In my quest to find the missing bits of the cooker, I decided to go through the many tins and boxes of old scrap out in the shed. Finding an old dried milk tin, I gave it a good shake (as you do), and decided it must be full of nuts and bolts. Imagine my surprise when...
One of the first questions most people ask when they stumble into the cottage and view the destruction, is “has it got a damp proof course”. Rather than my immediate response, which would be “are you f**king blind, its a 300 year old pile of stones...
Well, thats the end of the second week living here at Lackan Cottage Farm, although it feels like we’ve been here months. Despite my impatience to get the building work sorted, I’ve come to the conclusion that a rest day is pretty much unavoidable once a...
Well, this renovation / smallholding caper is certainly one of extremes. I began this week by exploring the woods opposite our land, walking over Lackan Bog, which is an amazing area of peat bog that has been colonised by birch woodland. Totally peaceful, and teeming...
Without doubt the best time of the day, and here is dawn breaking over the lake at the end of the road. The mist has just rolled down from the mountains, and you can imagine that almost anything could lie beyond it.
Ok, so here is the view from where I am sitting at the laptop, and rather fine it is too. I think we are still at the stage where we keep wandering about just staring at the amazing place in which we find ourselves. For instance, if I look away from the mountains, I...
The last week has been a mad whirlwind as we arrive on site. Our truck got towed in on Monday, and amazingly, I managed to reverse it into the little drive and park up in front of the cottage. At this point we discovered just how much the drive slopes…..Cue some...
Blogging from the phone now as we have no proper Internet. Explored our woods today and found a little cabin hidden away..Some great clearings for camping, so exciting things ahead there.
Do you know this sheep? Or at least what breed she might be? She looked at us with a very enquiring air yesterday as we passed her by at the Balmoral Show, so we stopped for a chat. Balmoral was fascinating, and we could have spent days wandering round. These chaps...
The end of my first week in the cottage, and already I am starting to know all its little quirks. Where the wet rot lurks – where the damp is – where the fungus is – where the rotten brick is, and which bits of its sturdy, yet delicate structure...
We returned home today to discover that the wind turbine had suffered a catastrophic failure and lost all three blades. 2 of them were embedded firmly in the ground below the turbine, and one has yet to be found. I repaired one of them a week ago, and straightening...
Today we had our first visitor to the cottage, and Sinead did us proud. We tackled the thatched roof in the living room, and managed to pull the old timbers, turf and straw down without burying ourselves. It is amazing how much material was up there – the pile...
