Today, I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the Holly’s Horse Haven lorry pulled up and Joe unloaded Mel, aka. Melbourne Lad, who is absoloutely beautiful, and a retired racehorse. At last a friend for Sherafey, and after the usual introductory face pulling, they...
Well that was a busy day – we all learned something new. Brendan and I finished laying the slate through the kitchen, into the hall, and on to the bathroom, and Claire went off to Welig Crafts learn how to make baskets with Clive Lyttle -So all in all, a very...
Finally some sun! This afternoon the mountains were especially clear, and the crickets were out and about.The little field next to the house is surrounded by mature trees, and is a real sun trap in the afternoons. One more bonfire and we’ll finally be rid of the...
Our entire cooking and heating world revolves around this – the Doric range cooker, which seems to have been pretty widely used. Trouble is, information on how to best use it is rather thin on the ground – does anyone have any tips?
Now that we are more or less done with the really big jobs, the race is on to get all the million and one little things sorted. The little gas bottle woodburner moved home today, and took up its new position in the living room. Thankfully it seems to draw well,...
Today we finally finished the plastering, and here is the bedroom, which has undergone one of the largest changes. Here it is when we started – Here’s the little bathroom window above, and the room as originally found, before we had uncovered the window...
The plastering continues, and we’ve now finished the living room, most the kitchen, and some of the hall. Huge thanks to Mark and Jim for coming to help and working really, really long hours over the weekend, and doing some of the really annoyingly unreachable...
It’s amazing how a couple of days without rain make such a difference – suddenly we are making great progress. More of the fruit bushes are making their way down to the field, and out of pots, (at last, we’ve been carting them around for an age), and...
This weekend, I got the rest of the solar panel built up on the roof, and almost immediately you could see the benefits. Even though the sun has only appeared for a few minutes, the water down in the tank is heating up nicely. Can’t wait for a bit of decent...
The little platform above the living room needed some bannisters to keep people from plunging to their doom, and I wanted to re-use some of the wood from the original thatched roof, so here it is. The rails are made from lengths of bog oak that was used as laths under...
After many years of sitting cold and quiet, and having been tampered with to burn oil, our woodburning range had a proper fire burning inside it, and suddenly the house began to come alive. The sounds of the fire, and of the water bubbling through the pipes gave the...
