The Donated House

For the first time in at least a couple of years, Elmo and I went on a holiday. I mean, we’ve been away, but mainly at folk festivals where we have responsibilities and our time is scheduled. But last weekend we went on a van trip in the Yorkshire Dales, with no itinerary besides our own whims. So here, regardless of it all having nothing to do with the Donated House, is a selection of photos of our holiday.

This is the packhorse bridge near Wycoller village, just a bit north of us, where there’s a really beautiful derelict hall, built in something like the 17th C and only relatively recently abandoned, like, early 20th C, but thoroughly ruined just the same.

Round the corner and up the road from that we found a tower, the sort you see on the horizon and vaguely wonder what it is, only this was our holiday so we drove to it and walked up the hill to see. As it turned out, you could climb the narrow stone spiral staircase inside to the top and look out over the surrounding countryside.

We walked along the ridge a bit to another obelisk-monument-thing, with some good stones for leaping among.

The first night we camped at the side of a road that made a loop through the nothing-much alongside a main road down in the valley. It was lovely and peaceful before and after the one token car that always inexplicably comes along an otherwise totally abandoned road in the middle of the night.

We spotted an odd looking stonework at the top of a hill by the road and had a look. It turned out to be a grand scale artwork involving spiral stone walls and viewing platforms overlooking the giant quarry below. Not exactly picturesque, but diverting.

We stopped for coffee and picked up a tourist leaflet for local gardens and spotted Parcival Hall, which I’d noticed a brown tourism sign for a while back, so we went there to see what it was like. Turned out to be nice, but not really worth the £6 each admission charge.

Near Grassington, where I’d been before to go swimming in the river, we walked the other way from the swimming place and found this little bridge across the river to an old mill which was converted into homes, but still very charming and interesting.

It was a lovely morning and we managed to have coffee in Grassington early enough that it was not yet overrun by tourists.

On the last night we camped right at the end of a road that went nowhere, just petering out to a track, barely passable by land rover, and nobody came by inexplicably in the middle of the night, though one person in a land rover came up at about 7 am and politely stopped short of us, turned around and drove away, presumably so as not to disturb us. It was a lovely view down over the valley in what will probably prove to be some of the last warm, sunny weather of the summer.

Back at Boggart Hall, we’ve been pretty relaxed, making almost no progress, but having a lovely, relaxing time. Francesco went back to Italy and a lovely guy called Ian came to visit, having found us on Google, and I’ve started to clear out the dumping ground that had accumulated at the back of the cabin so that I can build a porch, so hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll have some actual progress to report. Til then, back to the coffee drinking.

I mean, other things happened too, but why pretend it’s about anything but the food?

Actually, a lot has been getting done. Francesco is very good at many things, as it turns out. He’s done a stellar job on the final coat of render for (one half of) the front of the building.

The finish is as good as I managed after practicing on the rest of the building. I will make sure to get the stuff moved so he can continue the job.

It’s been a bit rainy, which is great for the plants but bad for morale. And bad for my fabric roof when lakes appear, as at left, in the fabric’s low points. Still, it’s nice to have the added living space.

The soakaway that Maxime dug was unfortunately being bypassed because the drain we made immediately filled with soil. So Francesco dug it out and made this rather beautiful and perfectly functional drain. Works absolutely perfectly.

And when he was done with his other work, he made us pasta! And a very delicious sauce.

And then did a bit of posing for the camera. He’s great fun, in addition to being a hard worker.

There was tiramisu for dessert, which contains coffee, which Elmo isn’t fond of, but when I offered to eat his, he manfully refused all assistance and finished it himself. Brave man.

Sorry for delay, been away and then busy.

Our new volunteer has arrived, this one is from Italy. He’s called Francesco and is lovely. He spent his first day taking some branches from an oak tree that had been seriously trimmed by one of our neighbours and making them into “walls” for the climbers to climb in the pergola.

He also helped me make an attempt at moving the giant old steel water tank out of the corner where we want to put the greenhouse up, but it got to this point and was too difficult. Anji’s coming on Tuesday to cut it up and take it away, so we’ll just have to wait til then to sort out the greenhouse.

