Chief Builder popped by yesterday morning for a couple of hours. He was, much to our surprise, on his own.
He dug the bulldozer deeper into its hole, made some drill holes in the tarmac for some spikes for an orange plastic mesh fence around The Stonkingly Big Hole and then went home. Or off to another job, it wasnt clear.
His parting shot was, “There may be some deliveries tomorrow when we’re not here, and the Building Inspector may just call by, we can’t proceed until he’s been! We’ll be back Friday as the concrete is on to pour!”
Bear in mind that his quote for the job says, “Site Management Fees, £2,600, plus VAT.”
Mr BW spent the morning supervising the ‘deliveries’. The BI got here first, around 9am. “Eeet is gut!” he declared, “850mm where it ownly needs to be 750, but, perhaps, have they forgeotten their tool when they dig thee hole?” We’re not sure what nationality he is, somewhere east and north of here for sure, but clearly he decided not to follow the Brexit exodus home. Probably not a bad thing given that our County Council have lost almost all their BIs since 2020. Given our interactions with their boss, a most unpleasant apology for a man, rooted in the 1970s, we can understand why.
And then came 16T of Type 1 dropped and 16T of stone, clay and rubble from The Mega Pile taken away by the same lorry. Closely followed by lots of sand, cement, reinforcing mesh, and lots and lots of concrete blocks brought by another lorry. “I’ve run out of hours on me tacco, can I park up here for an hour?” pleaded the driver. Yeah why not?! I’m seriously considering opening a caff.
At some point during the day, Builder BW phoned. “We’ll be there at 7 in the morning, the concrete is on for 8!” he declared.
Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before.
My guess is 9am and the concrete lorry at 8.20am. Your timings may vary?
Month: July 2022
I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Or maybe Alice Through the Looking Glass – although I fear that this further surreal adventure may be today.
The bulldozer is now stuck in the foundations and can’t get out.
This is because much much more had to be dug out than expected as Not an Architect the Architect’s mate who did the topographical survey (at huge expense – charged for 2 days work on site and did it in one) seems to have got yet more heights incorrect (we already found this when doing the garage, but luckily Chief Builder loves a challenge and there do seem to be ways round most things).
There is a pile of rubble that must be 40 tonnes blocking where the stone blocks for the walls are meant to be delivered tomorrow. Getting grab lorries to come and take it all away in a timely manner seems to be impossible (one came on Monday lunchtime and took away 16T, but tht wasn’t even all that had come out then).
Early afternoon we heard a terrific rumble outside and, looking out, saw one of these, looking very new and pristine, hurtling down the track. We then realised it was being driven by the farmer’s 15 year old grandson (pronouns surely ‘she’ and ‘her’), and to get here he’d driven 3 miles on a single-track public road, so was just 6 years, a driving test, specialist training and insurance short of legal. When challenged, he said, “Me grandad told me not to hit anything!” The builders were highly amused; I was appalled.
We were informed that next Monday men with magic saws are coming to make two vertical cuts 58cm deep down the vertical outside walls of the house, from top to bottom, leaving just 2cm – the last 2 cm to the inside – uncut. The stairs are supported by this piece of wall, which will then be free-standing until it is taken out in a couple of weeks. The builder claims that he has sucessfully done this before. Given that stone houses built in the 1600s didn’t have foundations, just one massive layer of foundation stone below the surface, I have misgivings.
Chief Builder informed us that there is a coal seam underneath the house, running from front to back. This does not show up on geological maps. Unfortunately we can’t dig it out when there is no energy left as mineral rights are retained in this part of the world by feudal landowners and their descendents.
And the final surrealness: Rightmove announced recently that house sales are, on average, taking 150 days rather than the 100 they took in 2019. Nearly 22 weeks! This gives us a completion date on Coven Sud of 1st December. And there was me, worried that we’d be having to ask removal men to take the large furniture from down south into Coven Nord through a building site or over a hedge and across the back garden! The backlog seems to be ‘conveyancing’, but our friend the solicitor has done everything required already, so why can’t everyone else’s? Our estate agent says his average ‘offer to completion’ is currently 14 weeks. That gives a date of October 10th.
I wonder what delights today will bring?
