With a heavy heart, Bev agreed that the row of die-back ash along the north wall needed to be felled. The self-sown trees were showing clear signs of the disease and the branches were becoming brittle and therefore dangerous to climb. In the event, tree surgeon Mark hired in an impressive piece of kit, called … More 30th August 2022

We’ve chosen to lay turf in the white garden – quick, easy and … expensive, especially with steel edging which will (have to) be a one-off for this lawn! Matt and Tristan made speedy work of it – nearly 100 square metres knocked off in a day. This is the kind of job Chris had … More 2nd September 2022

The units for the laundry and the pantry are in. These will help us get organised. One of the artists in the village (of which there are several), Simon, has very kindly offered us a long term loan of one of his sculptures which has been languishing out of sight at his old school. We’re … More 26th August 2022

We feel the end is in sight and some things are actually getting finished. We’re spurred on and encouraged by visitors – including this week, a couple of the Fat Blokes, Jon (with Kathy) and Dave (with Jenny and the girls). We’ve also had the blinds going in and general water-related progress. Genevieve also came … More 19th August 2022

Page and Mark finished this week, having connected us up to the mains sewer, put in the drains to take rainwater from the roofs into our harvesting tank, linked up the spring pipe, installed a water supply and electric ducts, and moved lots of material around the site. We’ll miss their good humour, wisdom and … More 14th August 2022

Progress this week on electrics, both outside and inside …. On tiling, large and small … And on bathrooms …

This should be the month we move into the house. But will it be ..?! We should have all the basics for living comfortably in place soon and we’re cracking on with some of the finishing touches. A couple of Building Regs issues could delay us – the inspector wants to see the stairs installed … More 2nd August 2022

Of course we appreciate what all of our tradesmen have done (apart from the first renderers!), but Page and Mark have the most transformative impact. With a day or two of earthmoving and levelling we feel we can see the shape of the garden coming together and it’s nice for the largest of the weed-covered … More 29th July 2022

Bev acted as the gate-keeper as the removal guys brought in our furniture, junk, and too many boxes labelled ‘miscellaneous’ … Chris just got bad-tempered at the volume of stuff that we’ve been expensively storing for months; “Boy, are we going to have a sort out!” There’s a home here for most of it, with … More 26th July 2022