Elodie left this morning for an EPIC journey of 20 hours by train, bus and ferry to get back to France. On her last day of work she and I started to clear the corner nearest the secret garden door (looking more ivy-covered every day, sigh) where we hope to build a shed eventually. She was absolutely lovely and we will miss her. I wish I’d gotten a better picture, but we shall have to make do with this one.

By the end of the heat wave (which has ended now, for sure, it’s raining hard) we had at least one little courgette coming along. Now we’re going away for two weeks, so we will have to hope that the house-sitter and the volunteers will keep on top of them.

The heat and sun helped the flowers to come out with enthusiasm. They’re amazing now.

Elodie has joined us from France, and is working alongside Maxime to make all the progress we hadn’t been getting around to. It’s amazing having them around. They work really hard and are good company, fun to talk to and interested in everything.

Elodie helped  by cutting the recessed niches out of the exterior wall on the porch and making shelves to mount into them.

The results (once rendered) will be an additional place to put candles during the evenings outdoors that I hope will be a feature of this autumn. Please can we have warmth this autumn? I promise to be a good girl…

Meanwhile, Anna and I went to the quarry to get another load of gravel.

Anna was entranced by the big machines, like a little boy with his trucks in the garden.

And having done my bit of butch for the day, I thought I’d go a bit domestic goddess and make a peach pie, as I had half a dozen ripe peaches.

Although it was still a bit too hot to light the oven, I thought it was worth it, so I opened all the windows and we just stayed outside after that.

Elmo was a fan of the pie. Elmo is always a fan of the pie.

I am also a fan of the pie.

We had a cooking fire on Friday night, with sausages and teriyaki steak. Maxime loves the sausages but Elodie is that rarest of creatures, a French vegetarian. So we fed her Quorn sausages, which she liked.

Then we had s’mores (or in some cases just toasted marshmallows) which went down very well.

Maxime had a lucky escape, nearly losing his in the fire.

We also had a bit of a pastry-athon, Lynne and Lizzy both having brought lovely things, and we are still not done eating all the sweet loveliness around here because I went and made sticky toffee pudding tonight. We are leaving tomorrow morning and I think the household could eat for a week on the leftover empty calories in the fridge.

On a healthier note, we ate porridge for breakfast the next day, with summer berries.

I tried out Elmo’s new grinding wheel, sharpened the axe to a razor edge.

And (SURPRISE!) Anna did the plumbing so we now have running water right up to the house. Outside the house, mind. Inside will have to wait a good while, but it’s REALLY nice not to have to go to the sheds. I hope it will make Lynne-the-house-sitter’s stay more pleasant.

Well, we’ll get to the flowers in a minute, because we have actually been working in this heat. Here’s me and Maxime under the house nailing up the new under-floor, having put in the new insulation. Hopefully no more wool moths in the house. I am well tired of finding the little buggers in the kettle in the morning.

Elmo’s on a low-fibre diet today because he has an ultra-sound scan to see if anything’s wrong with his liver tomorrow. So we had scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on white toast for breakfast, with a lovely view.

I’d forgotten how much I love smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, though it is a bit rich for a hot morning.

My other big news is that I bought a bike on ebay. I’ve already got a bike, but it’s a mountain bike and even when I didn’t have a bad back I found it uncomfortable to lean forward as much as that, and now it would be impossible. So I got a sit-up-and-beg.

Now I just need a wicker basket for the front and some stylish panniers for the back.

For the third time, we appear to have accidentally got some bees in our hive which is not where we want it and probably not set up for optimal bee keeping. Well, the last two times turned out to be a false alarm, perhaps they’ll go this time as well.

The peas are really going for it, hopefully we’ll be eating them soon.

Here’s a picture of what I now know is some sweet william, which I don’t remember planting but must have done, as it has come up in some pots with some daisies at the top of the central stone steps. I like it, I think I’ll plant some more.

And finally, a plum (variety czar) which will hopefully become a lovely pudding soon!