You know that big hole in the drive that I showed you on Friday?
Well… it rained lots yesterday afternoon. Lots.
The garden was very grateful.
The builders weren’t: they gave up and went home around 2.30pm complaining that the soil coming out had the consistency of “a cow pat” so couldn’t be stacked on top of our earth mound in the orchard (why pay to have good soil carted away and then buy in top soil at some later point when we need it at £120+ a builders bag?)
The hole turned into a swimming pool.
Luckily the water has all drained away this morning.
They’re “pouring” (the foundations) on Friday latest, and there is lots to do before then (finish digging out to 45cm below finished floor level, connect in new drainage to the old, entertain the building inspector, get rid of the rest of the tarmac dug out as it didn’t all fit in the huge grabber lorry yesterday).
Quick check round the country/world… warm (around 20°C) and damp tinge in the air but getting drier here, how is it where you are?
This house believe that all sticky labels placed on items by manufacturers and/or at point-of-sale should all be able to be removed quickly, easily, cleanly, and in one piece.
With thanks to Debster for pointing this out. I hadn’t realised there was a way to see daily Dilberts for free.
When Mr BW was at work, and for a couple of years afterwards, I used to buy him the daily paper calendar, but after we moved North I gave up as it was somehow tied up with ‘Southernness’ and we don’t do that any more (well, soon, hopefully, we won’t, although our friend our solicitor tells us the the buyers of Coven Sud are raising an inordinate number of very silly questions, and their mortgage application has been referred to the underwriters, so I am not holding my breath as to the odds of successful completion on that transaction).
I’m convinced that yesterday’s Dilbert sums up most conversations in the world, particularly those involving older people:
We all know someone who can trump any revelation made to them, without acknowledging it.
Active listening is a skill that the majority of the population simply do not possess.
There’s a big hole in my driveway dear readers, dear readers (and it seems much bigger than I had envisaged)…
The replacement skip didn’t arrive until 4pm so there is a big mess still to go in it (RHS).
Plumber arrives by 8am tomorrow to divert the water supply.
I have ordered more wine at 25% off just in case.
Chief Builder, Chief Labourer, and New Apprentice worked very hard yesterday. They moved tonnes of slate and tonnes of stone into the orchard where we require them for purposes. Namely plateau levelling ready for seats, and wall building to make wind-deflecting surrounds for Mr BW’s new forge area. New Apprentice, buoyed by some gentle tuition from Mr BW and some words of encouragement from me, really excelled himself, hardly stopping barrowing and sorting all day, and will definitely have slept well last night. His mam is likely to think he’s being worked too hard for the pittance he is being paid as a first year apprentice.
Here we are at end of day (the bits off stage right are the two phases of renovation and new build-on that we have previously done):
This was the beginning of the day:
“Remind you of anywhere you’ve served?” I said to the 1ibrary van man, who is ex-army, when he appeared. “Definite similarities!” he proclaimed. I hope he doesn’t suffer from PTSD.
And this was how it was last weekend before work started:
Not the prettiest of buildings. Fortunately not listed.
When we are tired of looking at the mess (made worse by the first full skip not being exchanged yesterday as Chief Builder had ordered), all we need to do is look in the opposite direction and there is a lovely field of ripening barley as we look across to Cumbria in the very very far distance:
Scroll down to the 6th July post to see what will appear in place of the debris.
Oh, and, once the foundations are dug and poured, and some of the new stone walls are up, the front of the house – the differently coloured bit that was previously hidden, plus the bit to the left that currently has two small windows one above the other – is coming out. I can’t wait.
You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting many pictures in recent months.
This is because I use large capacity camera memory sticks (32GB) which won’t load up on my little netbook, from which I usually post. Therefore, the only way I can post pictures is from my desktop PC and I have been locked out of the BW underskirt (posting page) for months now as it won’t take the password that I know is correct.
I have just tried to reset the password on the main PC, not realising that it sends the new password to an email address that is now defunct as I was receiving hundreds of spam emails (or the most distasteful sort) a day.
I don’t know how to change the address that the password reset email is sent to (and indeed I probably need to be in the underskirt in order to do that, and in order to get into it I need the password, which I can’t get).
