orchard progress...

Traditional orchards are increasingly rare and treasured places. They are important for wildlife and are a biodiversity action plan priority for our county.

Old orchards give invertebrates lots of nooks and cranny's for refuge, feeding and breeding. They can also be home to heritage varieties of apples - many of which are being lost as old orchards are cleared for agriculture or building.

plantain and cowslips

Discovering our own orchard, buried beneath twenty years of brambles, seedling oaks and sycamores and suckered blackthorn and cherry was a great surprise. We only guessed there were fruit trees when we saw blossom on the Google Earth images!

So, in managing the newly-discovered orchard first came the arduous business of clearing so many years of neglect. We had hoped to run pigs beneath the reclaimed fruit trees to help clear roots but weren't able to arrange this. Clearing by hand, it had to be!! Native grasses naturally recolonised the ground beneath the trees during the first spring but little else of floral interest arrived in the first year. We pruned the gangling and twisted boughs of the trees, removing 25% of the branches in January 2012 and again early in 2013. We cleared recolonising grasses from the base of each tree to allow water and nutrients to more easily reach each trees' roots. I scythed the grass in the high summer 2012 and carted the dried hay away. This took nutrients out of the soil so that vigorous grass growth didn't crowd out any delicate native wildflowers that might put in an appearance.

Cowslips (primula veris) were brought from our nearby allotment and have flowered well in their first year. Crocus and narcissus have proved successful too, with more to be added ready for next spring.

We are compulsive seed collectors and have distributed the seed of oxeye daisies (leucanthemum vulgare), knapweed (centaurea nigra)  and wild geranium (geranium sanguinium).

yellow rattle seedlings?

And I was delighted to see possible evidence that yellow rattle (rhinanthus minor) seed cast in the summer of last year looks to have germinated. I marked sowing positions with stakes and by each stake we now have similar leaves emerging. Could they be yellow rattle? I hope so, because this plant plays an important part in traditional hay meadows - which is what we are trying to achieve beneath our fruit trees. Yellow rattle is a grass parasite and thus weakens grasses, allowing wild flowers to grow without the competition of coarse grasses.

Two tiny cider apple trees (in anticipation of Cordwood Cider!)


and a greengage have been planted in the spaces left after moribund damson and plum trees were removed. Linda and Trev bought me a Golden Hornet crab apple too, which is in especially good flower, in this, its first spring with us.

We are garlanding our trees with climbers and have planted honeysuckles and roses to scramble through the branches. Not only will these look lovely and add to the charm of the orchard, they will provide a late nectar and pollen food source for insects. We have seen a solitary soprano pippistrelle bat flittering above the apple trees in the twilight. Let's hope that the increasing floral diversity of the orchard provides more food for birds and bats and increases their numbers too.

The weather last year was awful for our venerable apple trees. This late spring sees blossom on each of the trees.

We sat in the orchard today having our lunch, watching a male chaffinch singing in our 'Lane's Prince Albert' apple tree. He was joined in song by a dunnock, a wren and several blackbirds. We remarked on the relaxing qualities of birdsong as our neighbour's motor mower roared into action on the other side of the fence..

!!**!!!*** gabions..!

You're sitting in a room. An interminable meeting. In a foreign language. Your legs have got the twitches from sitting too long. And before you know it, you've committed yourself to 'gabions to support earth mounding along the north wall'.

And then you're living the reality with over a month of cutting wire with 'airplane snips'(!); building wire cages (gabions); lugging them into place; wiring them inside and joining them together with more wire; then filling each with rubble. 72 of these gabions, needing 150 tonnes of fill.

Polystyrene against the wall and a 6 degree 'rake' (angle) to prevent the gabions putting load on the bungalow. Mastic to hold waterproof membrane in place.

Then more deliveries of stone to create the mounding..

Phone call at a funeral while in Exeter to say that polystyrene sheeting has come loose and is blowing all over the nearby fields..

Digger hire for over two weeks..

Then my poor brother-in-law pulls a muscle driving the digger..

