Water, No Water, Clutter, Less Clutter - Edited

Posting because I feel like posting.

Enjoy

Yesterday, on the third day of water pouring from our property across the patio and down onto the road into our roadside drain, where it can water no flowers and do no bloody good whatsoever I decided to do a job I had been putting off for ages.

Sort out our HUGE collection of Dvds.

Now Dvds are pretty much going out of fashion so you can pick them up for a song, just £3 each in Asda or Tesco if you wait for a couple of months after release before you buy them.  Even better they go for anything from 20p to a pound at a car boot sale ... although the girl who thought I would pay £15 for the boxed set of the Walking Dead must have confused me with John Gray.  So over the years I have built up quite a collection.

I love to settle down with a good film, and most of my collection are films that I will watch again and again, but they were taking up too much room.  And the clutter-y look weighed me down, yes ... even though they were behind closed doors in the cupboard.

And not just in that cupboard at the top, also in this drawer.

And on this little shelf in the spare room, where I retreat to watch films if Alan is watching rugby.

So I set to, to sort this out while the workmen finally started digging to find  the cause of our deluge.

A couple of hours later all the Dvds from the covers in the cardboard boxes were safely nestled in the little black carry case.

And another couple of hours saw the rest of them following suit.

Now the cupboard is much clearer.

And the only Dvds still in their original boxes are the large boxed sets or the few that I want to stay in their original cases for the information on them.

Oh and the little pink weights did go back in the cupboard ... after I stubbed my toes on them once too often while they waited on the floor!!

Next I did my Cd collection, quite a small one now I use our Brennan and have discovered downloads but still a few I wanted to keep.

Just as I finished the guys found the root of the problem and finally sorted it out.  A manufacturing fault on the blue water pipe.   That teeny, tiny little hole has a lot to answer for.

But it did mean that I got stuck into a job I had been putting off for ages.

--------------------

EDITED

I  thought I would just edit this post to add that although the insurance appointed workmen fixed the leak and managed to restore water to the house, in the process they completely removed a valve they said was faulty ... it turns out this valve was all that stood between us and seriously high and very damaging water pressure.  

We now have no ceiling in our hallway after a deluge from the upstairs toilet.  Thank goodness I'm married to an engineer who cleaned out the valve and replaced it as soon as he got home.  Now we just have to wait for floorboards and carpet to dry out and for a new ceiling to be installed. 

Now I'm away, and poor Alan is at home sorting this second mess out

It never rains ... literally ... but it pours.

--------------------

Don't expect me regularly.

But do look out for me now and again.

Sue xx

Time to Step Away from the Creosote .....

It's done!!

The workshop is now clad with hardwood on the two sides that get the worst of the weather.

We have two corner strips to go on ... when we buy them ... to protect the joins,  but apart from that my creosote brush has now been abandoned and the clothes I wore while I was doing it have all been added to the bonfire.  I wore my oldest, most torn work jeans and t shirt to do this knowing that I would never be able to get rid of the smell.  Luckily the fleece I had to throw on over the top when the temperatures plummeted has washed up pretty well, and it was only one I wore in the polytunnel anyway.  Another trip through the washing machine and I hopefully will have eradicated the last of the pong!!

The devil is in the detail, and the little strips that Lovely Hubby fitted around three sides of the window have made it all look lovely and neat.

We're both really pleased with it.

One day soon we will have to tackle the inside ..... now there's a job!!

Sue xx

Colour and Progress

I've never had much success with Sweet Peas before, but this year it seems I really have done something right.  If I knew what it was I would replicate it every year, but gardening and growing is sometimes a law unto itself.  I sometimes think that if Mother Nature wants something to grow she will see that it does and it's just a happy coincidence if we want it to grow too.

The sweet peas that were over on the hillside on the Veggie Patch are long since finished but these in the front drive-side bed have just started flowering, and it seems they are all to be this lovely pale lilac colour.  They make me smile every time I pass by on the way to the tunnels or the paddock.

Work this weekend was once again based around measuring, cutting and creosoting.  We do get cleaned up and shower when we have finished each day, but on Saturday night sitting in the cinema I leaned over to Lovely Hubby and whispered "do I smell of creosote" ... "I think we both do" was his reply!!

One more weekend should see this finished .  This week's progress might not look much but the measuring and cutting to get the pieces right for the top of the window frames was time consuming and fiddly, and required some hand sawing.  Also we are now at a level that means we are balancing on ladders to get the boards in place .... not good for me with my wibbly, wobbly ladder balancing  :-(

Another little splash of colour, this time a cheerful yellow from the Genista over by the gates.  It really is nice to see so much colour at this time of year, and the mild temperatures are helping lots of plants flower much later than they should, including the seemingly perpetual pink rose in the bed opposite the front door that has only had two months off in the last three years.

