stuff (willow) but the replacement larch will have to wait until the top bit of the site is cleared. We don’t expect it to be needed for 50 years or so, so I guess another winter won’t hurt!

Althought the caravan is definitely too small for comfort and convenience, we have adapted well, are still friends(!) and still really enjoying our new life. Although we have always been able to imagine the interior of the house, we can now actually stand at the front door and look through the hall (etc.).

Roll on next year and the first floor and roof.