More on that build up

The observant amongst you will have noticed that we are now starting to publish a few pics of the humans involved in this saga. This with their permission of course, but mainly because all our readers have long since worked out who we were or got bored and moved on. These three pics then are of the sunset as seen from our dining room, out across the 2CV and the Fiat and through our very big mature Scots Pine trees. The second is of Dad relaxing in the caravan with both of us dogs and the third is of Dad enjoying a bit of pitch forking. The fork was among the few things of any use found in the outbuildings, most of the tools and implements having long since succumbed to woodworm so that the metal heads dropped to the ground under their own weight when lifted by the handle. So far we seem to have inherited from TK Min, just an ash tray / saucer, an enamel roasting dish in which, cleaned up, we have managed to roast a duck (see picture on previous post) very successfully in the range, and this hay fork. The handle of the fork is clean and new as if it has been nowhere near the woodworm.

Mum and Dad believe that this out building which has 2 human-sized doors and a chimney may be the original farm-house or single room cottage where the family would have lived until they moved into the 'new' house circa 1900. The chimney was clear but the hearth full of the inevitable jackdaw nest twigs and old debris, so Mum and Dad thought it would be fun to clear the area and light a fire in the hearth. This was just straw and old paper but it sent some smoke up the chimney while Mum and Dad sat back and thought that this was probably the first smoke going up that chimney for 100 years plus!

That was the plan, to do just the one full day and two nights up at Roscommon this week before retreating to Silverwood's for the 4 days of Christmas. We drove down today via the camping shop in Blessington (OK that's a bit of a diversion) where we needed a new mantle for the gas light. Those camping gas lights are very good but the mantle once burned to ash is very brittle and don't like being bashed around, so you need to keep a reserve of spare mantle cloth "tubes" available. We were welcomed 'home' by all the gang and have been fed and lubricated generously. We two westies and Coco the Yorkie have been shampooed to within an inch of our lives (and By God I needed it!).

Clean, fragrant, warm and dry!
Possibly staying clean for at least 4 days
Deefs

The run up to Christmas

With Mum through her cough and back feeling ready for some more house-bashing, we head back for the house in Roscommon. The children are still at school, so we do the school runs first and also call off in Roscommon town for some essentials, not eventually arriving at the house till about midday. Mum heads for the caravan to make coffee, Dad into the house to get the usual fires going, one in the hearth in the living room, the other in the range. Rather fortunately we have discovered a stack of very old, almost rotted through sacks of anthracite on a pallet amongst the grass by the skeleton formerly known as "hay barn". The pallet and bags are almost gone but the anthracite is made of sterner stuff and a half bucket lobbed onto the range fire or into the real fire lasts hours and gives more heat than the peat briquettes or turves.

As a result of all this daily heat we are noticing that the poor old house, which has seen 15 sequential unheated cold damp Roscommon winters is starting to dry out and warm up nicely. There is residual heat in the place and the copper tank is still nice and warm when we first go in of a morning and we also think that chopping off the plasterboard walls, taking down ceilings and clearing away rubbish and dodgy floor layers lets the warm air get in and around helping to dry out the damp-traps. This morning we even noticed that the kitchen floor and the floor of the 'foyer' are properly dry in the morning despite rain all night, we have not seen that before - they've always been damp from wet walked in on our feet and boots the previous day.

Over these two days the jobs are to take down the ceiling of the right hand bedroom (east end), to take down the ceiling and the plaster board walls of the kitchen (plus cutting through the old plumbing of the ancient kitchen unit, removing it and breaking it up into scrap metal and bonfire). For a bit of fun we also clear out the out-buildings we are calling "the office" and "the original cottage". The latter is named because although it is now a byre, it has a chimney and a human sized door either side, making us think it was originally human habitation, abandoned when the new house was built circa 1900. Among the junk we are tossing out (old rotted wooden barrels and oil drums, wood-worm ridden farm implements and tools, numerous sacks of old baler twine bundles, bags of bags and an old shipping luggage chest labelled Queenstown. Queenstown as far as we know was renamed Cobh (Cove) in the 40's, so how old this old chest was we weren't sure, but it was crumbling with woodworm so it went on the bonfire.

