The Donated House

I took myself up to the Highlands to visit Jim, our friend who built a natural home very much in the style we are building. In fact, why be coy? We designed much of ours based on his. It’s beautiful and the people who built are beautiful and it was an all-round theraputic trip. Although eight hours of driving in one day was enough, thank you.

While I was there we went for a walk on the beach and came across a sedum roofed public toilet. Green roof turns up everywhere these days!

And of course we had the traditional cafe stop. The scones were amazing.

And having come home, although I’m feeling more like sleeping all day than working, Anna and I bestirred ourselves to do a small job. Anna shoveled all the smuck off the surface of the sodden ground while I sourced some stones, and we built a new step and a gravel path up to it.

It should discourage the waterfall we sometimes end up with on the steps when it rains a lot all at once. And it means we can walk on gravel rather than sludge on our way to the car! And as one last bonus, it emptied the ugly yellow sack of gravel that was looking untidy at the top of the drive. Not that it looks anything approaching tidy yet…

And last but never, ever least – the food shot: Anna’s amazing lasagne.

Anna and I went for a walk this morning from Hebden up to Heptonstall, which is basically up a cliff and then down the other side. It was lovely and sunny and very theraputic.

In Heptonstall we saw this extremely cheerful Volkswagen bus. I’m sharing it for no other reason than that it’s cheerful and I thought my dad might appreciate it.

Here’s a photo (not a very good one, sorry) of the ceiling paper I’ve been putting up. Pages from the Girls’ Own Paper of about 1886. Fabulous reading. I hope I have enough to do the whole ceiling.

I’ve got a lot else to be going on with, since my second planning application has been sent to committee. I need to tick all the boxes and get foundations in for the existing permission by the end of February so as not to lose permission altogether. So there’s a lot of work to be done, if anyone fancies dropping by to help!

Have spent the day making an additional shelf for the new shelf area above the sink, which went perfectly to plan first time (I’m getting good at this) and is an important step on the road to this place being a lot tidier than of late. It really has become a bit of a nightmare.

We moved all the dishes to the new shelf so that frees up a bunch of space for other stuff. It’s like a slidey puzzle. Make room one place in order to put something else there…

But it’s getting there, and I’ve also done some papering of the ceiling above the bed with the pages of a Girls’ Own Paper annual from 1880-something that I found in Tod market. It looks great. I’ll take a picture tomorrow.

I got a Christmas present for myself:

As you can see, I was having my very first go at it, and I’ve yet to achieve what we might call competency.

It’s so tiny that Antony up the hill suggested that he could pick it up and use it like a hand shovel, but I reckon it’s about the right size for my needs. I might borrow his to get the topsoil off the area in question, but for digging the trenches for the light foundations I’ll need, it’s just the ticket to stop us having to go all victorian and have work crews of people with spades working for days and days.

Speaking of foundations, I have had very good luck in finding (through entreaty to various sustainable building organisations to recommend someone) a very good engineer, who lives locally and has experience with non-traditional building. He has looked over my foundation designs and says they’re sound, and is now working with the frame designer and engineer to tell me the dimensions I need, whether I need to line the trench and pits with geotextile (probably) and everything else I need to give to the building inspectors to persuade them that I’m not going to build a pile of splinters, mud and rubble. I feel really confident in the educated professionals I’ve found for the team. All of them are articulate, helpful, encouraging and willing to entertain the idea that an intelligent person who’ll spend a lot of time doing research and ask for advice when she needs it can indeed build a house.

It’s something I tell myself all the time, but it’s nice to have it reinforced. You need a lot of willingness to learn and adapt and listen in this role, and it’s just so nice to find people who are encouraging.

Also, I had a particularly timely experience today that reminded me of how lovely it is to have good neighbours. I was chatting with Antony when an older gentleman passed the end of his drive and asked where the footpath went, and whether it would lead him back round to Stansfield Hall. I said as I was going that way, I’d be delighted to show him the way, being out for a stroll myself to enjoy the sunshine. We walked quite a way, through more mud and over more distance than I think he had intended, being arthritic of knees, but we had the most engaging and friendly of conversations as we walked. He had known Harry Gordon quite well and wished to have his old house pointed out, which I obliged. I really was quite charmed by him. I walked him to the gate of Stansfield Hall and he generously invited me to have a look at his home (which was gorgeous), as we’d talked a lot about how beautiful a building the Hall is. I left him with my number in case he is ever out walking again and would like company, and I really hope he will take me up on it. He said perhaps not such a long walk as that, but next time he would put the kettle on. What a charmer.

It’s been a slightly difficult time for me lately, and it’s really nice to have had a good walk in the sunshine in good company to cheer me up.

We’ll just politely pretend there hasn’t been a long silence here, shall we? And get back to business as if nothing has happened.

I found crabapples by the riverside walk in Todmorden.

So of course I put them in gin. That’s what I do. I’ll report back in about October or so how it turned out.

Bob came and stayed a few days, bravely, last week in the sub-zero temperatures, and we mucked about doing various jobs, including building shelves above the sink. We started (as you do) by cutting down a small trunk of one of the holly trees and stripping sections of it for supports. We chose bits with lots of lovely prodruding branches for hanging things on.

It looks amazing. And yes, I know they will crack, they already have, I’m considering it “character”. But when I make my real kitchen in my real house, I’ll cut the holly way in advance and let it season outdoors to minimise cracking. And then still call it “character” when it happens anyway.

Aside from that, we also pegged out the perimeter of the building that’s going up next autumn, in preparation for taking all the topsoil off and digging foundation trenches when I get a mini-digger.

Bob, asked to model with the giant square we made, chose this pose. Bob is awesome.