I had a posting window open on my netbook, and I don’t know whether it will allow me to post this, or whether it will immediately require the new password, which I cannot access.
Even if it does post this, I suspect that once the system requires me to put in the password again for access (which it does after all updates), I won’t be able to get into it.
So I’m a bit stuck.
That’s what happens if you still use a template that a kind ex-blogger (who you are no longer in contact with) hand-coded for you in around 2004. Ahem.
So… it may take a while to sort all this out… and I don’t think I have the skills to do it…
33.4°C yesterday, 27.9°C today. Nearly 20°C degrees overnight still. Thank goodness for fans.
South African type scorchingly dry heat yesterday, then the wind got up late afternoon and it was like the South of France, with mistral winds. Today was 75% humidity, much more like Singapore. Pulling out yet more thistles from the orchard was uncomfortably sweaty.
We now have fine drizzle, but it is barely wetting the ground; we need a thunderstorm. It is weeks since we had any rain, yet the grass is still green: it is true poor quality upland sheep grazing deep rooted hardy grass.
After three days of work, more than half of the porch has now been dismantled. We have a big pile of poor quality disintegrating roofing slate, a mound of beautiful old stone (that will be repurposed into new dry stone walls around Mr BW’s forge area behind the workshop), a heap of old roofing timbers (another month of fuel for burning this winter), and lots of dust. And half a full giant skip. By the end of tomorrow, hopefully it will all be down.
At 1.15pm Chief Builder casually mentioned to Mr BW that he was turning the water off for about 15 minutes. A few minutes after New Apprentice appeared at the back door (the front door having been removed on Monday) shouting for Mr BW. It turned out that the water was off as he had tripped over the copper water supply pipe sticking out of the floor in the area being demolished, causing it to leak, and Chief Builder just wondered if Mr BW had any pipe cutting tools, olives, and jointing compound. Well yes, unsurprisingly for someone who has now fitted two new bathrooms and replaced an old leaking radiator, he does, and that just saved a plumber’s emergency call out fee didn’t it?
We had the new floor tiles delivered yesterday. 35 square metres. The bloke was nosily chatty. “Are you having it reroofed then?” he queried. If only that was all that was required to make it comfortably habitable…
It got to 33.4°C in the shade here yesterday, and only dropped to 20.2°C overnight. How was it where you are?
When we moved in I started a daily record sheet to record the maximum and minimum temperature, and summary weather, over time, in an attempt to get my head around the north/south seasonal differences, to help with readjusting our gardening timings. This sheet tells me that this week last year had near-identical weather and temperature patterns, just with 3 degrees less heat.
The heat and early morning sunshine and temperature here right now are just like at our favourite farm in the middle of nowhere in South Africa, so I’m extremely pleased, but glad I don’t have to work (other than make drinks for builders and try to keep one step ahead of anything they might be about to do wrong).
Yesterday Chief Builder arrived with this year’s apprentice, who left school last week and was on his first day at work. He didn’t tell us that, but I guessed as said lad had on brand new work trousers and shiny boots. It is unfortunate that they were still as pristine at the end of the day, because it meant that all he’d been allowed to do all day was fetch and carry tools from the van, while Chief Builder had all the fun bashing things and stripping out the bit that is coming down. The skip they’d ordered didn’t arrive until the end of the day, so there are piles of wood, plaster, tiles, concrete blocks, toilet, cistern and radiators everywhere.
As both Mr BW and I did a lot of training when we were working, and he sat on the County Skills Partnership (the industry/training provider partnership group that plans and oversees current and future local training needs), we were wincing all day at the poor lad’s introduction to his working life. We will have a quiet word with Chief Builder at some point about how to get the best from your new workers, and get them involved and buying in to their futures, because he clearly has no clue!
Today is Demolition Day, just to celebrate the hottest day of the year.
There will be 4 of them (Chief Labourer, the second year apprentice, and this year’s apprentice, then Chief Builder later, he said 11am, but it’ll be nearer 2pm, judging from past experience), a smallish bulldozer and a dumper truck. We haven’t seen the second year apprentice for a while as last time he was here he did something very very silly that took half a day for two people to put right.