And misery for women too. Jill and Judith dressed in rags and scrambling around the mounds like third world landfill children, Judith actually inside a gabion basket to wire it ... and beautifully presented Asian women in sparkling saris and dripping gold drive up, disorientated on their way to a wedding  ask 'Is this Goosedale Farm?'
'Can you believe the way the English men treat their wives....?'

We'll get there......

a garden transformation ....

One of those Wow! moments this week.

In April of 2012, we began to lift and crush the concrete bases of the old mushroom sheds that had occupied our site since 1947. The mini-mountain of crushed brick and concrete dominated Cordwood for almost a year, but we steadily eroded it as we laid this down as the base for our drives, paths and patio.

In the meantime, soil had been delivered from Brackenhurst College where a new library was being built. Our soil stash was added too as we scraped away topsoil from areas where we planned to have wildflower meadows. And 'topsoil' came from a job Newtec are doing in Kirkby.

Steve is great at cajoling and pushing and it was his idea that we hire a bulldozer to spread the topsoil and subsoil. So Pete and Andrew arrived and we had one of those amazing transformation days that just leave you staring in wonder.

In preparation we laid all the waste plasterboard offcuts on the ground so that they would be crushed as the 'dozer tracked backwards and forwards. This plasterboard will crumble and dissolve and also save on landfill waste. We also marked all drain covers with cones so that they were not crushed during the work.

And then the monster machine got to work, and tore into our soil piles so that by the end of the day the base of the garden was laid. Amazing!!!

core drilling

Core drilling is the root canal surgery equivalent of the building world.

core drill deep in wall

It involves using a powerful drill and a very wide drill bit that cuts a wide diameter hole through a wall. Arduous and tedious, it had to be done to allow three power or air ducts to reach our air source heat pump that will be situated outside our new home.

We also had two cores to drill in the pantry where our architect had specified two long pipes to reach deep into the earth mounding we are working on. These capped pipes will bring cool air into the pantry.

Deceiving it was too, with the inner course of Celcon lightwight blocks a joy to go through. But then, pulling the thick insulation to one side....

.... the outer layer of dense blocks were an utter beast to cut through. I called on nephew Matthew, a talented engineer, to help me. And for most of Saturday we toiled on our knees with the core drill frequently getting trapped in the wall or simply not turning. Hours and hours our work went on. We poured water onto the hot drill as it was withdrawn as we had been instructed.

We couldn't help reflecting on the mixed emotions of the trapped Venezuelan miners if we had been in charge of the rescue. First rejoicing that rescue was close at hand, turning to demoralisation and despair when they learned who was in charge of the drilling.

Or on the Eurotunnel engineering construction team on discovering that the English end of the tunnel had ended up in Holland.

With aching arms, the onset of vibration white finger and trousers soaked due to the wetting of the core drill bit, we eventually cut through and cores were drilled and pipes slipped snugly into the holes, in readiness for air source heat pump installation. After all the effort on Monday I proudly showed our handiwork to our installer.  He nodded perfunctory approval as he passed and went on with his next job.

Having spent a working life in primary school education I have become a compulsive encourager and thanker and forget that this is not the way in a mans' world. The job was done, 'end of' as they say these days. I was somehow expecting buckets of praise, if not a sticker and a special mention in whole school assembly after my efforts...

As a footnote, it was ironic to learn from one of our installers that the last thing you should do when core drilling is to wet the core drill bit. This prevents the drill from cutting.....

I laughed.

double teapot handles ...

The Bard told us that 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'. He should have been around when a woman learned that her utility room worktops had been drastically reduced in length.

Carbon Legacy are installing our ventilation system and our underfloor heating. Underfloor heating controls are sited in our Plant Room but another set of controls was needed and so we agreed that they would go into our Utility Room. Then we discovered that two ventilation units were needed and we understood that one of these would go onto the Utility Room wall. No problem. Or so I thought, in my naivety...

