Here are a couple of pictures of the lovely new warming hut, where volunteers can hang out and be warm, since we won’t all fit in my house anymore after everyone arrives this evening.
There’s a kitchen end and a sitting room end.
Yesterday we had a field trip to Hebden Bridge and hit the charity shops and got a couple of pieces of art for the wall. Feels very homey. Will also feel very full when there are 10 volunteers hanging out in it, but better than nothing!
Yesterday most of the timbers were delivered by Black Bark in four small loads. Well, I say small…
What I mean is HUGE.
The timber trolley Adam of Yorkshire Oak Frames lent me was absolutely the best thing ever. We would have been thoroughly unable to manage without it.
But with it, we managed to get it all moved to somewhere reasonably sensible before each next load showed up.
What we could manage to get down the slope of the drive without undue danger to life and limb we stacked either on the slab or on the hardstanding at the base of the drive.
It’s pretty exciting looking at what will be the structure of my house.
Not that we are not working hard. But it feels like we are waiting for Monday.
Craig from Fife, the new volunteer, highly skilled at woodworking, has put walls on the shower and is working on the kitchen end of the brew-up hut. He’s lovely and a real asset, both as a worker and as a guest.
Me, I drive around picking things up from eBay. This morning I went over to Wetherby to collect a timber trolley very kindly lent to me by Adam at Yorkshire Oak Frames. Had one of the most beautiful, enjoyable drives over there, all the best of Yorkshire back roads, and then Adam was lovely, showed me round and talked a bit about what he does, was curious about what I was doing, and let me take his timber trolley to use for a couple of months! It makes everything seem worthwhile when you meet somebody who’s just kind and curious and interested and not looking to profit from every little thing. I get to see a lot of the best of human nature in my job.
Time marches on, things get done, people come over and help me…
Nat came with Ryan and tackled the giant nettle garden that used to be the materials storage area.
Steven turned up, hadn’t seen him in AGES, and helped with the volunteers’ tea hut.
We got the windows in and a bit of the insulation done.
It looks like a very nice little brew-up shack already.
Ryan dug out the rest of the trench for the electricity to go into the house and, importantly, to the electric shower we will soon have.
And we had the customary bonfire dinner with sausages. More as time allows… sorry for brevity…
This has been an education.
The insulation was laid down…
Then the polythene on top of that…
We had lunch… (look at my terrific workforce!)
Then they stood for quite a long time waiting for the concrete guys to get sorted….
Which they finally did…
And a four inch layer of concrete was spread over the lot. And quite a lot of whacking it with a bar on handles to make it flat. And then a float passed over it to make it even smoother.
And then a floor polisher came to make it even smoother.
It’s pretty damn smooth now.
No, seriously, that makes the whole thing look easy, but it was a very long day and everyone worked incredibly hard and we were all exhausted by the end of it and I very much hope never to do it again.
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