Enough for now.
More soon
Deefs

Scrap Metal

A few more pictures from the early days of the project. First up a shot of Dad and the famous pre-electric washing machine with the wringer mangle attached at the back. In fact when we went to dispose of this we found a load of what was presumably washing from 15 years ago including the ol' man's shirts, still dry and perfectly preserved, waiting for the wash. Next a general view of the scrap and the car. 3rd one of the H man who had been helping to clear out the outbuilding known as "The Office" - it was where the farm had stored a load of farm-office type stuff. The other two out buildings are known as "The original house" - (it's obviously a cottage with a front and back door, one room and a fire place and chimney at one end) and the "Milking Parlour", self explanatory. Finally a shot of the bonfire heap with we two dogs in attendance.

Deefs

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

Where's My Bike?!!!

There is an enforced day off from the house-wrangling today as Mrs Silverwood takes Mum off for some extreme shopping in Portlaoise leaving Dad to wrangle children.It is the day for the play school to which Toddler-R (4) goes, to do their singing-in-a-circle for the Mums and Dads (and Uncles in this case), have their visit from Santa, get a present and get face-painted if they chose. This went well and kids were very sweet sitting in the circle doing their stuff except for R who was so excited to see Santa, who'd come in to hear the singing, she kept jumping to her feet and running over to stand in front of Santa, hopping and bopping and wondering where the presents were.


Unfortunately when the present arrived it was "NOT A BIKE" (it was a perfectly good, sweet rag-dolly) so there were tears and tantrums. Dad and Em-J calmed things down trying to explain that this was an extra and the bike would still come on the real day if she was good, tears were dried away and rather sad face presented to face painting babe to be converted into a pink and multi-coloured butterfly. The troops returned via the Super-Valu supermarket for hot sausage rolls and "chippies" and now all is serene as this is eaten on the sofa with we two dogs in eager attendance looking hopeful and hungry.

Mum and Mrs S are off Christmas shopping but also in search of all things camping which Dad does not already own from 2CV camping ready for the first night when the caravan is at the new house. This is stuff like a big water 'jerry can', oil lamps, oil for same and provisions. The plan is to take the caravan up there tomorrow and Mum and Dad and the two cars, so we've effectively moved up there. Momentous day! Also there that day will be Sparks checking out the electrics.

Deefski

Cow Yard

Step outside the kitchen at the new place into the fresh air and you are stepping into what we call the cow-yard. It's a small area about 40' by 40' surrounded by the house, outbuildings, a stone wall and two galvanised farm field-gates. It would be familiar to anyone who has worked on a small dairy farm, and Dad certainly had one when he first started as a "GFW" (general farm worker) during student days. It provides an area to contain the cows when you've got them in for milking, or to manage them when they are 'indoors' so that they don't "poach up" (chop up by trampling) the fields when these are too wet. Generally they are either concrete or have a crushed stone base which you keep reasonably clear of poo by scraping and shovelling each day to save the poor beasts getting foot rot from wading around in cold wet poo all day. This one has a stony base.

When the farm became too much for TK Min and was abandoned, we assume that there was no great effort to clean up, scrape up poo etc, so the yard sat for 15 years with what must have been a good layer and this has long since grown a nice thick carpet of grass. Why am I telling you all about this? Because that is exactly where we want to stand the caravan when Mr Silverwood brings it up on Saturday and, rather than hop in and out of the caravan onto boggy grass, all be it only 3 inches or so thick, we decided that today's job would be to pull up some of this carpet to give ourselves clean dry concrete or stones to walk on. Wrapped around that we did all the usual lighting fires and strolling around scratching chins in a thoughtful manner, planning stuff. Mum and Dad even brought up from Silverwoods some left over garlic bread and pasta with meatballs which got heated up on the range in a first effort at cooking in the new place.

Dad loved the sounds and feel of the poo shovelling, evoking those early GFW years; the hollow scrape of shovel along wet concrete and then the swing, swoosh and splop of the wads of soggy wet poo flying off the shovel and hitting the muck heap. The humans are aching and tired now and will not need anyone to sing them a lullaby. We have returned to Silverwoods for a Birthday tea for J-M (12) which featured some of those trick re-lighting candles on her cake. I came home so manky from the exploring the poo job and piles of muck that Dad was too embarrassed to let Mrs S see me and was reduced to shampooing me in the kitchen sink before they came home