So, I'm tootalling around with dad and Jill arrives late on site . She's not happy. The ventilation system box is huge and is right in the middle of the Utility Room wall, reducing worktop length. I've got to be honest here and saw it and carried on with something else. Whoosh, straight over my head. Also, whoosh, the underfloor heating manifolds are higher than we thought and will also reduce worktop space: missed that one too.

I am known for misreading the signals. There's sometimes a chopping right hand action to emphasise a job that is outstanding. I'll say something like, 'I know, I know, you don't need to remind me every six months about it'.

this is what got me in trouble

Someone's not happy and we need to have a walk. I know the signs - flashing eyes ... and dad's falling back. Don't I think the worktop length is too short? I'm getting a bit anxious as a hand goes on a hip. We're on teapot handle alert now. Where's dad gone? I make a mistake and suggest that the worktop length seems ok to me. What?! Both hands on hips and we've moved to double teapot handle mode. Danger. Danger. I can almost hear dad's reverse gears grating.

Let's go and look at it again, and, praise the Lord, Roger has arrived. One of the Carbon Legacy guys innocently asks why a long worktop is needed - the equivalent of a 10 litre pot of Tippex (that's a big mistake). I blunder on, pacing out the remaining space and wondering aloud if that will be enough...? Of course, I've not taken into account the chest freezer.... Couldn't the top be used as part of the worktop? I'm like a man feeling his way through a minefield using his outstretched foot. Jumping Jehozafat!

Then, bless him, Roger to the rescue with a solution that sees the ventilation unit relocated into the cloakroom cupboard. And the underfloor heating manifolds shortened so that the worktop's original length is restored.

Bless those Carbon Legacy boys: they took down the offending item and relocated it without a murmur.

I made it a Baileys-in-the-coffee night when we got home. I think dad needed a strong cup of tea.

the sweet smell of violets...

We bought the Old Mushroom farm site in October 2010 and I devoted myself full-time to the site from late July 2011. Six acres of wilderness that had accrued twenty years of neglect.
And it's been full-on ever since.

In this new life I am used to: having every waking hour committed to our new project; being constantly baffled by the conversations of those in the building trade I now spend my time with; waking up feeling tired; aching .. and standing up very slooowly.
I'm used to not: taking holidays; going birdwatching; going to the gym; going shopping in town. I'm getting used to having almost no money left.

But I never tire of the delights of this new life.

We are moving to the final phase of work on our new bungalow 'Waxwings' now that plasterboarding has finished. Next week plastering begins and then we can follow on with second fix electrics and plumbing and begin painting. There is still so much work to do, but there is such tremendous satisfaction every time I walk around our new home-to-be.

And there are equal satisfactions outside as we begin to reap the rewards of our efforts creating gardens.

On Monday we were tidying the Woodland Garden and I was weeding through the dense and glossy 'elephants ears' leaves of low growing bergenias we had planted when a bird shot out. I discovered a robin's nest on the ground with five mottled brown eggs within a tightly woven cup of grass and moss. What boyish pleasure I derived from this.

And as a small, funnyossity of a child, I was frequently engrossed in my bird books. One of my books had a lovely, soft illustrtaion of a tree sparrow (passer sylvestris) with its deep chocolate crown and white cheek patch. On Tuesday I had a tree sparrow inspecting one of my nesting boxes!! This will sound trivial for most readers, but to have an iconic bird whose numbers are in such decline visiting a nesting box that I have sited was almost overwhelming....

I am blessed to have dad's company each week although he does have the ability to unwittingly make me smile. During garden tidying we'd removed the lovely, soft golden fronds of the golden grass stipa tenuissima and I'd suggested dad use the grass to replenish the hens' nesting boxes in what he calls 'The Eggery'. When I checked the nest boxes for eggs the following day he'd packed the boxes tight with grass, believing I think that our hens are a rare strain of burrowing bantams.

the 'mother patch' of violets used to fill the Cedar Walk

Then, as the weather and the sun brightened, I was working in the Cedar Walk. A little over a year ago this was a dark and impenetrable corner of the site. We removed dominating sycamores and then cleared chest high brambles and nettles. It is now many peoples favourite part of the site, being a temporary home to a motley collection of shrubs and trees. To combat weeds we planted lots of insect-friendly geraniums, tiarellas and symphytums. We had discovered a patch of violets in the Woodland Garden and planted patches of these along the Cedar Walk. As I hoed, I became aware for the first time in my life of the sweet and delicate scent of violets.

