The Donated House

One last morning of work at Felin Uchaf. Steven and I finished wiring down the battens on the south side of the workshop (I only broke one wire thingy, result!) and then I made one last lunch and one last cake (it’s amazing how many advantages cake brings in the world of networking) and we were ready to go.

Puss took no notice at all. Presumably people all look the same to her, except the one that feeds her. But she was glad of a bit of sun and so was I. I hope I can take some of it back to Boggart Hall with me.

After finishing the last bit of thatching (sticking the ridge down with long bits of oak held on with stainless steel wire screwed into the rafters below and twisted round the battens) we headed out to the willow beds to coppice willow. It’s a bit late in the season for it, really, but the ridiculous cold has given us a little extension. We didn’t get through a very great deal, but at least it’s now down and drying for firewood and whatever else they use it for.

Steven mostly did the cutting down and I dragged the bits over to the piles and stripped the trunks of twigs. Somebody else will come along and bundle them and cut the trunks to burnable lengths.

And I spent the last hour of my work day finishing off the carving I’d started earlier in the week. it too me only an hour to finish the side, which had taken me half a day before. I think I might be getting the hang of it.

Now I’m sat in front of a roaring fire (which, sadly, isn’t able to heat this cold stone house in the way my efficient little stove heats my house-made-of-insulation) and writing all about it. And waiting for my dinner to arrive and my glass of wine to be filled.

Tomorrow after lunch we’re off back to civilisation and hopefully to some melting snow and a bit of gardening at Boggart Hall.

Another couple of days have passed, filled with all sort of interesting stuff, as is the custom around here. Steven and I have both done a bit more carving, and I’m getting to the point where I really want to get myself some oak and carve a new front gate or something.

We took part a little in the framing, though I’d like to do some more of that tomorrow if possible. I think tomorrow is a trial fitting day, where all the newly cut joints (that we marked out yesterday) are put together and the whole thing squared up and see where, if at all, the gaps are. Re-cut and repeat.

Puss, the shop cat, helped.

And Alice’s new puppy also stole quite a lot of attention. We took him along to Whistling Sands, a beach/cove thing near here, and he had a blast running around.

It was cold, but not too windy and it was absolutely beautiful.

The shoreline here is beautiful. Slate sticks up in toothy crags through the sand and there are caves and inlets full of smooth sand that makes an odd, whistling noise when you walk on it, and apparently on its own in a high wind. Hence the name Whistling Sands.

Just along the shore was a smaller inlet, which looked totally unapproachable at first glance, but when we walked along the top edge, we found a scary, narrow cliff-path down the face of the rock.

It was a beautiful, tiny, private beach, totally submerged at high tide but flat and explorable at low tide.

Walking back, the sun was getting close to setting and peeked through the clouds in the most dramatic way.

As we got back to the house, we spotted a hare on the path to the roundhouses. Is that a sign of spring?

Today, Steven and I had the privilege of working on the thatching. The ridge is not quite done and we did a bit of “dressing” (what an all-purpose word that is) and tightening down the battens. It was a very good vantage point from which to see the roundhouses and the timber yard.

Steven, as usual, looked picturesque.

Dressing was a matter of whacking the reeds up toward the ridge to abut the overlapping ones from the other side. Another batten will be fixed above this one tomorrow and then the tops can be trimmed off. It snowed a bit while we were up there, and I wore my hot water bottle under my fleece to keep from freezing.

I’m almost convinced to use thatch on some small outbuilding or other on my project. Steven is utterly convinced. Too bad there’s no obvious place for a roundhouse…

Here I am finishing the ceiling like a good girl.

Anna helped. Heehee. Seriously, there was limited working space, so we had to make do with the kitchen table. But it all got done and not the only visible insulation is the bit at the gable end, which hopefully Elmo will have covered when I get back from Wales.

Yeah, I’m in Wales, at Felin Uchaf again, with Steven this time. We spend the day carving decorative curves into the otherwise boring angles of jowel posts. That’s going to be our default job this week, when we’re not helping heft huge bits of frame around and other jobs for multiple people.

That was nothing.

This, this is snow.

But before we get to that, the good news. The wood was delivered *just* in time, after a wait of two weeks during which we burned a bit of the not-quite-adequately-seasoned willow and some expensive bags of kiln-dried from the local place.

The delivery guy managed to drive his rather large lorry to the top of the drive, though he said he wouldn’t do it again, given the choice. So at least I didn’t have to ferry it in the back of the car from Jane’s the way I did last time. This time I just had to chuck it down the stairs and then ferry it by hand to the woodshed.

Job done in half a day or so, and a good thing too. I also managed to finish the duvet cover, fitted sheet and four pillow cases I managed to make out of the length of sheeting I bought at Abakhan in Wales when I went with Anna. £8 worth of fabric is not bad for a complete set of bedding, though I didn’t measure properly and so my duvet cover is about 10cm too narrow. Oh well. Lily likes it anyway.

And sure enough, woodpile and duvet ready, the snow fell overnight and continued (continues) to fall.

Anna arrived Friday night on a train and there was no question of  getting the car down the hill so I walked to meet her. Luckily, it’s toasty inside, what with all this firewood and insulation. And I’d spent Friday cutting up the plasterboard, having decided leaving it out in the snow (which was blowing all over the porch) was a bad idea. So we spent some of today putting up bits of ceiling. And bits of it stomping around in the snow.

Anna had a tooth-brushing adventure, though see the end of this entry for how I trumped that…

The snow was powdery and drifty, and formed some really interesting shapes.

And tonight, because it had been about 5 days and I can’t take any more than that, I just had to wash my hair. Two kettles of water in the watering can and a steely resolve…