Spring

Lanzarote was lovely and we made a return visit to Cesar Manrique’s house, one of our first inspirations. We also had a day at Ecobuild in London on the way back. Everyone was getting excited about the new Feed In Tarriffs and jumping on the bandwagon. The Show has grown and grown with many com claiming to have some eco-credentials and thereby being entitled to exhibit and a lot of it was marginal. But we did discover that the first passivhaus in Scotland has been built in Glasgow. Must check that out.

We looked out of the window one day to see Len with the tractor and trailer with three large standing stones. Needless to say the ground was frozen at the time and we couldn’t get them into their permanent positions, but he also brought some boulders for the front and, along with the skimmia cuttings which we hope will take, we are beginning to get a feel for the landscaping there.

The main job has been plasterboarding upstairs and that seems to have taken forever. Getting at the huge ceilings is requiring a lot of lateral thinking, not to mention hop-ups and scaffolding and we set ourselves another little target of getting it all up before we went to Neil and Dorothy’s silver wedding in York. The proper clay plaster has been used in the bathroom where it will be of use in moderating the humidity and the hall will use of the last of it. The rest will be done in ordinary gypsum plaster as the clay is so expensive to buy and ship here. We have reassured ourselves that the benefits are marginal in non wet areas and the stuff is made from recycled material and not too toxic. As Ian is no longer plastering, we have had to find another plasterer to do the bedroom, stairwell and landing.

Outside, the deer are reappearing and we need to get some protection organised for the trees. The quick solution will be to buy some proprietary fruit cages for the fruit. Once the house is finished, (building warrant expires 24th July!) we’ll have to do something about the tracks into the site, or the rest of the trees will never make it above the protectors. The seed potatoes chitted nicely but the ground has been so cold that I’ve only just got them in. I’m itching to get going on the raised beds for the herbs and kitchen garden but work for the building warrant takes precedence.

Part of that has been building the decking from the old cedar tree. After much humming and hawing about the design, we followed Richard’s idea of having a bulge round the living room windows and continued it round to the utility room door where the log store is also being sited. Meanwhile path designs are in progress!

On the wildlife front, there are plenty of birds around at the feeder, mostly tits, who have again been eyeing up the bird box. A heron has been seen circling the area but we don’t think our ponds give them enough of a runway – nor do they contain any fish. The tadpoles are back in the upper pond and we’ve spotted a mallard drake several times on the lower pond. This is a first! The gorse is out and we have some gorse wine on the go. This is also a fantastic time for rhododendrons.