Been Here a Year!

Happy Anniversary, House! It was on April 26th 2012, exactly a year ago that we had finished the renovation of this house far enough to be able to move in. Project Manager, Sparks shared the meal depicted here on the 25th and then departed the next day so on the 26th we left the caravan which had been home for 4 months and officially moved in to the house. We had no mattress at that stage, so we blagged mattresses off the single beds but that didn't worry us. We had created a live-able, if rather bare, space. It was a brilliant achievement of which all three of us are very proud.

No snow here but..

No snow here but plenty of rain. On this particular piece of ground at the end of this very wet year (last year, actually, I guess) any decent amount of overnight rain means we know we will wake up to some impressive puddles. My two pictures are of the pond garden; only the first is not meant to be actual pond. What we have, though, a-top our 75 m ridge between the valleys (and boggy land) of the Lough Feigh to the south and the River Lung to the north, are a good depth of lovely soil lying over clay. We are not convinced that the clay allows much downward drainage but we know that the soil layer allows good sideways drainage down the slopes either way so that when it stops raining, our puddles are generally gone by 12 hours later, certainly within 24 hours

The problem has been that in the very unusual year of 2012 (all the locals say "We've never known anything like it!") the puddles have barely drained away and the water table is still fairly high, before the next rains come and re-fill the puddles. Even in the summer, and the month of August when we had the Silverwoods up to stay for a week it did not really ever dry out to depth. They were able to camp and there was plenty of dry ground to play badminton on the front lawn etc, but nobody was kicking up any dust.

It can happen. I have seen video of the turf 'harvesting' machines down on the peat bogs in summer kicking up clouds of dust as they move about so we are hopeful that 2013 might give us some proper summer heat. In 2012 I never had to water any plants. Having taken a bit of a ribbing from some quarters for "moving to a bog" we were relieved that the wet also included the UK, where those taking the mick 'enjoyed' conditions as wet as we were. Mercifully the whole winter where we were caravan-based and building the house, was mild and dry enough that we were never prevented from working. The week we chose to do the plastering was exceptionally mild and the guys were all working in polo-shirts and short sleeves. Messing with plaster and cement is not a lot of joy when there's a frost.

As to the pond, when I get a chance to complete the digging of it, the plan is to dig down the 2 spade depths of soil to expose the clay, and then puddle and draw up a clay layer from this to form a bowl. We hope this will save us using a liner. Even if the pond does not become waterproof, if it rains in 2013 like it did this year
we should have no problem keeping it full. I will just divert the car-port run off into it via the sheep drinker. In the next few posts you will learn that we are soon getting some geese. I am hoping that these guys, puddle-ducking in the unfinished pond, might be able to help with the "puddling" of the clay.

The existing animals, of course, will always find somewhere out of the rain, even when, as sometimes happens with the cats, they are outside the house as we lock up to go shopping. The picture is of Blue on his hay bale in the chicken house, keeping an eye on any local rodent incursions.

Living in Roscommon

We are now living, at least part of the time, at the Roscommon house, planning to retreat every now and then to the Silverwoods with bags of dirty washing (and grungy bods)like teenagers coming home to Mum at the end of term. This just while there is no power or water on site. So we work through that first evening and then through Sunday and the morning of Monday getting started on the proper project, which should see us all entertained for the next three to six months.

First job is removing the plasterboard sheeting from the east end of the house in the big upstairs bedroom. This is our last chimney and we are looking to reveal a fire place which we can then rod out, clear of jackdaw nests and leave open as we have for the other three. An early punch through the boarding reveals a load of what looks like damp peat behind the plasterboard, so we think we have scored a direct hit first time. But this is not to be. The peat proves to be only a few inches deep, behind which is stone and cement. We start to open up going right and left, and digging out the peat but if there is a fireplace here then its a blocked up one. We can see where the chimney breast goes up, with its shoulders but if there was ever a hole, then it's now stone with a cement screed over. The stud wall goes straight across the room 'ignoring' the shape, so it's half an inch from the screed in some places,9 inches away, braced on horizontal struts in others.

This work goes on punctuated by coffee and smoke breaks, broken by meals wrangled on the hot range, and beginning an ending pretty much with the daylight. We get up at 08:30 as it's getting light, light fires and start breakfast, and by 16:30 ish we are running out of light. We can carry on a bit with artificial light but we have no mains voltage yet, so it's all propane gaz camping lights and battery powered 'torches' and work-lights. Inspired by Diamond's John (and Basil from the Cambria) we also clear away any debris after each short burst of destruction - "squaring away" the rubble and wooden stuff carrying it down to the rubble pile in buckets or rubble sacks, separating the wood into potential kindling and bonfire, burning what can be burned on the bonfire.

