Blue string man

[Millymollymandy]

Oh, and I think Scotland is still in the UK...

Stonehead

I know, that's why I said UK. The previous people probably paid about £10,000 for that - that's why I'm going !!

Sauna as well eh? For the horses?

[Stonehead]

Sauna as well eh? For the horses?

I think for the rather large bottoms that were joggling on top of the horses...

I was tempted to leave the sauna as it "only" took up a quarter of the space in that part of the steading, but I do like having a large workshop. Besides, I can think of many more fun ways of getting hot and sweaty...

Stonehead

PS Filthy mind? Of course, I'm talking about digging!

[Boots]

Bugger.

It was all working for ya for a minute there... dropping smooth lines, aussie grin, even ya name took on something of a...er, presence.

Alas girls... Nuffin happening here. Just a bitta diggin'. Let's go make a cuppa.

[Mandyz]

Amanda? Who's Amanda? I hate that name!

Another Mandy I can relate to!
No Amanda's here either!

[hedgewizard]

Trying to knock in the corner ground pole for the polytunnel, I was praying I wouldn't hit any stones. I didn't. I hit an old manhole cover, thoughtfully buried for me to find.

Still not back in the house again, and the early planting has passed me by. Come Friday I am moving back into the house to camp upstairs, to keep an eye on the bloody builders... but Toni and the boys are retreating to Trowbridge for a week or so until the house is habitable.

At least now I'll be able to plant something in the damned tunnel!

[ina]

... and nobody there to distract you, either!

Isn't it nice to have a house with history - all those interesting things you can find in the garden. I've still got a tiny plastic doll's shoe knocking about in the veggie patch. This is the third year I've found it while digging, and thought I really ought to get rid of that.

[hedgewizard]

Makes you wonder how many times you move the same irritating pebble, doesn't it?

Potted playback of the last week - moved back, in upstairs bedroom, builders INCREDIBLY slow and now paying me £250/week in penalties, family back Monday, house nowhere near ready for them, nearly up to date on my seeds, next job green manures!

[Millymollymandy]

£250 a week!! Devise some way to make the renovations go on and on and then you can give up the day job!

[hedgewizard]

Aha, no, the price for that £250 is unfinished door and window frames, lack of flooring, lack of heating, nails and tacks everywhere, and the DUST... *coff* ... is everywhere. And I mean, everywhere. *itches*

Poor Harry has got croup now and when he started crying I found him sitting on the (chipboard) floor of his room with his face covered in dust. I'll give up the £250 if I can have my house back, please!

[Millymollymandy]

Oh dear! That's not good. I hope they hurry up and you can get back and enjoy summer in your newly renovated house.

Just out of interest, what was your house like before you got the builders in? I'm presuming from your blog you were living there for a couple of years before the major works commenced?

[hedgewizard]

*sighs* The house was OK before we started, just a little shabby. However it was sagging round the edges!

The left-hand half was made in 1880 as a coach house and later modified into a garage. The right-hand half (shoter and lower) was added in the 40s as an extension, and then enlarged with a generator room in the 70s, on the cheap. In '83 a builder did a half-arsed residential conversion by adding a flat-roofed extension and loft conversion, but he did lovely things like using thin boarding and laying heating pipes straight into concrete. Fast forward to 2003 and you have dampness from fractured pipes, leaky windows, wobbly flooring and... well, you get the picture.

It's going to be lovely when it's finished but for now the phrase that gets Toni and I through the say is "Smile and wave boys, smile and wave".

We have downstairs mostly floored now and the heating's working. Still dust everywhere but one shower is working and we're down to arguing with the builders about various bits of crapness. I think the builders are slowly realising they're not going to get away with ALL of the bodges they have planned, just the ones we don't notice! We should be finished in another couple of weeks.

[hedgewizard]

Ooh, I forgot! Putting the doors on the polytunnel the other day I was adding a piece of string as per the instructions so that if you accidentally shut yourself in you can pull the string to release the door catch on the outside. Just finished it, worked fine, and then Toni says "Look! How could you?"

Guess what I'd used for the string?

*hangs head in shame*

[ina]

How could you not? It was obvious!

Our polytunnel has a hole near the catch, so that when you are locked in, you can open it from the inside... Increases ventilation, too.

[Millymollymandy]

Hope you get back in your house soon Hedgie. I didn't know you could get locked inside a polytunnel. They must have more sophisticated doors than greenhouses!

[hedgewizard]

We're back in but we're still camping... haven't unpacked more than the essentials because we still have to move from room to room to let the decorators work. I've given them a deadline of next Friday to finish though which has sent them into a spin - Toni has an operation scheduled so they can't be there when she gets out! So things should be back to normal pretty soon apart from Toni being off her feet for 6 weeks that is. It's going to be a bit of a bumpy summer, but we're both looking forward to having it all behind us. Toni's project while she's off her feet is to plan the north garden so no doubt I'll be complaining about what she's making me do before long!

Ina - no problems with ventilation since I'm so cack-handed there's a half inch gap all round each of the doors. Sorted!