Days 103 to 113 in isolation at Tony and Nickys

Gummy and Genghis cats in almost perfect symmetry

10 days since the last blog, is ridiculous, but fear not, it’ll probably be shorter because of that rather than longer. We are working harder than ever, because we have a leaving date. We were invited to a Housesit, near Cheltenham, for August, two reasons for accepting, to catch up with mum, and for Brian to hopefully keep one of his hospital check ups. They booked it months ago and haven’t cancelled yet, and we are worried that if we postpone it could be for a long time.... 

Two cats and a ride on lawnmower, I should be looking forward to it, and I’m sure once we get there it will be fab, a newspaper and books, looking at the jigsaw we started in March.... just at the moment though there is a big part of me that hopes that rather than easing on the 15th, travel restrictions into Greece get worse, so the homeowners can’t go to their boat and we have to stay where we are! 

Not the Neowise comet that is apparently gracing our night skies at the moment but a full moon that made a nice photo I thought

This is Tony looking very scary

We have achieved loads, I know that, but there is still so much to do. We didn’t realise quite what we were asking when we asked if we could come this way “in case of lockdown “ and Nicky and Tony probably didn’t realise what they were replying with “of course, do we need the kettle on yet?” It has however been magical we’ve laughed and talked so much, we’ve invaded their space and yet lived in harmony, as an example, Tony has just come in thinking he’s completely losing the plot, “I know I poured a glass of wine” he drinks white and we drink red, and yet there are two of the four glasses left, “where did you pick up your glass from Brian? Did it have half an inch of white in?” “Don’t be ridiculous “ was the reply, yet on careful colour comparison and tasting, with mine, it would appear this probably was the case. Is it a problem? No. Did it make us laugh? Yes.

But he couldn't keep a serious face for long

We’ve seen the polytunnel go from needing rotavating to cut the manure in, to eating potatoes, courgettes, peas and tomatoes. The chicks arrived as eggs, and we did say “you know we are not leaving for three weeks then, till they hatch!” And that seemed like a long time. They hatched on the 2nd May so are now nearly 11 weeks old...

We’ve built a porch from the ground up, to internal woodwork, virtually finished all the downstairs woodwork, and when the new order of ‘big wood’ for joists arrives tomorrow we’ll hopefully finish the joists for upstairs. (I say hopefully as the quality of the timber that has arrived since lockdown has been really poor. The 6” 4.8m lengths we unloaded last Wednesday into the porch, yes, the porch is that big, have dried and warped, and the joists are at the suppliers and he’s ‘not that impressed’ but we know we take them or it will be well into September...) 

We unloaded a ton of tongue and groove flooring the other day, half for upstairs and half for the other half the garage that we didn’t floor and ceiling. We’ve replaced wooden lintels with concrete ones, inserted lintels into walls for support and moved lintels that were in the wrong place. Tons of rubble have been taken up to the farm to fill holes, and holes in walls have been filled for structure and look. I’ve mixed more loads of cement than I can count and created more sawdust than a school could use in years of bran tubs.

And this is Brian with the same 11kg breaker, not looking quite so cool

Brian and Nicky sorting out very heavy quoins

In the last 10 days the wall has gone up between kitchen and lounge, the last wooden boxes have been built for downstairs internal structure and a huge concrete block removed from the external wall. This left a big hole to fill which I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed, and I think it looks great. I’m not the only one to have developed a stone obsession though, Brian and Nicky have spent days going through piles of sandstone looking for quoins, in matching pairs, to go round the 9 or so doors and windows that need them.

I shouldn’t be doing a round up now, I know, we’ve still got ‘ages’ to go, but it’s very strange to think we have an end date, assuming Greece let them in and we get Ted back, he’s having a new solar controller fitted and Nicky told her friend in the caravan place “there’s no rush, and if parts take months for delivery......”

This is the day that huge effort was made to remove that large concrete block in the wall. So far big holes had been made round it and, although it was moving slightly, it wouldn't budge. Here Jackie has inserted a sparkler (she said it was dynamite), but couldn't light it, so she is gingerly applying Tonys blowtorch. You can see a bit more on the short video below...

Here's the hole from the inside, quite a big rebuilding job to be done!

Here's an updated time lapse video of progress in the steading showing progress to date. We're hoping we can get all the upper floor joists in by the time we leave in two weeks time

Meanwhile, Gummy cat has been set some challenges. Here he's been put on top of the newly built wall by Tony...

He walked up and down and through the freshly placed mortar

Gummy cat step ladder challenge - no problem!

But its all a bit tiring for him so a snuggle up to little ted is needed

We mentioned in the last blog about the crush in the mornings to get out of the duck house. Hens and ducks all in a mad rush to get out into the orchard for breakfast so, this morning I filmed it. Unfortunately it wasn't the funniest, but nontheless is still entertaining. Feather legs wasn't last today and didn't do her best hop and skip, but you can get an idea. Yesterday morning a hen had her back to the door when I opened it and got swept out by ducks and dumped onto the floor looking rather startled, but of course that never happens when filming