Mike-the-Cows has now dragged the old VW Golf out of the brambles with a tractor and left it down by the gate for collection (we hope) later. This has become the place to put scrap metal, hoping that the person who takes the car will also take the scrap. There are two old cookers, a very old pre-electric washing machine with mangle, a fridge lying on it's back like a chest-freezer now filled with rusty tools, nails, brackets, bits of hinge and unidentified farm-related bits.

This is turning into a long post, so I'll break off now and return to this soon.
Deefs

Bringing up the Caravan

Saturday sees us bring the caravan up from the Silverwood's to the new house. This involves the whole family coming up to deliver it and to have a good look round, but with the dogs too, that's too many people for the one car so we decide to make the trip in three cars - Mr S's people carrier to tow the caravan, and Mum and Dad's cars just to get them there. This is a Saturday morning, and the S's don't normally like to do Saturday morning too early, having spent the week doing long hours at work or early ones at School, so Mum and Dad offer a lift to anyone who can be up, dressed and ready to rock by 07:30. This proves to be Em-J and J-M. It's a frosty morning and they don't do road gritting in this part of the world, so there is some ice and black ice about. Mum, with the girls in the Fiat has an interesting sideways moment on a bit of road just north of Athlone, ending up stopped broadside across the road with Dad (and we dogs) coming at her in a T-bone manner. Luckily Dad has just enough room and grip to dive round the back of the Fiat across the hard shoulder. It would have been sad to damage both the family's cars in one incident.

The people carrier and caravan are following us along a couple of hours later when it's daylight and the frost has had a chance to melt. In between these Mum's brother "Sparks" arrives to look at the electrics and also to take a good look round and see if he fancies doing "project manager" on the rebuild, with Mum and Dad effectively acting as unskilled labourers and him telling them what to do. Much to their relief he agrees to do this. His normal work is electrician and electrics tester and certifier on big civil engineering jobs like Dublin airport, Dublin's dock road-tunnel and more recently Dohar airport but with the financial situation here at present there's not a lot of that kind of work so he's available to play on (what he would call) small (but we don't!) projects.

We arrive at the house and start to light fires and sorting stuff out. The girls race off to explore, returning periodically to see is it all right to go in an out building, or touch various bits and pieces (old cookers, wheel barrows, planks as potential bridges over steams etc.) We get a text from Mrs S to say they are only 10 minutes away and soon the caravan roof is visible above the hedges coming down the lane. The turn into the drive is a bit tight for the people-carrier and caravan, so the van gets unhitched and pushed by hand into the drive, re-hitched for towing up the drive, and then released again while it's pushed into position behind the house in the cattle-race bit. By now the girls, and now the younger ones newly released from the car have found the wet boggy bit just beyond our cattle yard and the new wellies are taking a hammering from the delights of leaping off piled up grass into the muddy puddles. Mum meanwhile wrangles up spuds, sausages and beans on the range which is now nice and hot. Everyone retreats indoors for some hot food and a chance to warm up, dry the feets and dry the wellies. We have limited bowls and cuttlery, so it's a bit of a serial meal taken in sittings.

Mid afternoon all the guests retreat, Sparks armed with his measurements and details, the Silverwoods in a variety of borrowed warm dry clothing. We adjourn back to the dining room and caravan feeling like we have finally moved here and are about to spend our first night at the new place (all be it in the caravan, rather than the house.

Good night
Deefs

No longer homeless

We head for the small town of Mountrath to collect the caravan which will be our temporary accommodation 'on site' for the hopefully short period that the 'new' house is uninhabitable. For example when we have filled the internal space with the fumes of woodworm treatment and do not wish to suffer the same fate as the woodworm dudes. Dad has no tow-hitch on his car, but Mr Silverwood has a big people carrier suitably equipped, so he has offered to do the collection run. It's a horrible wet rainy windy day and Mr S has never towed a caravan before, but he's brave and up for it.

Dad, being an ill-informed (OK let's just admit to a bit prejudiced) was a bit wary of doing business with our traveller chums, especially cash-in-hand ones, and some of them have accents with very flat vowels and indistinct consonants making them difficult to understand but Mrs S held his hand and all was well. We handed over the cash and the guy (John) didn't even check it (while we were there). Mrs S says they consider it very rude to do so. He also handed Dad a tightly folded €5 note at the end saying "a bit of luck for you". We hitched up the caravan, tested the lights and we were away, Dad following the people carrier and caravan. Mr S did very well for a new boy, keeping well clear of either side and bringing home the caravan through the rain round the twisty lanes with no problem.

