The Donated House

I spent the day on Wednesday digging up blueberry bushes (quite established ones!) from our allotment in Buxworth and stuffing them into the car to take them to their new home in Todmorden. Whether they’ll appreciate it is another matter, but I’m delighted to have them lining the top of the wall outside the marquee.

I’ll be even more delighted if they give me a crop this year. There are two more in the back garden of the old house, which I’ll get next time I’m there, but they’re already in pots, so it’s a fairly easy job.

I also grabbed the rhubarb while I was there, since even the best forced rhubarb from a shop is nothing on the fresh stuff, all astringent and acid and strong. I love it. Lynne came round for the first time and helped me with all this gardening, including digging a little bed for the rhubarb and the two fruit bushes I’d been given last summer (well I didn’t know where to put them til now!), a tayberry and a jostaberry, which is a cross between a blackcurrant and a gooseberry. Can’t wait to see what they produce!

I also used the pulley wheels I got off ebay to make the bed hoistable, though it took all my strength, using my foot in a loop of the rope, to pull it up. So we’ll need a mechanical advantage-giving system, which will need different rope, but we can test it with the rubbish blue plastic rope we’ve got before we invest in any nice polyhemp stuff.

The headroom underneath it is very generous, I think it will work excellently when the pulley system along the top of the side wall gives enough mechanical advantage to make it effectively 1/4 the weight it is now. That should be workable, even allowing for a mattress, bedding and two cats, when we get them. Which we’re planning to do when we move here permanently.

I got a bunch more claying done as well, and Anji started clearing out the middle shed, which is going to be super-useful storage space.

Tomorrow I’ve got Steven and Sam, so I hope to make some more progress on the roofing. I was also planning to go check out the local swimming pool, by way of needing a shower, but we’re going to be quite busy and I don’t really want to take the time, so I’m going to hope that the forecast is correct and it’ll be warm and sunny enough to use the watering can shower for the first time this year.

Well, I can certainly say I quite enjoyed it. I acquired a supply of “wet clay undercoat” which is essentially clay powder and chopped straw from StrawWorks and mixed it with enough water to make a very stiff paste, sprayed a section of wall with water and started smearing. It was really fun, actually, and not hard to get a good result.

I got as far as the niche in the end wall, which I’ve reshaped to a reasonable standard, though it’s got a few lumps and bumps. I think I’ll leave them though, and mosaic the inside curve with gold and turquoise tesserae and put candles in it.

We didn’t get as far on the roof as we hoped, partly due to blind optimism being scuppered by the actuality of fiddliness. The simple theory is: spread bitumen over an area, roll roofing felt over and press down. The real story involves more swearing and kicking things and quite a lot of backache.

But the bitumen spreaders Elmo made us worked really well and spread the stuff quite quickly, and I found that tapping along the edge with a hammer sealed down the felt edges pretty well, so at least we did a reasonably high-quality job. Below is steven demonstrating how much fun it was getting covered in bitumen.

I had been spotting a paricularly beautiful Camellia on my way home from Tod to Barnsley, and decided that I’d get one, not knowing when was the right season to do it, except that it was usually not when something was in flower, so I figured I had loads of time. But I mentioned it to my mother in law and she said now was the right time, and offered me one as a late birthday present. She also did some research and recommended one that’s hardy enough not to need my coddling (I’m not much for coddling plants; they either thrive on their own or they wither). So I headed down to Gordon Rigg’s garden centre and bought the last Leonard Messel they had and planted it on the edge of the drive in what will be a fairly shade spot until we take down the willow tree, but much sunnier thereafter.

Another major milestone was reached with the making of the first rhubarb pie of the season. I used store-bought, forced rhubarb, which I find a bit insipid and tasteless, so I will be lifting my rhubarb plant from Cherry Tree Cottage next time I’m down there in hopes of having a good crop next year in Tod.

The weather was really pleasant, partly sunny and warm enough to be comfortable, so we did a lot of eating outside.

Or on the roof…

We’d put down a bunch of grass seed last week, and bits of it are starting to sprout, though we trampled a lot of it on the roof edge while doing the gutter drips on the roof. Hopefully it will recover and become something a little more like lawn/meadow and a little less like bramble-strewn wasteland.