Sue xx

Continuing the Cladding

The workshop cladding is coming along nicely ...much slower than either of anticipated, but then we didn't take into account the measuring needed around all six of the windows. 

WHY didn't we have just one enormous picture window on each of the two walls we wondered yesterday as Lovely Hubby measured and re-measured before cutting out all the little strips .... and then handed them over to me the new 'creosote queen of Llanrwst' to do my stuff and slap the evil smelling brown liquid all over both sides of the timber.

But slowly and surely we are getting somewhere, and hopefully next weekend will see even more improvement.

I did manage to get a bit of weeding done in the Net Tunnel yesterday too, it's looking nice and neat on this side now .... you don't want to see the other side do you?

Sue xx

Cladding the Workshop

Another delivery of working materials and another job in the process of being done.

When we got planning permission for the garage space and workshop part of the permission was that we wood clad the workshop to take away the industrial look of it, and to be honest I hate the blockwork so it would have had to be done anyway!!

It will look so much better when it looks like a building made of wood as you approach the house.

Lovely Hubby has finished the first stage, which was to put the battening on that will hold the top layer of work. 

It was fiddly and time consuming but I think he's made a brilliant job of it and to my mind the whole building is already starting to look just that little bit better.

Just the front and the right-hand side are being done.  This side gets the full force of the Winter winds and rains so it was imperative to take the cladding round the corner to protect the building as well as making it look better.

I think he's done a lovely neat job, and after a day off yesterday to join in with the 'ladies who lunch' he's back at it again today, soon I'll be called out to lend a hand as the lengths of wood being attached on top will need two people to keep them straight while they are being fixed in place, but for now while he is doing some tricky cutting out to get the bottom layer straight on the right-hand side I'm keeping out of the way.

Sue xx

And as it is ...

Gosh it's been a busy day today, but I just had to jump on the computer and record for posterity and as promised, show you what the house looks like now that the painting is all finished and the scaffolding is down.  I even managed to stand in pretty much the same place as yesterday's photo  :-)

The first one is from the front  (sorry it's a smidge blurry) .....

... then this one is the side ....

... and then round at the back it looks like this.

This wide shot shows the conservatory side of the house.

Now it's the fun for me bit of adding back all the things that I like and softening the edges of this new grey look.  The first step after hosing down and sweeping all around the house yesterday was putting the plants back by the front door .... there, you can't beat a bit of green  :-)

Sue xx

Repairs Completed ... Now Onto the Final Stage

The roof and chimney repairs, replacement guttering, soffits, bargeboards and flashing are all completed now and we're starting to look a lot neater around the edges.

Everything is in low maintenance wood effect uPVC or plastic,  and is black or dark grey.

And now we are on the final stage of repairing the house.  

Giving the walls two, and three in the case of the most exposed wall that was letting all the water in, coats of dark grey paint.  The remaining woodwork on the front porch and the stone windowsills will be picked out in black.  It's starting to look a lot smarter already ... I just wish it would stop raining long enough for the painters to do more than a couple of hours at a time.  If they had a run of three  nice dry days it would all be finished .... ah well what can we expect it's Summer in North Wales, that means rain, showers, thunder storms etc ....

Sue xx 

In the Tunnel on a Rainy Day

Yesterday the builders finally arrived to start the process of cleaning up and repairing the house after the awful Winter downpours of a few months ago, that saw one side of the house letting in water above all the windows.  Their first job was to wash down the roof with a pressure washer so the state of the ridge tiles and slates could be checked properly.  

Rather ironically Mother Nature decided to give them a hand,  and after just a couple of  hours of working and with only two thirds of one side of the roof cleared of moss and debris the heavens opened in spectacular style.  A good rinse for the roof but not safe for being up there for the chap at the top of the roof ladder, so tools were downed and everything was cleared away, hopefully they'll be back on Monday to carry on.  Of course it cleared up for a couple of hours just after they'd packed everything away such is weather here on our wild Welsh hillside!!

While they were busy outside I was tucked up safely and dryly, if rather noisily in the polytunnel, weeding, potting on and doing all the other little jobs that needed doing.

I swear sometimes that I could be out there all day everyday and never actually run out of things to do.

As you can see the tomatoes are coming on really well, it doesn't take much warmth and sunshine for teeny, tiny little tomato seedlings to put on a spectacular spurt of growth and they are making good use of the strings that are this year taking over from the bamboo canes in the polytunnel.