Back at the house the caravan was unhitched and pushed (it's very light) up the drop-kerb and into the drive where Mrs S is gleefully anticipating the neighbours horror and curtain twitching as they expect a skew-bald pony to show up next, tethered to the gate post. With the beast home we could all have a look, and all 4 children have had a good old explore. It is nice and clean inside (normal for traveller vans, apparently) all be it with a slight smell of not-used-recently damp and mustiness. We have brought all the cushions and curtains indoors for cleaning and drying out. Dad has been exploring the electrics, gas and all that jazz.

The caravan can be hooked up to mains but Dad can not, for now, work out how you'd do the equivalent to 2CV Llew's system with an old car battery in the gas-locker. No matter. You can buy little battery powered LED 'tube' lights for camping, so if we have to, we'll use those. There is also no loo for the humans to use but there's a biggish shower-room, so we will buy a camping stylee chemical loo 'potty' and that can go in there. Now all we need is for the whole thing to be towed to the new house at some stage and we're 'game on'.

As Mrs S pointed out to Dad, we are no longer officially homeless. We own a home, all be it a van parked on someone else's property.

Deefs

Acoustic Architects

Friday night sees us all sorted with medical stuff and arriving at the caravan for the second to last weekend of the traveller lifestyle. We dogs are dumped rather unceremoniously for the evening once we've had our supper, as Mum and Dad are off to see a local folk rock band called the Acoustic Architects aboard the sailing barge Edith May moored in Lower Halstow. They are going with fellow barge-nuts, Dave B and Mrs Dave B. They have a thoroughly enjoyable evening listening to the music, singing along where allowed and shaking 'shakers' handed out for audience participation. Dad's anti-biotics preclude any drink, so he's driving, but Mum can have a glass of wine with Mrs Dave B.

The band cover a huge range of styles, with the electric bass giving the folky stuff a bit of raunch and conversely the accoustic guitars toning down the rocky stuff. They cover folk songs including some of their own stuff and songs by Crosby Still and Nash, Simon and Garfunkel, they do Fisherman's Blues (Waterboys), Float like a Cannon Ball, Be Your Baby Tonight, Ice Cream Man and even a Led Zeppelin number. There is a genuine, funny, silly level of banter between the band members and joking with the audience. It's a real blast, says Dad, and in the gorgeous olde-wood surroundings of the barge's main saloon (former main hold). Mum and Dad return starving and there is late night scambled eggs on toast to re-stock before bed.

Saturday is a day for wrangling stuff around the caravan, running errands, visiting the Cambria (now back in port) and, in Mum's case unfortunately, her turn to get injured. Also to get her hair done, prior to the injury. We shop, we buy fresh gas and blue-san and get water for the caravan, Dad digs another toilet-pit and does his thing with the tiolet-cassette. This mostly achieved while wearing what Mum calls "murderer gloves" to protect the bandage on his hand (thin disposable rubber neoprene gloves). It's all a bit Hallowe'en.

Mum's injury comes as she comes from the hair cut down to the barge and misses her footing hopping aboard, falling on her back and elbow across the deck, the fore-horse and the leeboard irons. Her new coat is undamaged outside but gets a smear of blood inside from a bashed elbow. She is shaken and mildly whip-lashed but is a brave soldier. She is fed tea and made to sit down in the galley to recover.

Back at the caravan we are visited by Dave B and Mrs Dave again, who come down to see an old derelict barge, the SB Gwynronald which is moored down there, and by 2CV Llew and his mate Derek, who come down to take the 'Kestrel' out for a couple of hours sailing on the high tide. I get taken off for a nice long walk around the Creek bank. Mum cooks a superb chook risotto and Haggis and I get to share out the bone-ends and gristly bits plus the remaining 'gloop' in the pan.

Sunday is easier - pretty much sitting around reading the papers and then a stroll to the Shipwrights pre lunch. Dad has to attend the Minor Injuries Unit to get his wound checked. Lunch is mackerel and cous-cous salad. After that we part, Mum heading back to Diamond's, we back to Pud Lady's in Hastings for our last week of that.

Deefs

More caravan

The evening of Friday had seen us all gathered again at 2CV Llew's caravan, all be it Mum slightly delayed by meeting a burning hedge in the lane and having to call out the Fire Brigade. Might have been just an excuse to entice hunky uniformed firemen into a leafy lane at night but we're saying no such thing. Mum arrives with all the ingredients for a nice risotto and the evening is warm enough for us to stay outside and fire up the log burning converted LPG cannister. Autumn does come, though, in terns of the change from chilled whites and Prosecco, to the more hearty reds. Dad cooks, we all relax into the evening, beds get wrangled and that's another evening gone.