However, with demolition, there’s not that much that can go wrong, is there?
Ah, wait, our water supply comes into the bit that is coming down and their plumber can’t get here until Saturday to re-route it. Except, apparently, if there is an emergency. Hopefully…
Stay cool and drink lots.
We failed again to trap The White Familiar to bring her North. The Black Familiar ran aross two fields, faster than I have ever seen her move before (and, although now 9, she is usually bionic), to see us on our return as we had promised her a friend, even though she previously consistently hissed at TWF. I’m beginning to think that TWF is going to remain a southern cat.
We were very happy to have the air con working in the car again. It was 25°C when we left Coven Sud at 8.50am (later than normal as we had to clean up ourselves as Cleaner BW is away and the buyers’ valuer and surveyor are expected in the next few days). That said, it only got to 29°C somewhere in North Lincolnshire, and it was down again to 24°C by the time we got home. A pleasant temperature. I do wonder about all the doom and gloom about high temperatures: the media shouting about ‘dangerous heat’, amber and red warnings, and giving people advice as if they are stupid. Oh…
We achieved an amazing amount down south between Wednesday and today. It is now all ready to be moved, every last crevice is filled and painted, filing cabinets and plan chest are emptied, and I said goodbye, just in case building work up here means I can’t go down again. That would be weird, but predictable. If Coven Nord is insecure, it can’t be left alone. Remove the front wall (as is due in a couple of weeks) and it is surely insecure. We’ll see.
On returing home, we confirmed that yellow courgettes and purple mange tout produce earlier and more than their green siblings. The auto-watering system has proved efficent, and nothing has croaked. New Cleaner BW proved that she could water elsewhere effectively, and she didn’t eat the 3 peaches that are temptingly near-ripe in the greenhouse, or let any of the pots dry out. I also didn’t get the 7 querying text messages I got last time she cleaned through while we are away, which is definite progress. And a relief. Good job I sent reassuring replies to all seven, rather than say what I was thinking.
Down south the lack of rain this spring and summer is very obvious: Mr BW picked the early apples and plums before we left. The apples are only around giant marble size (but still very tasty, if not juicy enough to warrant getting out the mill and press to make juice) and the early plums only two thirds their normal size. I am so glad we won’t be fighting lack of water down south. Moving 300 miles north has hopefully bought us a few more years of more habitual temperatures and rainfall. And dark skies. Standing out in garden down south last night, before the just off full moon rose, I realised that in the last few years, the ever-growing light pollution from new developments has ruined any hope of ever seeing constellations properly again.
With an ever-lessening connection to nature, future generations of inhabitants of the area will be less and less in touch with their souls and their past. It’s a sad future.
It is 13 hours until the builders arrive to begin Phase 4. We have said goodbe to The Blob. We don’t know how old the existing porch is, but it wasn’t built well, and its amazing it’s lasted as long as it has.
It’s cool, much cooler than I remember southern mornings in mid-July. The calm before the heatwave, maybe.
Nosey Neighbour told Mr BW earlier in the week that there was no water here all last weekend, when it was also hot, not because of a leak, but because of lack of water pressure. Being right at the end of one water authority’s area, historically there have always been problems with water pressure at times of peak demand, and this hasn’t been helped by the building of many hundreds of new houses nearby on the same water supply line.
As ‘lack of water’ is not a Planning consideration (so cannot be used as a reason for a Local Authority to refuse permission to build), the houses were built irrespective of local knowledge, and the water authority have failed to improve the supply, probably because there was nothing they could do.
It’s the other side of the coin to allowing building on flood plains: allowing new developments in the wrong places is just all going to go horribly wrong eventually.
As the climate changes, these issues of too much, or too little, water are going to become an increasing problem, putting life and property in peril. As I’ve been saying regularly on here since 2003, population control (lessening the drain on increasingly limited natural resources) is the only thing that can save the planet.
The expected 38 – 40°C heat on Monday and Tuesday is forecast to be worst along the A1 corridor, especially around Lincolnshire (sorry delcatto). Good job we are going back up tomorrow. Providing that we have water to clean up before we go in readiness for the surveyor, who is yet to make an appointment. Now, how many more empty bottles do I still have that have not already been relocated or recycled I can up fill just in case…
Isn’t the Moon beautiful at the moment? The closest it comes this year apparently.
