Days 25 to 32 in isolation at Tony and Nicky's

Proper cutting of concrete blocks (without safety shoes Bill)

Our days have flown by, though much more of the same hard work. The block work of the porch is now finished (except for filling in within the roof truss on the gable). This became a three person job above a certain height as it was easier for me to pass, electronic bleepy leveller, mallet, leveller, long spirit level, short spirit level, bucket of cement, and that was just for Tony! I couldn’t pass the blocks at that point they were just too heavy, so they had to be stacked up on the working platform. Brian was putting on the mortar bed and cutting blocks to fit the gaps. Who knew I could mix cement? 4 buckets sand to 1 bucket cement to a desert spoon of plasticiser, into the mixer, mix, and then just the right amount of water. Mix, stand, into barrow or bucket. Wash the mixer, wash the barrow..... It’s been heavy work, and no good for our hands, all very dry!

Having finished the block, we’ve started on the internal woodwork frame as this will hopefully make putting the roof trusses on easier. It started off slowly yesterday, getting the floor plates right. As if these are not square and in the right position all the walls will be out! Today Brian and I

There's another row of blocks gone on since this photo

made the first of four boxes which will then be joined together. Nicky has started painting the outside in sticky black bitumen paint to make it waterproof, not attractive but it is going to be larch clad, which will be!

I’ve attacked internal walls in the steading with hammer and chisel, and chisel attachment in a drill (you can stop it going round, it just acts like a mini pneumatic drill). Very noisy and dusty. One corner was very bad, the plaster was relatively solid but had to come off as it was impregnated with diesel and smelt horrible. There is still a smell, but not nearly as bad as it was... I finally had to stop when I ran out of hen food bags, wood burner pellet bags, and cement bags

Jackie chiseling walls with an SDS drill

to fill. Tony has since been up to the local farm where they said he could add it to their pile of rubble as the tip is closed!

To make a change on Sunday, no, not a day off, but more lintel work. The two wooden lintels above a window in the gable end to come out and be replaced with concrete ones. Tony has done similar before but it’s still scary to take a chainsaw to wood that may be supporting the whole of the wall! The block and tackle came into its own again (though these lintels aren’t quite as heavy as the previous ones) and we persuaded them into position down a scaffolding bar and a piece of sturdy roof material (metal and solid, but neither of us knows what it

Brian preparing the beds, Nicky planting potatoes

is!) I can’t describe the process so it means anything, but it all went absolutely fine, though all Brian could say was “I just wouldn’t have done that!” Only the upper window to go then!

We’ve planted potatoes, early and late and peas outside, inside the same. The other seedlings are growing and will soon be ready to go into the ground. The chickens and geese are in full egg lay, and even the little old brown duck has produced, though we’ve still not had anything from the three younger white ducks!

Our eggs are doing fine in the incubator, we think. We looked at them all on day 6 and although we could see a fine network of blood vessels in some, the photos didn’t come out well. We can look again on day 12(tomorrow) and see what we can see and if it’s more worth photographing. On comparison with an unfertilised egg though they did all seem different, so keep everything crossed!

Add to that eating, drinking and cat fussing, lots of laughter and chats and we’ve filled our days! Time for a glass of wine then while B does the pictures...

Inspecting the incubating eggs with a very bright light. This shows an air sac inside which, apparently means it is growing

Progress on the porch to date. Internal wooden walls started, blockwork finished to gutter height, gable end still to be built, although first layer is done (extra row on left)

Gummy and Genghis cats on our bed. Don't know what happened to Teddy, who's on his head!

Time for bed linen wash and, this time Teddy got washed too. Here he is inside

And he got hung on the line by his paw with all the other washing 

Unfortunately it was quite windy and he got blown off. Lucky his paw didn't get left behind under the peg! 

This was one of the jobs Brian had been dreading. See those two windows on the end gable? Both have very old fairly rotten wooden lintels above. They need to be changed for reinforced concrete ones. The stone walls are 600mm (2 feet) thick and each opening has two lintels, one behind the other, together supporting two thirds of the thickness of the wall. The last bit, outside is a sandstone lintel that will stay. How to do it safely, bearing in mind the weight of the stone above is many, many tons?
 

Tony's idea is to saw through them with a chain saw! Madness? We thought so and stood at a safe distance. But Tony has done quite a few of these before and knows what to look for. No big hammers here, he moves them with levers to see what weight is on them, if they move the stone above is supporting itself. He cuts part way through, watching the walls, removing any loose stone. It's a softly, softly approach and it seems to work...