On Saturday, Diamond is being to taken to favourite restaurant 'Le Cygne' in Saint Omer (Northern France) by John for a birthday meal, so we are babysitting Ragworth. Mum, Dad and I nip over to collect him mid morning, leaving the H asleep in the van. This lets Mum drop us all off at the Albion pub carpark from where Dad and we dogs can walk the nice hour's walk round the Creek bank to the Shipwrights' Arms and back to the boatyard that way. Dad has been warned that Rags can be a bit problematic with other dogs, but the footpath is crossed regularly by secure 'kissing gates' so Dad can let Rags off the lead and just grab him easily enough should any dog walkers come the other way. Not many do; most people time that walk to end up at the pub when it's open!

We then have a relaxing day around the caravan with all three dogs off the lead and mooching around. Diamond and John return at 6-ish to collect Rags and Diamond's comment is that never was a dog more fitted to the caravan lifestyle! He looks the part and definitely enjoys the day. Mum's cooking tonight so it's a bit more adventurous; a roast rack of lamb with vegetables and very nice too, judging by the bits of vertebrae we get at the end. Also it's a bit chilly in the wind so having got a good coal-assisted fire going in the burner for Diamond and John's visit, we now let that burn down low and retreat indoors for tonight's feast.

Sunday sees Dad get up on the alarm and vanish off to lead a Deer Walk for the Friends of Kings Wood in Challock Forest, showing the public the delights of the fallow deer rut. It goes well and they all see and hear plenty of deer and plenty of rutting buck behaviour. Dad returns and we decamp to Icklesham where there is a family meal at the Queen's Head involving Mum and Dad, Pud Lady and Dad's younger bro and sis-in-law. From there we all retreat back to Hastings where bro can show us all his holiday slides of Galway which include some of our tentative new house which bro tracked down on his way to/from the west coast.

Enough for this one, then. We are now back in the old routine of Hastings and Pud Lady's, of which more tomorrow.

Deefs

The Fire Hills

We are all off for another weekend of caravan living where we can meet Mum and do a proper family weekend again. We're missing that and looking forward to all this being over so that we can start doing it for real again on the other side of all this mallarky. First, though, Friday sees us off to the Fire Hills, Hastings's answer to the Burren scenery - rabbit-grazed close turf and gorse thickets constantly in flower. It's Friday morning and full sunshine, so the world and his wife are out there walking the dogs. We meet hundreds.

It's after lunch that we head for the caravan planning to hit Faversham early enough for Dad to do a couple of errands in town and then heading out to the boat yard to set up and wait for Mum to finish work. Dad lights the big log-burner chimney fashionned from an old LPG bottle by 2CV Llew and sorts out the power and gas for the caravan. There is nice red wine breathing. Mum arrives with a chicken to spatchcock and roast but they realise there is no roasting tin and no foil. The chicken gets jointed instead and then slow-fried in butter (which becomes "braised in its own juices"). It's a warmish evening, so we eat outside, all be it wrapped in some chunky jackets and coats. Mum has brought some cooked rice along (Thanks Diamond) and green salad. All the 'braising' is good news for dogs, as we get our normal tinned food enhanced by delicious gravy.

The bed in the caravan proves to wrangle into a king sized double bed. We know this because the fitted sheet off the bed from home only just fits round all the cushions and there's acres of space for all of us. The caravan games become a sort of practise run for when we move - Mum and Dad are looking at buying a second hand caravan similar to Llew's to use as home while the house is not yet habitable, so Mum is having fun 'playing caravans' imagining how she will organise the living side of things while we're first over. The feeling is we'd prefer a slightly bigger van so that we can leave a bed permanently set. It would be annoying having to convert back from bed to 'table and seats' every morning and back again each evening. We'd also need the shower to work. (Llew has not set his up as he does all that at home). We've sussed out though all the heating, lighting, kitchenning, storage and even emptying the toilet "cassette" (don't ask).

Both mornings at the boat yard are really frosty, with white rime all over the cars and grass. A taste of things to come, maybe, but in the caravan we are as warm as toast. We wait for the sun to melt the frost away before anyone takes a car out to source breakfast or the papers. Mum is also keen to blitz the caravan, which she finds a bit 'bloke-ish' under Llew's command. Cleaning materials are obtained and multiple saucepans and kettles of hot water are heated up so that all the cupboards, worktops, kitchen equipment etc are cleaned and put away. Dad jokes with Llew that he won't recognise the place but also won't be able to find anything. Llew laughs that he "hates it when women do that" but I don't think he's serious. We also dispose of some seriously old ketchup, BBQ sauce and bean tins, replacing them with new. There is also a very old solid jar of Safeway coffee at the back of a cupboard. How long have Safeway not been in existence?

