The Donated House

Well, alright, it was a bit overcast yesterday, but actually that made it much pleasanter to work. Maxime, above, our French volunteer, dug a massive hole for a soakaway for the runoff from the roof. He then filled it with rubble and put soil and grass back over the top. Today I bought a new water butt and downpipe system, so we will say goodbye shortly to the difficult and unwieldy gorilla tub collection system!

Meanwhile, I had found a suspended pot rack at a charity shop, so I spend the morning attaching it to the ceiling and devising a rope hook system that allows me to easily pull it up or down to measured places. A little extra storage goes a long way around here.

The blueberries are starting to look good. I’ve mulched and watered them quite liberally and they are looking really healthy. There may be a pie in the offing this year.

Our pool of tadpoles are turning into frogs. There are at least a couple of hudred of them, though fewer every day. (Apparently they eat each other. Grim.)

And above the tadpole tank, the very gratifying and successful Rose Albertine that Michelle gave me, which she promises me will cover the whole wall, and I believe her from the progress it’s made in a year. Thanks, Michelle!

Bit of a heat wave going on here, very unusual weather for England and I’m loving it (when I’m somewhere near a river or lake)

Anna, Lizzy and I went swimming this afternoon at Slippery Stones, a spot above the Derwent valley reservoirs, beautiful and popular on a day like today.

We had a picnic dinner on the grassy slope next to the swimming hole, though the midges were really very annoying, so we kept it brief.

The pumkins and courgettes seem to be still alive, and promising to produce at least some flowers soon. I need to water them tomorrow morning, as I’ve forgotten the last few days and they’re getting a bit dry, what with the 26 degrees.

The hanging baskets have been watered, because I really made the point to Elmo that they needed to be while I was away, but he’s been really busy on the computer with work, so I’ll have to do the rest myself.

Look! Peas! Or I hope they will produce anyway.

We found a lovely paved area at the base of the stone wall on the far side of the central steps, though some of the wall has fallen in and needs to be rebuilt. At some point we will have to use ropes to make a sling to move the stones away so we can dig out behind the wall and rebuild it. That will make a much better storage area than we currently have for things like roof tiles and other rain-insensitive materials.

I’m having a busy week teaching morris dancing to small children at a primary school (anyone who knows me will get a big laugh out of that) but I am finally finding time to post some pictures from last weekend.

Naturally, gin figured large. I made several kinds and had particular fun making the labels. That’s really how much there was of the Cherry gin, I didn’t just drink half of it before the party.

I had a lot of fun doodling on the labels.

And the curly-baroque inspiration helped with the cake, which was the smoothest-running cake I’ve ever done. Nothing went wrong at any point. I’m sure it’ll never happen again.

At the white stage, it looked like a perfectly presentable normal-person’s wedding cake (not like the crazy-coloured wedding cakes I tend to do)

But after a few hours’ painting it looked more like my normal style. I was really pleased with it, and luckily so was Anna.

The roof for the building worked alright, which is a good thing because it was raining on the Friday. In fact, I had to climb on top of the pergola in the rain to put the thing up. And it stretched a lot more than I anticipated in the rain, so it was a tiny bit saggy, but nobody noticed.

The sun did finally come out, and the rain didn’t really trouble us after that.

I do love it when party guest get to work. They cleared out around an old water tank and emptied it, including two people climbing into it to shovel out the mud from the bottom. Nothing short of heroic.

At one point during the weekend we were convinced that a family of bees had taken up residence in the hives, but by the next day there was no sign of them, so we assume they were just doing a bit of exploration and house-cleaning.

Steven took on the form of an imp while building the fire to burn all the weeds from the newly cleared ground. He’s the best.

Mid afternoon on Saturday we stopped for the official birthday ice cream. I’d made six flavours: lemon curd, peach pie, espresso, peanut brittle, maple pecan and strawberry lime. I thought the peanut brittle was amazing, but the strawberry lime won the most votes. I need to practice more and learn how to get the texture right.

Mixed salad, quinoa salad and potato salad for the evening feast.

Elmo built a truly Elmo fire.

It was so hot we had to crawl on the ground to get close enough to it to cook.

After stuffing ourselves with sausages and teriyaki beef (which now officially contains sherry, the best secret ingredient ever) we lit up the wonder-cake and sat around admiring it for a while.

Ok, I might be a little self-congratulatory, which is probably contrary to cultural norms, but yeah, I was proud of that cake.

I think this is Anna’s “I can’t think of a wish” face, not the “disdain” face. She assures me.

And finally: Sunday morning we woke up to the ultra-cute sight of Lily having found a comfy place to sleep. It’s a good thing she’s not allergic to cats.

We went to a garden centre and were seduced into buying some ready-started plants, thinking this might save us from having not got round to preparing the ground til mid June. We’ve put the peas in, but I’m afraid the ground is not getting dug over fast enough to save much of the rest. Procrastination strikes again. Still, peas is better than no peas.

I remembered to put the cable spool in before adding the north wall, which is good because I’d have had to dismantle the north wall otherwise.

The ridgepole went up yesterday.

And the rafters went up today. Then I went to the garden centre and spent the rest of the budget.

Seriously, this place makes me unbelievably happy. It’s so movingly beautiful here in the sunshine and warmth.

Alec and I worked on the second wall of the building while Elmo went to Buxworth to take apart the greenhouse and bring it home.

With the second wall up and all the wall tops in place, it looks pretty good. Tomorrow we’ll do the other two walls and possibly the ridgepole, though I might wait til I have some rafters. I’ve got the beginnings of a plan for a removable fabric roof swimming around in my head.

This year’s Montmorency cherry harvest looks set to beat last year’s (of one) and there are some on the Albalu as well, while last year there were none, presumably because the tree was too new.

And the plums seem to have set as well, though the greengage never even blossomed. At least it’s putting out new growth, so maybe next year.

I made some peanut brittle to celebrate the perfect joy of living here. As if I needed a reason.