The Donated House

It’s been nearly 15 years since I lived in the US and for the first several years I always made a lavish Thanksgiving dinner for me, Elmo and whoever else was around. That sort of petered out and in the last few years I haven’t really bothered.

But this year, what with the miserable weather, I felt we all needed a feast to cheer us up. I didn’t go all out, and it was a chicken instead of a turkey, but we did have a lovely little feast on Saturday to usher in the winter.

Anna carved expertly (by my standards) and we all enjoyed it throroughly, though Alec as absent and missed.

Here’s a picture of my dinner, just in case you didn’t know what Thanksgiving dinner looks like.

After dinner we went for a walk to get ready for the pie (pumpkin pie made with Libby’s tinned pumpkin, thanks Amazon!) and although it was misty and muddy, the view of Todmorden down in the valley was quite charming. That night was a bit of a fire festival, with a lantern procession and a market/carnival by the canal. It was jovial and well attended, considering that it was chucking it down all evening, and we had a wander round the market, watched the procession and then headed to the beer shop where we met up with some neighbours and enjoyed the beer.

We also managed to do a bit of work, getting the rest of the floor laid and the wardrobes moved back into place. I ran out of nails before I finished the nailing, but I’m headed back there tomorrow to finish that and get more interior stuff done.

The mist was very atmospheric, but…

When the sun comes out it’s always beautiful up there.

I am a lax, lax, lax blogger. But let he who is without communications laziness cast the first stone, eh?

And to make matters worse, I only have a very small amount of progress to report.

Sam came to stay for a few days and we managed to get a bunch of floor laid, though only as far as the door, because now we have to empty and disassemble the wardrobes in order to get the rest down. Which is a big job. But one I should, admittedly, just get on with.

I did cleverly manage to take one photo that makes it look more done than it is. Quite fetching, I think.

Elmo also got the cable we need to pipe the broadband into the house, and some water pipe to lay it in. And dug out the bit of trench that had been filled in so we could put the cable down there. So that’s sort of like progress, even if some of it really seems like negative progress. I’m sure the trench will get filled in eventually.

I did manage to take cuttings of a couple of flowering currant bushes I’d spotted in spring for being particularly pretty, in two shades of pink, one quite pale and one quite dark. I’m going to plant them in a sort of hedge somewhere if any of them take.

The only other news is that I’ve sourced a timber framer who I’m pretty sure is going to be able to help us put the frame up. She’s a friend of a friend and is currently working with a group of volunteers to erect a cruck frame barn. How utterly perfect! We won’t get to that point for at least another year, but it’s good to have found her, and in the meantime we can maybe do a mini version in the shape of a workshop/shed to replace the seriously ailing marquee.

I may or may not make it up there this week, and hope to be up there at the weekend, so *maybe* I’ll get some more done and be able to write more. No promises.

A beautiful, misty morninged, sunny afternooned weekend at Boggart Hall, with some in the way of getting stuff done and some in the way of just enjoying the place.

Gill and I had built a second “floor” on the woodstore to take the firewood, but it had been a bit damp to be chucking it down the hill since then, so it stayed unpopulated for a while.

Meanwhile, rainy weather dictating that we got on with indoor tasks, we got quite a lot of the roof insulated. But not a lot of plasterboard up. So a lot of surface-wiping goes on when I’m cooking.

At least it stays very warm now, the fire warms the place right up and we have to let it go out or it gets about 25C in there. Ok for doing sedentary things, but you can’t move around or do any work, really.

It’s feeling really autumnal up there, and on a sunny day like today, it’s just beautiful.

We did a bit of sawing up the bigger bits of the willow we’re still in the process of taking down. The little bit I did convinced me to invest in a small, electric chainsaw. But the splitting was more fun. That I’ll happily do all day.

And I like to think I look good with an axe.

I chucked (literally) the pile of wood from the pallet to the lower level and Anna and I stacked it in the woodstore. It only takes up half, so I will order another pallet of “seasoned” which is never actually very dry and season it another year. We’ll have to take moisture readings now and again and see how dry we can get it by natural drying. My little stove with its clean-burning catalytic chamber doesn’t like much moisture.

Anna’s fancy camera is finally pulling its weight; she’s taken some lovely photos while experimenting with what the camera can do. The pink gloves were a gift to me from her. Obviously it’s wonderful that they are bubble-gum pink, but more importantly, they fit me.

The finished woodpile. Very satisfying.

One of the nicest pictures I’ve seen of me in a long time.

This morning was a beautiful, misty morning with the sun breaking through and catching on the lingering droplets.

The canal lock on our walk home from the shops.

Boggart Hall grounds in the misty sunshine.

We’re currently enjoying a visit from Jim Monahan of Highland Eco whose house we (very briefly) helped to build when we were looking at inspirational projects.

Here’s a picture of the house, which I truly was inspired by. We visited it about three years ago, before we’d really considered what we wanted to do, house-wise, but we came away from that trip with a very much clearer idea of the kind of space we wanted to live in. Rowangarth (as they call it) is just such a beautiful, light, pleasant, soulful space, so well designed and so lovingly built, and Jim and Saddhavati are such lovely people, we moved several rungs up the ladder of understanding of our own house-building desires.

Although our meeting with them was very brief, we kept in touch and it’s been fantastic picking Jim’s brains about various things to do with building. I’ve come away from our conversations feeling a little like I now know *how much* I don’t know, but on the plus side, I’m ready to go and do some learning and I know which directions I need to look in.

Jim and Saddhavati are planning a reunion party for the helpers on their project, possibly next summer, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the place again, it really has so many of the elements that we want for our place. I’m also inspired to go back out looking for other self-builders to go and help and talk to, because you can never get too much exposure to what other people are doing.

We finally got the phone line (complete with new internet pole – thanks Anna for settling the age old Anglo-American argument as to whether it’s a phone pole or a telegraph pole.)

At the moment it’s only a master socket, uselessly placed in the electricity box at the bottom of the sheds, 50 meters away from the house. But Elmo seems to think he can lay cable in the trench and get it to the house on his own. Or something. I tune out where signals along wires are concerned.

Elmo made a quick call to me just to prove it worked, which was a little alarming, but quite fun. So, one step closer to internet, which is one step closer to living on site permanently!