Fun times had by all. More on this weekend in the next post.

Deefs

Lucky Heather!

We spend the night in 2CV Llew's caravan in the Hollow Shore boatyard close to Faversham. If the truth were known, Dad is going a leeeetle bit stir-crazy in Hastings. He doesn't want to appear ungracious or ungrateful but realistically he now knows no-one in Hastings and is not in any clubs or organisations to distract him, so short of dog walks and playing Scrabble with Pud Lady, there's not a lot to do and he was looking forward to the prospect of escaping for a while. Sorry, Pud Lady!

It was a lovely warm afternoon and evening as we drove up there after a roast lamb lunch (the lamb bones in our doggie bag for when we got there), and Dad texted Mum to say we were on the way. We all met up at the caravan and sat around on the 'patio' Llew has rigged up outside the door. We walked along to the Shipwright's Arms for Dad to have a couple of pints of Goacher's "Shipwreck", and then back to the caravan. Mum disappeared briefly in search of food, returning with pizzas and coleslaw and milk while Dad sussed out the electrics and the gas for the caravan. We are looking at buying a small, 2nd hand caravan to live in while we're making the Erroll house habitable, so Mum and Dad were kind of enjoying 'pretending' to be caravan dwellers.

The pizzas and salad, with coffee were eaten out on the patio as dusk fell, a candle doing the honours for relaxing lighting. Although there was a warm breeze this was mainly passing through at tree top height and did little to upset the candle flame. The Mum was gone, leaving we dogs and Dad to retreat into the caravan and sort out sleeping arrangements, basically Dad on one side bed, we two dogs on the other. We opened a window to keep airing the van through the night.

Dad woke early on the alarm, needing to link up with Mum again to take the 'big Citroen' into the main dealer's in Rainham for a service - Mum drove Dad back from the garage, dropping him at Oare Creek before heading for work. We mooched around for the morning waiting for 2CV Llew to arrive; he and friend Derek were hoping to lift Derek's sailing boat out of the water, but the tide never came in high enough to the crane-out slipway, so they'd have to put it off to Thursday. Anyway, the wind, in the opinion of the crane driver, was a bit borderline safe for hefting yacht hulls about.

So now we're back here in Hastings, Dad catching up on emails, facebook and barge-blogging, plus playing a couple games of Scrabble with Pud Lady, and I'm on here!

Deefs

Jeepers Creepers

We are out and about all day with 2CV Llew. Dad has him booked to diagnose whether the dynamo on the project 2CV (Mademoiselle) really is failing to send any charge to the battery, or whether this is just bad luck on the part of the shaky hands diagnosis of JJ. Inevitably this mission gets wrapped around with sundry other errands and tasks that distract 2CV Llew from the business in hand.

But heh, it's a lovely warm sunny day, we've nothing killing and Mum is in Ireland, so we chill out. Also, we get to ride about all day in a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which means loads of space in the back to stretch out (all be it smelling strongly of Llew's dog and dog-in-law, Rosie and a springer of whom we cannot currently recall the name).

Also we get into some interesting new places where we are fee to explore nooks, crannies, old caravans, old buildings and so on. First up is the boatyard by the Shipwrights pub where the humans have to move the caravan (pictured) from one place to another. It serves as Llew's Summer house and chill-out place and will be surrounded with potted plants, barbecue equipment and one of those pot-kiln type patio-heaters. It also has a generator, so he gets TV and all the mod cons.

Next up, we Jeep it down to a farm half way between Dover and Folkestone, off the old A20, to look at an old 2CV incomplete restoration project which the owner has contacted Dad about in case we knew anyone who might buy it. Always awake to the possibility of a bargain, Llew is on the trail. Turns out the guy also has in an out-building, a very rusty, French reg'd Ami 8 Estate, so then Dad needs to phone Andy B (being the most likely bloke to want that)

And finally, to the barn where Mmle is stored. She fires up like a dream (better than Dad's "normal" 2CV, in fact) and Llew does his stuff with the meter, but sadly confirms the JJ diagnosis. The dynamo might be generating all sorts of power, but none of it is getting out of the spinning dynamo and up any cables to either the voltage regulator, or the battery.

However, all is not lost, as Llew knows 2 different blokes called Kevin, both of whom happen to be experts in the old electrics of old cars, like Mmle's 6 volt 1961 set up. He is hopeful that one of these Kevins will be able to sort her out in time for her brave intrepid mission in May to La Chapelle d'Armentieres.

Hope you, too had a good weekend

Deefer