Days 87 to 94 in isolation at Tony and Nickys

Trial run of wheeling a full barrow!

A busy day yesterday, and an early one, for this house anyway. Even the fowl were confused by being fed and watered so early. The concrete mixer lorry was booked for 08.00 (well it was that or 14.00), then Tony announced that if he was booked for 08.00 he’d be ready to pour at 8.00 if not before, and so he was! By 08.45 he’d gone leaving behind 12 tons of concrete! He (Billy), Brian and Tony had wheelbarrowed it in under Nicky’s control, she had the button to mix and fill the barrows. While they dumped it vaguely about the place I raked it about getting it into all areas, and corners, as evenly as possible, apparently I was very red which doesn’t surprise me at all.

A quick break and hose off of the gangplanks, two of the £50 roof joists! These were good ones that are to be used, not the four which have been returned today as too warped to use. Completely counterintuitive, but we had to return them in the state we received and rejected them!

Tonys handiwork. All the underfloor heating pipes connected into its distribution manifold. This is one of two for the whole house. The pressure tester is fitted to make sure no leaks

All ready to pour concrete. Concrete blocks for stairs to rest on, insulation, polythene, rebar and underfloor heating pipes fitted. Planks in position ready to wheel full barrows of concrete over

After the madness, concrete in!

Screeding or levelling was the next step Tony and Brian on either end of planks of various lengths. Moving them back and forth, smoothing high spots while Nicky and I filled in low spots. Sounds hard enough, but made worse as there was no way to start at one end and just move down as the retaining walls are only one block wide and very close to the stonework. So, using a custom made plinth in the middle on which he balanced, Tony basically went round while Brian had to come in and out of doorways and edges. At times they were both balanced on long, bouncy planks of wood. Nobody fell in, but there were a couple of close calls. Nearly over, a break for bacon sandwiches for second breakfast.

Wash everything down, sweep and scrape droppings off the floor while Tony ‘polished’, and then phew, over. We all sat around looking a little pathetic before lunch which did make us feel better but we all went for a lie down after. Feeling a lot more refreshed B and I decided to go for a little walk, we were out for about 45 minutes, to the Land girls Memorial, from where we could see the sea. Made a very pleasant change. Got back to find T&N weeding so went to join them, with a glass of wine!

Meanwhile in the house....

The previous week had been all about prepping for this occasion, building of little retaining walls, and woodwork to mount the two manifolds for the underfloor heating. I found a hole, that seemed to go under the previous pour that just ate concrete. Insertion of blocks to make pads to support the planks to enable the screeding, and to support the stairs. This was harder than it sounds, the electrical supply was installed eight years ago when work started on the other property, so, although planned, when actually measured now the woodwork is in if the stairs had gone where they were on the drawing there is no way Tony would have been able to actually access the power board where the three phase mains and the solar power will come in, or for there to have been a cupboard with a door. Talking and thinking and planning took a phenomenal amount of time. Why did this matter? Concrete blocks needed to be in place for the newel posts. Why not just build a huge pad? Because then there would be no space for underfloor heating pipes....

At one point Gummy cat did venture into the madness, walked round the edge of one of the blocks between wall and very wet cement, saw Tony in the middle and put one paw in to try to get to him. Numerous shouts of 'Noooo' he thought better of it, retrieved his paw from the deep hole and retired to bed. Here's his concrety paw. You can even see his only tooth, hence his name Gummy. Tony and Nicky adopted him from the cats home following his previous mistreatment by original owners  

Broken cement mixer with drum on  the floor

In the middle of all this the cement mixer died, I was wood cutting for Brian’s box, so rather than it being me operating it fortunately it was Tony and Brian. They were standing and chatting when the drum tilted forward and fell off its spindle, grinding to a halt! Disaster, how does the drum come off? How much is it to get a new one? How long does it take? We were without it for a day and a half concrete and mortar were mixed by hand before a new drum was sourced, ordered but never collected from a shop in Elgin so Nicky could bring it home. It’s bright orange and very shiny and I’m doing my best to keep it this way. The old one had had a hard life with bits of solid concrete all over it which attracts more bits and so one. I have been wiping it out with a tissue after final rinse, but apparently this isn’t normal....!

At the Land Girls Memorial - our first time out!

The underfloor heating is very scary, the previous concrete pour has to have 100mm insulation all over it, then polythene to stop the concrete going down the tiniest of gaps left between insulation blocks. Then rebar, steel reinforcement which has to lie the right way up in relation to its neighbour to make it interlock. This is then cable tied together before the pipe itself is run back and forth and cable tied. It can bend fairly tightly, but don’t kink it, it can’t be joined, and pipes cannot cross. The not joining makes cutting them to fit the manifold very scary and meant that the four pipes from the porch had to go through a hole drilled for them in the retaining wall as the furthest pipe was just too short, the other three also had to go through the hole as they can’t cross! We’ll just have to be careful when we come to put the woodwork up where we attach the wood to the concrete block....!

Genghis cat likes to try out different observation places. Here he is in an old bath

It gets dark late here now. This was at 11:00pm

Today has been a little more gentle, Tony has again taken Nicky’s daughter and grandson to Aberdeen hospital so we have finished cleaning out the bird houses, and then watched two of the geese squeeze into the duck house. We’ve dealt with the delivery driver collecting the bad wood, and sorted through many piles of sandstone looking for coins the right size to go around the big French door, the kitchen door and the new kitchen window...

Here's little three legged Cookie cat who screams blue murder if any of the other cats come close and just look at her.  None of them touch her, but you wouldn't know it when you hear her high pitched scream. She's very sweet though and spends most nights on our bed when no-one else is around

The chickens, geese, ducks and guinea fowl just carry on. Here's a shot during the day when they are just ambling around, sleeping and pecking. Its a nice place to visit and chill out to hear them clucking away in a very unhurried fashion (except when they think you've got food, in which case they come running from every direction)

This is inside the polytunnel which has exploded into life. There's strawberries, potatoes, beans, peas, courgettes and tomatoes to name but a few. The two outside veg patches are also doing well along with the fruit trees, berry bushes and rhubarb patch (which is massive - good job we like it!)

Here's an updated video of the Steading build right up to the concrete pour