The first one's out and he's now sawing the second one deep into the wall, block and tackle ready with the new beams below, you don't want to leave it too long without lintels in place!

Close up of the second lintel nearly cut through, pausing to check for movement of the wall above

Jackie and Tony sliding the first lintel into place using metal runners

First one in, second about to be slid in. It all worked very well, just the one in the top window to be done!

Tufty and Genghis cats check out Big Ted

And chicken escapes into the adjoining freshly planted field for tasty seeds!

Look at this for a fabulous haul of eggs one morning. 18 hen eggs, the light blue one is a duck egg and the two larger ones are goose eggs

Look at the reduction in price here. This is not uncommon here and the reason Tony and Nicky have 8 freezers full of food

Here's a mixture of animals, Tufty cat in front, a chicken at the end of the patio and two Guinea Fowl on the lawn

And here's the Guinea Fowl wandering past the lounge window 

We took this photo today. It looks like its on fire, but it's Tony inside with a concrete floor grinding machine trying to flatten a section before we fit the internal wooden walls, which must be vertical. We had swept the inside out before this and after he'd finished it was like we'd never done anything.....

So he got his industrial vacuum cleaner out and sucked it all up. He didn't want his photo taken and tried hiding behind the walls, but Jackie managed to capture this one. We wondered if, in true Freddy Mercury style, he was trying to break free!

Days 19 to 24 in isolation at Tony and Nicky's

Jackie on the biggest block we moved, about 300kg

Good Friday was lintel move day, and it was a Good Friday, it all went remarkably well. We found a pair of matching quoins to go where it used to, raising it by the required amount, the trusty block and tackle supported on two bars between the scaffolding tower inside and the scaffolding tower outside did sterling work. It went up, attached to the acro props which were tightened into place and it was moved!

The old wooden lintels then had to go, to see Tony wielding a chain saw at them was really quite scary. They came out easily, almost too easily and were very light, how much use had they been? The new ones however were not light, Tony put a sling round each end of

Lintels raised and fitted, Tony chainsawing through the wooden lintels

the first of the three and asked me if I could lift it? I got it off the ground, but that didn’t really count as lifting in any useful fashion. Guess they were going to have to be lifted with the block and tackle then, a little slower, but a lot safer. So the three lintels are in and rebuilding around them has started. It’s slow going as you can put a few bits of granite in, when we’ve run around finding just the right bit, but then you have to let the cement harden. This is now being interspersed with building the walls of the porch. I’m disappointed, I thought I was going to be able to build a wall, but this isn’t brick it’s 6” block which are very heavy! I’ve done some cementing in the joins and mixing of cement, and Brian has done some base laying of cement with a funny red gadget which does seem to do a very neat job, but Tony has had to do the actual laying of blocks. It’s a slow process, but again you can’t do too much without giving the cement chance to harden.

Slowly laying the 6" concrete blocks. That red thing is the perfect way for non-professional brick layers to lay bricks. You fill the gap with mortar, smooth it off and, hey presto, a perfect bed of mortar of the correct thickness. Lay the blocks on top and they are almost perfectly flat, just needing a tap

New skill: rotovating (very cold though)

So the other main thing that has gone on is rotavating both vegetable patches and the poly tunnel, in preparation for planting out. Some peas went in today, the tomatoes, and courgettes are being carried between house and poly tunnel every day so they don’t get too cold, and don’t grow toward the light of the window, cooking, ice cream making, making little mesh covers for the vents that allow ventilation, to stop the wasps getting in, and playing with Ted. I did a test today to see how much more water you can get into the toilet cassette after the red light comes on. Four litres, so hopefully should the light come on again just at bedtime we now know it will last till the morning! Brian has been playing with the controller for the solar charger as it doesn’t appear to be charging the engine battery, only the habitation one. He’s had much communication with Brian senior (Tony’s Dad) but hasn’t really come up with anything conclusive despite taking loads of measurements today.

