The Donated House

Here we go.

Work starts tomorrow. Like for real. Like on the real house.

Just on the foundations, and probably just pushing earth around, but I am still pretty gutted that I won’t be there because I’ve got one more day of my first aid course.

Never mind, Esther will be here and will take pictures for you.

I decided to take this first aid course because I thought it was at least a little bit likely that we would have some kind of first-aid-worthy injury on site during the build, and worse case scenario, I wanted to know what was the best thing to do with crushes, choppings-off, etc. But the real effect it is having, looking at pictures (real, genuine photos) of people who’ve just chopped off their fingers, is to make me want to show them to all of my workforce to that they will be as motivated as I am to be incredibly careful at all times. The burns pictures are even worse. But at least I know how to deal with all these things now.

Another thing I’ve learned is that the important, life-saving bits of first aid, CPR and whatnot, are really not rocket science. I would encourage everyone to ask around until you find someone who will explain the rules to you, or watch it on youtube or something, because I have always been scared that it would be complicated and require days of training, but it’s really simple and you can learn it in a few minutes and you might just end up being really glad you did. Fun fact: If you’re doing chest compressions right, you will probably break ribs! But don’t worry, they’re already technically dead, they won’t mind.

Here’s a picture of Alec clearing out round the bottom of the now enormous hazel tree that was a tiny twig when we first bought the land. It’ll have to go eventually, but I’ll let it live as long as I can. And then maybe use its branches in the house somewhere.

Sarah-May, one of my all-time favourite people, came up and used her narrow boat electric system knowledge to help us scalp the bits from the caravans (which are on mains electric now) and wire up the two sleeping sheds with the old leisure batteries.

She also shared her design for lovely lamp covers for her LED bulbs, which she made of the tops of Fanta bottles. Genius.

So we had to drink four more bottles of Fanta to get enough bottle tops for all the beds. Esther built the rest of the system that Sarah-May didn’t have time to complete.

And although one out of two batteries appears to be dead, we at least got to test that Esther and Sarah-May’s work was going to light things up.

Esther is quite rightly very pleased with herself.

And I am pleased that she had the opportunity to exercise her skills and find out that she could figure out how to do something that she hadn’t known how to do that morning.

Also, Daisy came for a couple of days, which is always a joyful event. I love Daisy and her cheerfulness and good company, and also her ability to just be given a job and get on with it while I have yet another mini-meltdown and am good for nothing for a whole day. I need to stop doing that.

Well, at least I’ve cracked the cheesecake mystery and can do it perfectly every time.

So that’s a reason to be cheerful.

The council have got back to me on the subject of sewer connections vs. on-site composting, and they still, despite it being carefully explained to them, regard a composting toilet as a cesspit. This is troubling.

A cesspit is a holding tank for faeces, urine and the water involved in its disposal. It must be emptied by lorry at frequent intervals, so not only does the material end up in a treatment plant where it would have done were there a mains connection anyway, but there’s the added faff and cost of transporting it. This is obviously unacceptable and mains connection should be used in preference wherever possible.

A dry composting toilet, by contrast, separates urine from faeces and uses no water at all. Urine can be discharged directly into a soakaway in the ground (it’s nearly always totally sterile and does not pose any health risk) and faeces are collected into storage containers, along with a “soak” material (sawdust) which keeps the matter at the right level of moisture for decomposition by microbes, insect larvae and worms, depending on what’s got access to it. It doesn’t leach into the ground during the initial decomposition process; it is processed within a moisture-proof container and does not make its way to the outside world until it has been composted for a year, by which time it is as safe as any garden soil. Which is what it becomes.

No water is wasted, no fuel is needed to transport anything anywhere and nobody gets sick. It’s a great system. It’s definitely different from a cesspit.

I’m at a total loss as to how to convince the council of that though.

Consequently, I have spent my day researching what options I have for connecting to mains drains. Looks like going further over budget. Par for the course, we’ve all seen Grand Designs, right?

Well, since I was building a wendy house in the wood and since it would overlook the bluebells, I thought, heck, why not make a couple of double-glazed windows? How hard can it be? The first one wasn’t too difficult, though cutting the glass (from large panes found stacked around the land when we bought it) took some practice.

Still, rectangles are easy, and considering that I didn’t worry too much about making an absolute seal around the perimeter (that’s what wood filler is for!) it went pretty well.

And it fitted in the hole it was supposed to. At least, it did after I corrected my stupid mistake. So, heartened by my success, I set out to make the awkward-shaped one.

And it worked. It was, for sure, fiddly and even less airtight than the first one (more wood filler) and I had to cut endless little nibbly bits off the glass to make it fit but it looks good, and it fit in the hole it was intended for.

And while it would not pass any kind of building regs or airtightness standards check, and may not even keep all water out, I am very proud of it. And if I’m honest, I’m proud that I’m the sort of person who would think “I can probably make a double glazed window out of all this stuff lying around…” and then actually pull it off.

Meanwhile: we went to the pub before going to the movies, and dinner was ready a bit late, so we packed it up and took it to the pub with us. People stared, but that doesn’t tend to bother us.

And then last night we had majorly hipster nibbles (cold pizza slivers, pom-bears and an artful sprig of purple sprouting broccoli) and watched the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (I think) Twelfth Night which was HILARIOUS. So highly recommended.

Next post: Esther builds a door and does some wiring… stay tuned.

I totally saw a deer this morning on the drive while I was emptying out the tiles I bought on ebay and collected yesterday. It was a beautiful young doe, fairly unflustered that I was watching her. She stood and looked back at me for a bit and then jumped the fence into the adjoining field and wandered off.

Naturally, being somewhat absorbed in looking at her through my eyes and not my phone, I didn’t get a picture, but you can put her in the above picture with your imagination if you like.

I had rather a good haul off ebay yesterday. While not free, these tiles were a tenth of what they would have been “new” and will be amazing when I come to do the mosaics. Yes, that is a year away, but I want to spend a good year thinking about it and make it absolutely amazing. I went on pinterest.com and looked up “mosaic floor” (go ahead, do it, open another tab and do it now) and I’m so excited to do this floor.

My other ebay triumph was a set of 17 huge (60cm sq) solid granite tiles which I’ll use in front of the giant window as a heatsink in my passive solar heating system.

And I followed that up by calling up my local tile shop (Dickies Tiles in Halifax, very good) and they said I could wade into their skip and take anything I wanted. Not surprisingly, I came away with a boot-load of free stuff, some of it amazing, some of it merely pale background to other, more colourful stuff, but all of it free, free, free and no longer destined for landfill. Mission accomplished.