It was full on 13th, which was Mi1dred’s 89th birthday and the Black Feline Familiar’s 9th. I spent all day on Wednesday thinking I’d missed someone’s birthday, but not being sure whose. We left in a hurry on Wednesday before 8am, keen to beat the traffic (both north at the beginning of the journey, and south at the end, later), and forgot to wish them both happy birthday. Given that cats seem to be able to tell the time exactly, despite it being light and dark at different times each day of the year, I expect they know when it’s their birthdays, so we’re in for a hard cat stare when we return.
Talking of birthdays, I was pondering what ‘middle aged’ actually means (in terms of an age bracket) these days, and wondering when one tips into ‘old age’?
In years gone by, and when I was younger, I’d have said that ‘old age’ started when people retired, but with state pension age now not being until people’s late 60s, I doubt that definition is still accurate. Perhaps it now has to be defined by functioning rather than chronology?
“Just change the Studio toilet flush button would you Mr BW?” I asked, “As it sticks in sometimes, and we don’t want the surveyor throwing it up as a fault.”
And so it came to pass that Mr BW ended up having to source and replace the whole concealed cistern, having discovered earlier that the plumber who worked when we put on the upstairs rooms in 2006 had bodged the fitting of the toilet cistern, broken off a clip – so causing the problem it has had on and off since it was fitted. This was the plumber who billed for 70 hours work, but who my daily notes proved only worked for, at the most, 24 hours. As he worked for the builder, we refused to pay for more than 24 hours of work, and I have no idea how the tale ended; I now feel totally vindicated and will never now give up my daily notes of who is on site when, and what they do. Oh yes, the latest version of that circus starts again up north next Monday. Oh dear.
Today I’ve been emptying the plan chest and filing cabinets, and Mr BW has been sorting out the replacements and renovations that have become necessary in the 28 months we haven’t been living here full-time.
Meals from freezer remains have become interesting. Tonight, home-grown runner beans from 2016 (blanched, still fine), ‘Cauldron’ veggie sausages, best before 2013 (still fine – do they even still exist now?) and giant prawns best before 2021 (well cooked, with garlic, seemed OK but the next few hours will tell).
We’ve been having difficulties getting removal quotes to move the remaining large furniture up for us. The national companies have said they will only do video quotes and local companies want to come out to look in 3 weeks time. Video quotes won’t work as the exit for the upstairs pieces is over the balcony and it needs to be seen to be appreciated/believed/quoted. We have now had 3 cards through the post addressed to ‘Coven Sud’ sayng, “Congratulations on the sale of your home, let us quote you to move!” to discover, on phoning that they aren’t as responsive as they claim. Stop paying the money to send the cards if you can’t supply the goods, people!
It’s not been that hot here today, but I can see the way things are going (37°C due south on Monday) , and am glad that our future days in the south are numbered. Although our nights aren’t (yet) spent in a rent-free, furnished, oxygen tent. Ah, but who said that first?
Today was our last day at Coven Nord without builders, for goodness knows how long… weeks… months… who knows, because tomorrow we head south yet again (10 days from our last trip) to sort out what needs to be sorted out before we can’t both be there together, which stops as soon as the builders arrive.
Our estate agent showed our buyers around Coven Sud again today, and assures us that they are already living there in their heads.
Our solicitor (a long-term family friend), returned from holiday just yesterday, is already issuing info and contracts. Whatever delays there may be won’t be down to him.
We have rhubarb problems. Probably following last year’s flowering (albeit nipped off quickly), this year’s growth, despite copious feeding and watering, in 4 different locations, is pathetic. That is the rhubarb we inherited, the rhubarb we moved from Coven Sud (in 3 separate lots), and the rhubarb moved from Mr BW’s Mum’s house.
Anyone else having rhubarb problems? Any ideas for solutions?
I spent yesterday afternoon getting the malfunctioning air con in the Blue Broom regassed ready for our (hopefully) nearly penultimate visit to Coven Sud next week. The expected 32°C will not comfortably work on the A1 without cooling.