Here's Tufty cat watching to make sure we do it right

Geese stretching their wings in the morning

The fowl obviously still need caring for, morning and evening, younger chickens are gradually being introduced to the rest of the flock, being allowed out to mingle. This seemed sensible but we realised why it was happening on Saturday when a parcel arrived addressed to Brian and I. They tried to tell us it was the missing duck eggs (we’ve hunted and hunted but can’t find duck eggs anywhere and we assume they are laying.... ) but it wasn’t, it was eggs from a specialised breeder on Anglesey, fertilised and ready to go into the incubator! 21 days it takes and they went in on Sunday (they had to sit, pointy end down, for 24 hours to get over the trauma of coming through the post.) The incubator maintains a temperature of 37.5 degrees and a humidity of between 40 and 50% and rotates them by 90 degrees every hour. We can look at them with a vey bright light to see what’s inside, in three days time, so keep everything crossed that we’ve got lots of little chicks growing, ready to hatch out on May 3rd, which just happens to be our wedding anniversary, will we become parents?

Fertilised eggs ready to go into the incubator

Here they are in the incubator

As if this wasn’t enough of an Easter treat, Tony had been carefully observing our search patterns for duck eggs (surely they must be somewhere?) On Sunday however we had to be persuaded to look again, only to find that a very special chicken had laid some very big, foil coated, chocolate eggs....! As mum said “I love the idea of two big kids hiding eggs for two more big kids”!

We are still immensely happy to be here, and obviously we’re now not leaving till we see what hatches, whether the rules change or not!

If you want a laugh, have a look at this short clip showing the eggs being rotated complete with little bingling sound. It does this every hour

Our Easter eggs  from Tony and Nicky found in the garden while looking for duck eggs!

Genghis cat creeping upstairs to have a look...

Don't fall through!

But actually, it doesn't seem to bother Gummy cat

Here's a photo of a very small selection of seedlings that Nicky has planted

Here's a view of the porch so far, 4 rows of blocks done, lintel raised and fixed in position. This will be the main entrance into the house

A very nice sunset last night and, true to form, it was a lovely day today, actually reasonably warm. I was down to a 'T' shirt outside, but that might have been due to the heat I generated hauling the brute of a rotovator around

Days 10 to 18 in isolation at Tony and Nicky's

Genghis cat getting some fuss from Jackie

Brian and I were left to our own devices to finish the rest of the ceiling in the big garage, measure, cut and fit noggins before screwing up the panels, only calling Tony to ‘come and be tall’ every now and then, just to get the first couple of screws into each bit of 8’x4’ board. Tony was working on a report for his PhD, which really needed to be submitted, so we tried to leave him to it as much as possible. Doing the ceiling meant moving lots of stuff around, off shelves, and from the floor, so while Brian was screwing, I was rationalising and tidying. It’s much neater, and makes sense to me, but does mean I’m the only one who knows where things are, although I don’t know quite what everything is.... I’m expecting phone calls

Brian nailing a noggin into place with the nail gun

well into the future where Tony has to describe what something looks like before I can attempt to remember where it might be!

Once we’d done the ceiling we then moved upstairs to put in the insulation and lay flooring. To be fair Tony did the insulation as it’s a horrible job that leaves most people itching but doesn’t seem to bother him. Flooring was 22mm tongue and groove, except for the two sheets of 18mm that seemed to have slipped into the pile. Was this going to be a problem? Only time would tell. The first few rows went down quite smoothly, and solidly. There is an idea that at some point in the future this may become a gym. As part of Nicky’s rehabilitation, they’ve bought a running machine, a cycling machine, a stepper and a cross trainer. It needs to be solid!

Tony gluing and screwing the boards in the confined space

Then we met the beam, that alters the level of the floor, rather than just a step though there is a big overlap, three and a half rows of overlap. I can fit under the beam and in the space, Tony could fit in the space, but not under the beam, so had to get there by other means and then stay there to glue and screw. Were the two erroneous boards a problem? Yes, there is a narrow strip of uncovered floor, but at least it can be done from a ladder on the ground floor. It’s a really good job, that needed doing, but hasn’t progressed the main build at all.

A break in proceedings before fitting the boards in the confined space. This is the first floor at the back of the big garage that could become a gym area

The section of wall to be removed

With report submitted we have Tony’s full attention back and we’ve moved back to the main build. The doorway out of the porch (as yet unbuilt, but now with floor) into the house is only high enough for me, so has to be made bigger, so the big sandstone lintel needs moving up, which means removing the sill from the window above and three rows of huge granite blocks! This is remarkable scary, will bits of wall just fall out, can the blocks be moved, how will we fill the hole in the wall back up again? So far, scaffolding inside and outside, hammers and chisels and an assortment of crowbars have loosened blocks. These have then been manhandled by Brian and Tony onto a little trestle and then lifted and lowered down with a block and tackle. The sill, and most of the three rows have been removed, the acro props are in position and we will attempt to move the lintel up tomorrow. It sounds remarkably easy as I’ve written it, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds. Much thought went into it beforehand including from Ian who isn’t even here, but the block and tackle has worked very well and so far it’s all going swimmingly.