We decided to move the failed potato tyre-garden off the path, and found that the crop had not entirely failed. We’d planted them in early autumn in hopes of a christmas harvest, but they’d got blight almost immediately, so I cut them down. Then, partly out of pessimism and partly out of laziness, we’d not bothered to see if they’d produced anything. But while moving them up the hill to plant this year’s crop, we discovered a reasonable number of tiny potatoes, so we’ll have a small feast tonight.

We planted the new crop at the top of the steps, a variety called Swift that claims to be disease resistant. We’ll see. I’ve never had a potato crop that didn’t blight. but as long as you cut then down and burn them before it travels down the stem, you do get a crop.

Hopefully I’ll make it up there a day or two this week to clay some more.  Closer, ever closer, to moving in!

…came through a week or so ago, I’ve just been too busy (and absent from the country) to enthuse about it. I’m so relieved, I really had no idea, having never been through this, whether we’d have to make all sorts of concessions. In the end, we dropped one point voluntarily, having had it pointed out to us that it would impact the neighbours’ view negatively (and fair enough, it really would have) and we are having to put a one-meter high fence around the trees (which is just about the whole plot except the building site) which is a bit of a pain when the purpose of it is to keep us from storing piles of building materials on their root systems, which we wouldn’t do anyway. But it’s a pretty small price to pay for our dream one step closer to coming true.

I’m hoping to make a bunch more progress in the coming weeks, tiling the floor, claying the walls, making it weathertight FINALLY! and planting a sprinkling of grass seed to make a token attempt to compete with the existing weed life.

I’m also hoping to start planning a barbecue area; I’ve stripped down Alec’s knackered cooker for parts and I’m going to use the grille and oven shelves and some of the old wall bricks from the plot to build a custom outdoor cooking area. I’d like to include an oven (how hard can it be?) so it might take me a while.

I’m so glad of my friends sometimes! Many hands really do make light work. We got through *everything* on my to do list this weekend, I’m so pleased.

Elmo finished the door (which now not only closes, but locks!) and Nicola and Rob sealed and insulated the gaps around the windows and doors, while Kreya and Ryan laid the stone path to keep us from having to paddle through a sea of mud all spring.

The path was beautifully laid, none of the stones rock at all, and as soon as it gets a bit warmer I’ll plant grass seed both sides to compete with the weeds.

Alec made a diagram with all the measurements for my complicated tile cutting (couldn’t cut the gold glass ones, so had to make all kinds of ridiculous cuts to the black ones,)  Steven and Hazel cut the tiles to size and Sal helped me do the tiling, which is awaiting grouting, but thereafter we can put the stove in place.

I planted some bulbs last autumn in the big planters, but I wanted a bit of colour, so I put some primroses in little pots by the front gate.

And finally, Elmo went walking on the far end of the plot (the bit we don’t own yet) and found this vantage point of the whole plot.

We’re going to be absent for a couple of weeks now, so hopefully spring will come in our absence and March will be a good month for progress!

A quick one because I need to keep doing the busy busy busy…

Look! Miracle! Electricity!

Saturday it snowed quite hard, about 3 inches accumulation. We walked down to the (very pink) beer shop through the falling lovely snow and spent a very enjoyable evening drinking beer (or in my case, wine.)

The decor is a bit eye watering, but actually, it works when you’re in it.

The snow was beautiful on Sunday. Everyone else seems to dread the snow but I love it.

The plinth for the stove is ready to be tiled, just as soon as it’s not so cold that using my tile saw, with its water bath, wouldn’t be painful.

Anna and I built the bed frame, complete with rails that allow it to be hoisted up to the ceiling when not in use. The table and chairs will fit below it.

Elmo fitted the front door, though we ran out of time before putting the lock and handle on it, so it’s just propped shut with a rubbish bag at the moment.

I went back the next day after we’d had a bit of thaw and planted the trees that had arrived several days before. It’s going to go cold again, so there was really only the one day that the ground would be soft enough. It was a bit back-breaking, but I managed.

Two cherries, a plum and a greengage. I can’t wait for pie and jam.