When Mr BW suggested this after extensive Googling earlier in the day, I’d frowned and muttered about ‘unnecessary use of funds‘ until Coven Sud completes, but after a very hot and humid trip to a very small local village to do the glass recycling and pay in some coins and send some documents to our solicitor (100+ pages of text will never scan and send down a slightly over 1MB line, despite what all those southern so-called ‘levelling up’ agendas might have you believe), I changed my mind.
I’m very fond of the tranny in the post office, not least because s/he has lovely cards.
I celebrated the ‘new era’ in British Politics, but not for long. The MP whose name doesn’t even complete its own sentence was promoted to Education. MP for a neighbouring constituency to Coven Sud, I am very famiilar with him and his antics. Having observed and conversed with him and his ‘uncontrolled’ kids at close range at an event a few years ago, I can confirm that almost anyone with a pulse would be likely to do better job.
Where is the world going?
1 in 25 covid infection rates again.
We live in interesting times. Don’t we?
This is Mr BW’s CAD model. CAD standing, in this case, for Cardboard Aided Design. Made because I needed a 3D model to visualise how things will look. I still have the one he made when we extended Coven Sud.
This is what is going to appear after The Blob (tiny cold draughty porch put on some time in the 1700s, no DPC or foundations and no proper joining to the main building) has gone.
The roof actually ‘V’s back into the existing roof of the house to cover up the piece of wood showing (this was V2 of the roof and made for simplicity). Obviously building this double-height structure, with traditional local arch feature front, new cloakroom, utility room, and upstairs store room, involves taking out some of the front wall of the house, but that doesn’t happen for several weeks after work has started, so we are told. Which is just as well as that will involve sealing off the upstairs and the downstairs long passageway, leaving us with the new bit (bedroom and Studio) plus kitchen at one end, and the lounge/conservatory (half full of boxes of stuff that will eventually go back into the big furniture) at the other, only accessible by going for a long walk between external doors at the back. And no stairs for a couple of months, as they are being spun 90 degrees. The office (Finance Central) is upstairs. I no longer do ladders, and anyway the door will be sealed. That will be interesting.
Oh – and – not wishing to jinx things or anything, but Coven Sud may have been sold to the first viewer. Bit of a complicated set-up (so could be 10-12 weeks, maybe more, the estate agent says, which might suit our build timing perfectly, otherwise it could be interesting getting large furniture in through a building site or round the back down a narrow passageway or over a hedge), but everything has now checked out (the delay was because the buyers’ estate agent wouldn’t answer the phone to ours, or return messages – that was the estate agent we nearly used, narrow escape there), but better than selling to a London lawyer who wanted to use it as an occasional second home and said she had no time to do gardening, DIY, cooking or anything else, and hoped there were good staff available locally. It pleases us greatly that the buyers love the house and are also a creative couple (although in different arts), similar age to us, like gardening, and that one of them was in a punk band in the 1970s.
Que sera sera. And if it isn’t it won’t be.
And as for the state of the so-called government… it’s like watching a car crash in very slow motion, isn’t it?
We got home sometime around 11pm last night (having driven through torrential rain and then having to detour due to the A1 being unexpectedly shut – clearly planned, but not listed on the Highways England website – but the sunset was amazing – lasted over an hour as we went up and down hills) knowing that everything at Coven Sud was as good as it could be, thanks to our efforts and those of Cleaner BW who did an amazing last clean through after she had done a full shift at a covid-hit hospital. “Trust me,” she said, “it’s every bit as bad as it was a year ago, and the vaccine doesn’t stop it.” Well, hey ho, why am I not surprised (hint people, you need an N95 or equivalent mask to protect you).
Our CCTV cameras at Coven Sud earned their keep once again, and suggested that the sun was shining this morning as we had our first viewing (38 minutes), before the official ‘viewing day’. First viewers, “stake in the ground”, 5% below marketed value. Agent says, “They’ll go higher, believe me!”
This is all so surreal. Unbelievable. Really unbelievable.
But, short of unloading the boxes from the trailer (due to impending rain), we have spent the day in bed. Even Mr BW. Packing up, clearing out, and leaving behind is truly draining.