Bless me friends for I have sinned. It has been a month since my last entry. That’s because we’ve been busy!
We finished sarking the second side of the roof. I should say, John did. He left out every 6th plank so that he could scamper about more sure-footedly and it was all done in a couple of days. Putting on the roofshield was another matter as the wind got up and we had to wait for it to settle before attempting it. Then we had to put straps on the roof to keep it down.
Meanwhile we had organised for both the slates and the septic tank to be delivered on the same day – Tuesday 20th May. This was because the delivery lorries were too big to get up the lane and into the site so they had to deliver to the Village Hall and Alastair Sloan came with his tractor to bring them up the lane to the site. Apparently they had travelled up from Glasgow together, not realising that they were coming to the same place!
We won’t be putting in the septic tank for another month or so but it saved Ali coming twice to offload.
Mick the slater was on hand to make sure that he had what he wanted and realised that he hadn’t ordered the metalwork. Ooops. So that will have to be sorted later. Mick’s lads have been here on and off sizing and dressing the slates, a messy and time consuming job but it’s done now. We just need Mick to come and put them on the roof but he is finishing off another job.
We put all the panelvent and roofshield on the front elevation, then the back elevation. It’s hard to believe how fiddly this job is but what a difference it makes. The house is so much more solid in appearance. We moved the scaffolding to half of the gable and got half of the panelvent and roofshield done, then Emily came for the weekend, moved the rest of the scaffolding and finished it off. The poor girl did the same job the last time she was here. We gave her a night out to celebrate her tip top exam results, and John’s birthday. Ifwe had remembered we could also have celebrated our first yearof living here full-time.
We also worked out the requirements for the remaining parts which are to be rendered and are just about to order the pavatex diffutherm and bits and pieces to go with that. We have finalised the window order and sent off our deposit. And we have been building the remaining internal walls.
We are still waiting for the strapping and cladding which are due this week (so that’s tonmorrow) and will be the next big job to get on with in order to get things wind and watertight before the end of the summer. Seems a long way away but the cladding will take a couple of months and we can’t expect July and August to be so good weatherwise.
In the garden, the potatoes and onions are doing well and the first trees have made it to the top of the tree protectors. However, a deer (or two ) has stripped the new apple trees. Why it has picked the apple trees and not the pears, plum, cherries, or even the succulent willows is beyond me. We ordered some netting and took a day off the house to build fruit cages. We’ve also been having to attack the Japanese knotweed which has resurfaced. It’s much less extensive than it was but we suspect it could be with us for some time to come.
Whether any tadpoles survived I don’t know. We missed watering them once or twice and they may have dried up too soon. Alternatively, we saw plenty of little frogs so maybe they are now eating their share of midges (which have been pretty annoying of late) A pair of swallows have taken up residence in the highest point of the ladder stud on the ridge beam and are entertaining us by swooping through the remaining windows. David reckons they will be there until the end of August which is fine as the windows will not be here before that. But do we need to tell Building Control?