For a man who aches, I am truly lucky...




 

airtightness

Monday was the day ... airtightness test day.

Readers of this blog will know we've worked since November to make our new home as airtight as possible. We don't want expensive heat leaking away! A score of 3 is considered good and the passivhaus 'Gold Standard' is 0.6.

So, 8:00am Monday and William sets up his contraption in the door, links up his laptop, clipboard ready. This image gives a 'Close Encounters' impression. Actually, it seemed a bit more like the kind of invention that Prof would have come up with in 'Back the future'. The contraption has a fan that expels air from the building, sucking air out and from this he could read how much resistance was being created. First we noted that the exposed airtight membrane was being sucked inwards, creating padded cell effects around the wall. Then, we began too gasp for breath and the skin on our faces grew taut giving us a wild-eyed, cadaverous appearance. Actually, these latter points didn't occur at all.

I did hear a rushing noise and found that one of the skylight Velux window ventilators had been pulled open and air was rushing in. Easily closed.

When the window was closed, there was still a little air ingress from around the Velux window seals. This was possibly caused by a little dirt.

But it didn't matter.... Our score was a brilliant 1.3! Even with dodgy window seals!

The score should rise as the plastering will give another layer within the already airtight membrane.

The road to airtightness has been an arduous and worrying one. But we made it!

Great work to everyone who helped with the membrane and various tapes used to achieve airtightness. Special thanks to Steve who discovered Siga .....  and to our Siga products trainer Declan.

topsoil...?

It's every gardeners' dream.. lovely, loamy topsoil.

And cripes don't we need it. After months of compression by diggers and dumpers and a dessicating north easterly wind, our impoverished sand looks as incapable of supporting life as Mars.

So, the offer of 150 tonnes crumbly, dark topsoil for free was hard to turn down. And it is crumbly. And dark..... And lumpy: more lumpy even than my homemade gravy.

The lumps are bricks, rocks, concrete, roots. The topsoil was free and has the potential to really help us. But, it's hard for two gardeners not to feel a little overfaced when the enormity of their task lies before them in endless lorry loads.

But there's a positive: I know that dad (85) is eagerly building himself up for the challenge of forking through this lot when he comes to help me on Wednesday. Bless him...

plasterboarding

view from lounge through dining room into kitchen

On Wednesday the plasterboarders arrived.

Having fixed the ceiling and wall battens, it is probably understandable that there was nervousness on our part.

And we had to do some fine tuning as the boarders moved through the kitchen, dining room and lounge, fixing the 15mm ceiling boards. But not much.

library ceiling boarded

The boards are very heavy requiring a great deal of strength especially when fixing to the ceiling. Which is why they say 'Never pick a fight with a plasterers mate' : you heard it here first.

An immediate effect of the fixing of the plasterboard is a rise in temperature in those rooms that have been boarded.

And the library skylights now seem to bring so much more light in, helped by the whiteness of the boards.

Internal walls will not be boarded. Their function is to store the heat of the building - plasterboard would act to insulate these walls, preventing them from working efficently in this role. They will be rendered with 'Hardwall' which has a Uvalue of 0, allowing the thermal gain from the sun and the heat from the underfloor heating to be stored and released slowly.