The outside before we started. The lintel over the doorway is too low, it has to be raised up to where the three large blocks are above. The plan is to erect scaffold inside and out then, remove the sandstone window sill above, remove the three large blocks below it, remove the three below that, jack up the lintel, fit sandstone blocks beneath to support, remove the remaining sandstone blocks around the window and the rebuild with stone above. Bear in mind, the wall of 600mm thick and we estimate the lintel to weight 250kg and the large block above it and left about 280kg. It's not going to be easy, but Tony has a block and tackle to assist 

Jackie proof reading Tony's thesis

This is the building we’ve been doing since the last blog, I’ve also spent quite a long time proofreading Tony’s report, and making corrections and suggestions, as has Tony’s dad (also Brian) so it’s gone back and forth many times. My brain has been taxed this week as well as my body!

We’ve also had to deal with Colin, the letting agent, again! While doing his ‘housekeeping’ last week Brian wrote to Colin to say that if he was contacted by either of our tenants to say they were struggling we were very open to discussion, but obviously if we reduced their rent, Colin’s income would reduce correspondingly. This appears to have tipped him over the edge,

A side job of chain sawing some firewood, watched by the ducks

“if you are expecting me to do more work” (we weren’t) “I should be paid more, not less.” So while everyone else in the country is doing their best for others Colin is still thinking only of Colin. Apparently it was such a heinous idea that he followed on with that if we think property management is so easy we can do it ourselves! He will collect the rent but no more! This obviously is no use to us, while travelling,so we have asked an agent from the neighbouring village to take over. We can’t wait to be distanced from Colin, but he’s not making it easy. He won’t pass on contact details and despite writing to both sets of tenants asking them directly we’ve not heard from either of them. What has he said to them I wonder?

Little three legged Cookie cat makes it upstairs onto our bed most days to keep Teddy company

So here we go, scaffold up, window sill out...

In the strangest quirk of timing, while many other people are working from home and not going out, Nicky has gone back to work! It’s six months since she fell and broke her leg, it’s healed well, so it’s time! She’s started gently, three days this week in Tesco, before a weeks leave next week, well Ian and Helen were due for there regular Easter visit.

So has lockdown affected us? I have to say no, we are loving it here, we’ve got loads to do and the space to do it in. We rarely leave the property when we come up here normally, we’ve got cats, food, and the 20 litres of homebrew is ready, and ‘surprisingly nice’. The only difference is because we are not just here for a few days it is a little more relaxed, as we don’t have to work like complete nutters! That’s not to say that some nights we are not still working at 19.30, but not all of them!

Brian and Tony feeling happy things have gone to plan so far

Lowering the first one down to the ground

Meanwhile Genghis cat gets some pampering

And Nicky goes to Tesco and buys some rare shopping items

A bit of evening relaxation with Tony

Second day and we're really making inroads into it

Here's that large block of well over a quarter of a tonne being lowered by Jackie that was above the lintel to the left

This is what we've got out so far, the window sill is front right and each of those other blocks are the best part of a quarter of a tonne each with the really big one still with the slings on it. That's major work. It has to be said that Tony has done the lions share of pulling, pushing, shoving and lifting. Two acro props are now supporting the lintel and, tomorrow there's one more large block to remove, a whole load of smaller stonework to shift and then the lintel can be raised into its new position. Another hard day then, no wonder we're eating and sleeping so well!

Meanwhile, seedlings have been planted, sprouted and transferred to the poly tunnel by Nicky 

She's baked cakes. Here's one she did using newly laid eggs. There has been no modification  to this photo to make it so yellow, that's how it really is, Eggs from their hens have amazingly large and yellow yolks, giving really tasty cakes. Sorry, I was still in my scruffy working clothes when this was taken. We had just come in for tea and cake mid afternoon (that is about 5:30pm!)

The ducks like to explore every corner of the grounds and here they are on the patio outside the lounge window on a wet day

This is a rare photo of Dougal Dog cat. He is the fifth member of the cat household and lives most of the time under the kitchen units only coming out occasionally. He's very shy but likes to play with Genghis (who often waits by the kitchen units for him to come out). Sometimes during the night he can be heard making battle with the sponge used for cleaning the fish tank. He fishes it out from beneath the tank and scuffles around with it. We find it left in various places around the kitchen, quite dead!