Feeling rusty

Like these poor tools, I'm feeling a little rusty at the moment. I was using them for doing the taping and jointing before we left the build in Autumn 2009, so they've had a lot of time without being used.

In fact, coming back to the build, a lot of things felt a bit 'rusty' - a bit disheveled.

Of course, the more we looked around, the more there was to do.

Once the tools are cleaned up - I'll have to get back to that taping and jointing ... and in a weak moment I caught myself wondering how on earth, I (novice) was meant to do a great enough job at it that we won't need to plaster the walls - no pressure then! Hmm, a novice perfectionist - smells like trouble to me.

There are wires sticking out of walls everywhere waiting for connections and sockets .. and plans to come together.

Outside, the rendering needs to be done in those small awkward places (and get which novice perfectionist will get to do that?)

Inside, mess abounds. Here's the pantry in waiting - filled with cardboard (mulch in waiting)

The hall is full of plasterboard, waiting to go upstairs, when we put the walls up.

The kitchen is full of insulation, also waiting for upstairs.

Upstairs actually looks pretty calm right now - and I do love the openness of it as it is, but rooms are very useful, so the stud walls will go up - once the ceiling is finished (which will be completed once the plumbing for the solar panels goes through the roof).

In the picture below you can see the the ceiling is up (part way up anyway) on the left hand side only.

Outside is looking a bit rough too. The pond is covered in green sludge, see below.

Nice, huh.

At least there was some frog spawn in a clear patch.

In a sunny spot my beloved Melissa (Lemon Balm) is starting to show - there is nothing quite as lovely as fresh picked lemon balm tea in the summer - bliss.

I removed a lot of strawberry (Sophie) runners from the gravel by the old strawberry bed and potted them up - not too late I hope.

It's looking a bit messy there, as you can see. I felt like more of an archaeologist than a gardener at times - trying to figure out where the bed edges had been.

Of course, I was under the supervision of Miss Sally Bongo (morale officer extraordinaire) so I managed to tackle a bit of weeding.

The membrane (that was at the entrance of the tunnel and is now just the entrance to the veg bed) was really weedy and has become very brittle, so I'll have to put another layer on top and will gravel over that.

Here is some path excavation that I managed before rain stopped play. I'll need to memebrane all the paths. I didn't want to cover them in gravel - as it can be uncomfy under knee - but we have spare gravel so I might do it anyway .. and use my kneeler.

We'll be down again tomorrow and will be sure to celebrate, as it's the house's 2nd year anniversary. The shell went up on 10th March 2009. It was such a memorable day. The huge lorry that had our house on board (that almost toppled over on the way in - all the fun of the fair before 8am), seeing the house being craned into place, section by section (and playing guess where the section will land). I don't think there'll be another day quite like it. Here's a quick reminder of the flying house.

So, we have come on quite a bit since then (I hardly dare wonder what it will look like this time next year).