More work tomorrow and Monday with Adey, our plasterer beginning after they have finished.

another twelve rounds and cordwood wins on points again

Got here at 8:00am today and began digging. We invested loads of time last year bringing on plants for the new garden and this late spring has given us valuable extra time to invest in the building. But buds are beginning to break, summer migrant chiffchaffs are calling and the weather is warming.
Time to move plants across from the nursery beds and to give them more space.
Hence the 8:00am start.
And good progress with dad and then a lovely lunch with Sue.
So, why do I want to do to this phone handset what Pete Townshend did to his guitar?
It's just that, again again, I am at a loss to know what I am doing and how I got myself into this mess?
It looks like this...

dessicating winds kill bamboos

Our airtightness test has been postponed three times due to the windy conditions. The next time they can test is Monday. But that will be after the plasterboards have been fixed so we won't be able to find where air leaks are... What's the point of that and what are we supposed to do?
Dave, our electrician was reading this blog on his holiday and spotted that water pipes in the service void are inadvertently immediately above where his recessed LED lights will be so need to be moved which means the system must be drained and repressurised...
We need to have holes in the wall to carry the pipes from the external airsource heat pump into the plant room. But Carbon Legacy won't drill them because the damp proofing we've done to the wall might be compromised. The ever helpful Pete (he is) explains what we need to do but calls me Rob, not noticing I've morphed once more into Nathan and that I'm beginning to bounce...
The bamboos we transplanted into the new border are dying due to the dessicating and relentless wind...
We are having earth mounding on the north side of the building with wire gabion baskets taking the strain. Steve says I've underestimated the difficulty of undertaking this. I wish my thinking had got as far as underestimating it...
We took a CCTV sensor from the wall when damproofing and I can't find my posidrive screwdriver to put it back...
The hens won't stay in the orchard...
At home I attempt to sponsor Tim at this weekends London marathon and complete the online system. That is until I am asked for the 1st, 2nd and 7th character of my passcode. I phone the bank and they confirm my passcode only has four characters. Then the system crashes....
Tomorrow on site at 7:30am to let Bruce and Mark, the plasterboarders in. Quite what problems they will present to me I can't begin to predict.
I'm just hoping that this newly installed phone app that emitted a piercing shriek at 3:30am this morning when a leaf crossed a sensor doesn't go off on my bedside table again tonight...

goodbye...

We said 'goodbye' to our allotment on Sunday.

For non-UK readers of this blog, allotments are small parcels of land given, usually by public authorities, to be used as leisure gardens. The tradition of allotment holding can be traced back to the 'Diggers' movement during the English Civil War. The duty to provide allotments is enshrined in law. Allotments are almost always in larger groups and run as co-operatives by plot-holders. The largest area of allotments is here in Nottingham at St. Annes Hungerhills. The cost of renting a plot is less than £30 per year.

I am at least the third generation of allotment holders in my family. Here's a photo of my mum's grandad at his Bulwell, Nottingham allotment with my grandfather, his twin brother and his older brother.

Allotments are unique and characterful places. They frequently look like shanty towns from the outside with vernacular architecture and creative recycling.

Jill and I began allotment holding in 2000 at Leapool in Nottingham. Ours was 300 m2 of nettles, couch grass and seeding dock. We inherited a derelict greenhouse and a brokenbacked shed that was host to a family of rats.

a view across the allotment 2003

Over the following years we learned to associate the closing clang of the metal gates with a settling calm. Allotments are wonderful places to 'lose yourself' in the pleasure of gardening and to escape from life's pressures.

We came onto the allotment as confirmed organic gardeners thanks to Lawrence Hills books read in the late 1970's. But our practices and knowledge developed during our years at Leapool.

We were in no way trailblazers and learned more from other plotholders than we ever gave in return, but it is pleasing to see that our fellow allotment holders are now avowedly organic.  We learned the unique pleasure that comes from growing and then eating your own food. We learned how satisfying it is to move in rhythm with the seasons. We worked hard to make our plot as biodiverse as possible, learning about a range of flowers that work positively to help invertebrates.

We had often wondered just what the circumstances would be that would see us leaving our allotment, so entwined in our lives it had become. But as the demands of developing Cordwood increased, we realised that we just couldn't give the time to the allotment that we wanted too. It became a burden.