I have planted some of the excess of tomato seedlings into the net tunnel so I can compare the two growing temperatures.  I am also considering  having a couple of the plants out on the hillside planted in the warmth of an old tyre just for an experiment, although I doubt they will do as well, we are quite exposed here.

In front of the tomatoes in this net tunnel bed are my ordinary Cauliflowers, I was going to add some Romanesco cauliflowers to the side of them in the same bed but when the heavens opened I got pretty wet and had to retreat to the polytunnel, before giving up completely and coming in the house to change clothes and grab a cup of coffee.

Today although still looking very grey it is a lot drier and Lovely Hubby is out cutting grass and having a general tidy up of all the green areas, of which we have lots.  After finishing this post I'll be going to clean out the henhouse and then back to polytunnel pottering, as I said there's always something to do.

Have a good weekend everyone, and lets hope for some more sunshine.

Sue xx

Our Littlest Weekend Visitor

Saturday evening saw Lovely Hubby erecting the old chicken fence around his now flattened 'molehills'.  He was about the start properly smoothing the area, but then he came in for some lunch and in the thirty minutes he took off to eat his dinner (and the forty five minutes he then had for a nap) Mr Mole ... the real molehill maker .... erected two new edifices to mole life in the previously flattened ground.

Losing the will to live he decided to put the fence up to keep the dogs from walking wet dew ladened soil into the kitchen every morning ... I think Lovely Hubby must have heard the slight use of swear words and banging of doors first thing on Saturday when they did just that!!  I think we will leave it for a week and see how many new real molehills appear before we sow the new grass seed.

On Sunday someone decided the new fence was the perfect place to sit to observe what we were up to ....

... he stayed there for ages, long enough for me to firstly stand and admire him from the conservatory and then to risk dashing into the other room to pick up my camera.

Not even a lazy cat cooling off in the shade on the patio was enough to scare little Mr Robin off.

Sue xx

Giant Mole Hills? Buried Sheep?

I had a heart stopping moment when I stepped down from the shed with the corn for the chickens the other morning.   The piles of earth deposited by Lovely Hubby with his tractor shovel looked just like row upon row of graves ... and they are just about sheep sized!!  I had visions of the coach loads of tourists that go past each day wondering what the hell we were burying just over the hedge from the road, then seeing the half dozen sheep in the end field and putting two and two together!!

If the police get tipped off and call round luckily all they will find under the ground is one very worried mole who has been leaving his mole hills all over this same spot for the last couple of months.

Now when his fresh mole hills appear they are on top of Lovely Hubby giant mole hills.

This is the start of the re-landscaping work that Lovely Hubby is doing between the house and Chicken World.  Once the ground is levelled nicely it will be seeded with new grass and a permanent fence will be put in place between the shed and the hedge, which will also run the entire length of the inside of the hedge in Chicken World to the pointed corner edge of our land.

So it's all go here again at the moment and the building work starts on the house tomorrow to repair the damage caused by the heavy rains of Winter.  It seems to never end ... oh well back to brewing cups of tea six times a day :-/

Sue xx

Final Stages and Battery Back Up

The solar installation electricians are here again this week making the final adjustments to our new solar electricity system, hooking up the battery back-up so that when the sun goes down and the daylight fades we are still using our own generated electricity and not switching straight back to the National Grid.

Cables and wires that they know exactly what to do with but to me could be anything at all.  It's all very colourful in the control room and very technical.

The bank of batteries that all fill with power for us to use.

A very boring post, sorry ... but one that needs to be recorded for posterity.  

Thank you for all the lovely comments on the weekends blog post that celebrated our seventh anniversary of blogging about our change of lifestyle.  It's hard to believe that this blog has been going for a full seven years, and what's even harder to believe is that we are already in the second month of the year.  Hello February ... any chance of you being a little bit drier that January was I'm fed up with all this rain!!

Sue xx

Shiplap and Snowdrops

The workshop doorway is coming on nicely.

It will have two doors soon, but first the panel at the top is being shiplapped so that it will match the rest of the workshop which will also be covered with wood in Spring.  It will sit nicer on the hillside with a more natural covering.

When Lovely Hubby plans a job he does it properly and between him and Simon everything was cut to size creosoted inside and out and then put into place.  The inside will also be wood with a layer of insulation in the middle.

Drat he spotted me taking photos  ;-)

I was over at the polytunnel a few minutes before taking the photos picking the makings for a pot of soup for the workers and I noticed we have Snowdrops and other bulbs appearing all over the place, it's looking very green.

Sue xx