a bit of luck

21.6.2011

BUILDING NEWS

We have been amazingly lucky. Last night was terrible with high winds and torrential rain but in the morning it cleared and we were able to core fill the parapet and move the scaffold in dryish conditions. Once the work was done the doom, gloom and storm descended again but at least we can get into the house now.

I have been inside and it looks a long way off from being any thing like a habitable dwelling. We really do need a house when the weather is like this. I so long to sit by a warm fire and relax.

OTHER NEWS

No sleep last night. Josh went out to say goodbye to his friends in my car and at 2.30am his friend Scott phoned us to say that Josh had left an hour ago and forgotten his mobile phone. I went out side but there was no sign of the car so all I could do was wait and worry until Josh got back between 3 and 4 am having realised about the phone and gone back to fetch it.

By this stage there was no point trying to sleep because Edd and Josh left at 4am to get to the airport. This was a wasted effort because his plane was cancelled due to volcanic ash. All they could do was come home by which time I had to get Arden up and drive him to school. All in all it has been an exhausting day.

20.6.2011

BUILDING NEWS

Edd is working hard to get things rolling again after our short break. He has organised for the parapet blocks to be filled tomorrow and we are hoping to pick up the fire insert on Friday. He has also contacted a stonemason on the peninsula who knows where to get the limestone we admired on a wall on the beach.

I have been looking at the situation with bricks. Edd has counted the number of bricks in each arch and it looks as if there will not be enough recycled bricks from our old house. We have cleaned out all the local demolition spots so it would be good to look at places in town, maybe another job for Friday. The builders will need all the bricks ready so they can start the next stage when the scaffold is removed.

My next task is to organise a skip. The waste is building up and the storage sacks will start to biodegrade if I leave them much longer. There are high winds forecast for tonight and more bad weather, nothings seems to be going our way at the moment.

OTHER NEWS

These conditions are so hard on the animals. We are hand feeding them all and now have recycled brewery barley from Simon, which all the stock enjoys. The goats and sheep are now visibly pregnant and the calf, Sharron, is larger and plumper. She walked into the electric fence whilst we were milking her mother and was most put out at getting shocked. She blamed her mother for this and Donna was most put out at the unjust accusation.