In our final years of stewardship, we had abandoned vegetable cultivation and used the allotment as a holding ground for the many shrubs and perennials we were growing on for our Cordwood gardens. This Sunday, we dug up the final ones. Plants that had become signatures of our time at Leapool: a trug full of snowdrops, primroses and cowslips, offsets of comfrey were included in that final car full.

If we had continued to be allotment holders we would have included even more wildlife friendly plants and also taken inspiration from etno-botanist James Wong and his book 'Homegrown Revolution'. If allotments are to fight for their future, providing wildlife oases will be part of the rationale for their continued existence. They must also draw in more younger gardeners - James Wong provides so much inspration for plants we can grow that go beyond spuds and brussels....

We leave behind a wonderful community of gardeners many we now count as friends and take with us many precious memories.

the chase ...

We're making good progress on our new bungalow, but it's hard not to feel a little hunted as well at the moment.

Our plasterers begin their plasterboarding next Wednesday and we must get a lot finished before they start work. There's a gang of us, chasing along, cheeks puffing, holding onto our hats and looking frantically over our shoulders while the slavvering plasterhounds are strongly on our scent.

Door frames and frames around inside windows must all be fitted. Thankfully, our joiner Dan is doing a cracking job. And I continue to learn. Steve of Newtec is, as always, like a guiding star (or fairy godmother?!) (sorry Steve) and told me that all of Dan's frames needed priming on the side facing the walls to avoid warping when the wet plaster meets the frame. So, that's me, doing the priming then...

While you've got that brush out, apply two coats of masonry paint to the blockwork walls in the plant room..... In fairness to Steve, he got young Maddy to do some of the painting while he was visiting.. And as she astutely said to me, she's not of an age when she can be considered liable for her own actions and so the paint on her clothes and shoes must all be attributed to the supervising adult.

pipes lagged

And there's Jill and Judith and Sarah up in the ceiling void on the 'lagathon' getting all of the water pipes insulated. Almost there...

Yes, and there's the homework you'd been putting off: which in our case is more battening. This time putting a horizontal batten between all vertical battens. Dad and I made a start today while poor old Roger got the short straw of finishing battening the utility toilet and boot room wall with insufficient fixings.

Also to be done as the plasterers team howl behind us is installation of soil stacks into the roof void. I almost sound as though I know what I'm talking about here, don't I? Fear not, I'm just transcribing notes and reassuringly haven't got a clue. Surely a stack of soil will fall over if you make it too high??

Bringing up the rear are the team from Carbon Legacy who are installing everything eco.

With Monday coming being airtightness test day and other commitments in the coming week as well, my hope is that the baying hounds don't catch us.

enjoy the journey.....

When we embarked on this project, Pauline told us to enjoy the journey and not just the final destination.

This cold winter along with its dessicating, icy winds and the daily slog of building the house has made the enjoyment of the journey difficult at times. Yesterday was different.

Inside Waxwings, the floor screed is complete. We have become used to walking first on the concrete raft foundation, then on the 250mm polystyrene insulation, then more recently and gingerly on the underfloor heating pipes. With the screed down, we are suddenly that much closer to the ceiling! And therefore to finishing...

And we began to insulate (or 'lag') the water pipes. 100+metres of hot and cold water pipes need a foam sleeve: let the lagathon begin! I'm not sure why all the pipes need lagging within such a well insulated house, but hey ho, there's much I haven't understood during the journey. We sat through another meeting with our builders and architect on Friday. It was like sitting for two hours in a foreign language environment.

Yesterday afternoon, I gave myself permission to work in the garden. The temperature was 8 degrees C but it felt so much warmer. A steady flow of Fieldfares (Scandinavian thrushes) flew north east and homeward during the day, a sure sign that winter is on its way out. And on the fields, the wistful call of skittish, beautiful Golden Plovers.

So, the chance to fork through soil and add more soil to the newest area we are developing which is the garden outside the utility room and kitchen patio doors. Here, we are trialling 'prairie planting' as pioneered by Piet Oudolph.

