nogsland

Well winter has well and truly arrived. This weekend it rained, and it rained. I stopped looking outside when the rain gauge topped 100mm, the dam overflowed and the Geese swam by in an area where you wouldn’t normally expect to see Geese swimming. The only upside was that it was not hideously windy as well, however, with no sun all week, we were looking a bit ropey from a power perspective. We were running out of diesel for the generator and looking at things to turn off when it became academic because the generator broke. Chris spent some hours in the pouring rain trying to fix it to no avail. So in the end we just waited for the inevitable, which happened around 3am this morning, when the power ran out. I showered in candlelight first thing and came to work hoping Chris could work some magic. After several more hours he called to say that he had fixed it and then he drove into town to get some diesel. It will be a tough week with very little sun predicted, so I hope the generator hasn’t decided to start being difficult.

Meanwhile, with the heavens well and truly open we decided to do work inside the house. Because we are now doing the straw bales for the gable and the gable is a triangle, one needs to improvise with the shape of the straw bales. We had a large roll of hessian, so I set about making sand bags on the sewing machine which we could then stuff with straw and use for those awkward angles. When I had done what felt like 10,000 bags and had started to identify with criminals sewing mailbags, I then had another challenge to face. I had to conquer my fear of working at height balancing on very little. I am ok once I’m up there but transferring from a precarious ladder onto a wooden beam which is quite a long way from the ground is not something I excel at. After a few girly tears with Chris trying very hard to be supportive and not tell me to stop being pathetic, I managed to clamber onto the beam and shimmy across onto the temporary plywood flooring so I could hand up the bales to Chris who was balanced even higher still on a rocking yellow scaffold. I really wouldn’t have liked a visit from health and safety at that particular point in time. Anyway, we got most of the gable done which is great. The down side is that the other gable doesn’t have a first floor for us to put the scaffold on, so is very high without a net. We are still debating how we do that one.

The bathroom frame is starting to go up, I have a chair placed where the toilet will be and I am now able to sit on my temporary throne and visualize where things will end up. We have moved the shower and the staircase and I’m still not sure how it all fits, but Chris assures me it does. The windows are set to arrive this weekend which is very exciting so we might be putting them in and have a sealed house in time for winter, very grand designs timing I thought. However, we still won’t be in before Christmas before anyone asks….