And this 'enjoying the journey' thing of Paulines came to mind. In 2011 we'd visited the RHS Gardens at Wisley and been completely taken by the phlomis russeliana (Turkish sage) in their prairie garden. With leathery leaves and architectural spires of flower stems, their appearance is quite distinctive. After the yellow flowers have finished, the spires remain like wooden sculptures: imagine the way that frost will play on them.... It is a Mediterranean plant that will withstand dry conditions and should thrive in our sandy soil. As a result of this encounter we'd received phlomis seed as part of the RHS seed scheme, sown it and planted out the seedlings. Yesterday, the seedlings were strong young plants and they were moved to the new beds we're creating.

The discovery of this plant, our enjoyment of Wisley, the thrill of growing and now planting them are in some way emblematic of the journey we've been on.

Yes Mrs Smith, there have been many highlights along this journey. And we have enjoyed them.

tile hunting and garden planning....

Are you a good shopper? The chances are you'll be a darn sight better than me.

Today, shopping for floor tiles ... and thank the Lord for Judith and Roger.

dry garden

We'd arrived in our first shop and one thing led to another and before I knew it I was negotiating for a serious quantity of tiles. But hold on, Jill and Judith said, we aren't necessarily having the first tile we see. My heart sank because they were right. Much more mooching around shops and showrooms was needed. By mid afternoon I was seriously flagging, needing tea and chocolate at my mums before I nodded off on her sofa, exhausted. Pity my poor wife, making serious decisions with a dufus like me for a partner. Thank the Lord for Judith and Roger who gave Jill the support that this human jellyfish struggled to provide.

And if you think I find shopping a challenge, just look at the grounds on the south side of Waxwings that will need landscaping with no budget for landscaping or plants.

fragrant or scented garden

The dry garden will be planted following inspiration from the great plantswoman Beth Chatto. Students at Nottingham Trent University are helping in the design of this area that will have a stone mulch to conserve moisture for the plants in this area.

A visit to Cambridge Botanic Garden inspired us to create a scented or fragrant garden close to the kitchen that will be home to the culinary herbs and other deliciously scented plants. I prefer to call this the scented garden but think fragrant is more accurate since it is not in the centre. Get used to this joke - it improves on the telling and I am especially proud of it.

floor screeded

screed arrives

This bewildering world of mine continues to baffle and challenge.

Screed ordered, delivered, laid - day one done. Chicken wire reinforcement good. Expansion joints good.

Onto day two with screed delivered, laid .... but hold on, the guys can't get their shovels into the screed mountain that stands where one day there will be patio. The inhibitor in the screed has stopped working due to the sun and the freezing north easterly wind.

dining room and lounge screeded

 Speak to Bardon who delivered screed who say that the inhibitor only lasts eight hours and we are past that. But, they forgot to put the phone on mute when I called and I hear that the mix was made at 6:30am this morning and I was there when it was delivered two hours later. So when the technical manager calls me back to tell me it's not their fault, I tell him neither is it mine and that the inhibitor was working for two hours before delivery. Money off next order we agreed.

base for heat pump

Then onto the complexity of ordering door frames and as always it's like a branching diagram that takes you down avenues you hadn't expected. Did I know that door frames have two legs and a head? I did after a briefing from our joiner prior to phoning the timber merchants. I also knew we wanted frames with a rebate. Who doesn't want a rebate was my reasoning. So, armed with sizes I called ..... but on ordering the man on the phone then started the usual minefield stuff - do we need cills? What? I pressed abort and will wrestle with this tomorrow.

Fortunately, we were able to mash the dried screed up with the digger, pour in water and then use the mix to finish the concrete base on which our air source heat pump will stand. Thanks to Steve from Newtec for sorting - and for softening up Bardon before I called.

On locking up at the end of the day I thought 'I won't be in tomorrow and might even get a lie in' because we are off hunting for floor tiles ... only to find that Pat had forgotten to take the site keys and had left them in the cabin door lock. So, that's me unlocking at 7:45am again....