Going with the flow

This may not look too exciting, but we've been waiting for this moment for a long time now. We finally have running water :-)

It really feels very exciting .. to turn on a tap, rather than just using jugs!

We finally got the necessary water treatment filters fitted, last Friday, so now our water is EU drinking quality standard. We had a LOT of manganese and iron and some bacteria, so we did need it. Also, our water is very hard, which wouldn't be good for the aerating taps.

Here's our water treatment system - which we managed to shoehorn into the shed.

The blue cylinder is the 'mixed bed' filtration for iron, manganese and water softening.

This is the Ultra Violet light to kill any bacteria.

This unit contains salt and some water and is used to wash out the mixed bed filter.

There are the salt tablets, in water.

It's strange having soft water now. Very good for washing as it lathers easily, but not so nice to drink. I may put in a re-mineralization filter under the sink, with a separate tap for drinking water, so I can drink alkaline (hard) water. Seems silly, but I am 70% percent water and I do drink a lot of water, so, for me, it's worth it.

Prior to that excitement, I've STILL been oiling and Sam has been busy tiling the bathrooms (after we sourced some fab cheap tiles when we couldn't get more of the tiles we bought back in 2009, we looked for ages and it held us up a while, but now we're all set).

Here's himself in full flow.

This is the floor in the downstairs bathroom.

Here's Sam working on the upstairs bathroom floor.

Nearly done ...

All done ...

and approved by myself.

Sam's also painted the walk in wardrobe (which is bigger than my first home from home).

and laid the wooden flooring in it,

which I have also given my seal of approval.

Next up, is tiling the bathroom walls, so we can get the sinks and toilets plumbed in, trying some on oil the wardrobe floor and more dry lining and painting. I've also just started getting back into the garden (just picked the last broad beans and some onions) and may even plant a few bits in the tunnel soon. It's even possible that I'll finish oiling the upstairs ceiling soon.

A BIG week

What a week - at last we have mains electricity and it's great fun.

There is great novelty value in staying up after dark and having the fridge in the caravan actually cooling things and being able to run tools, charge phones etc without having to put on the generator and find lots of things to run at the same time. I have a feeling I'll quickly get used to it again, but for now, its quite luxurious.

Here I am all excited about having lights :-)

As if that wasn't enough, we also had another landmark moment last week. I got re-untied with an old friend - the polytunnel :-)

It may be in a different location and have a different cover, but its still my dear friend and I'm REALLY excited about having it back up here.
This time it will be no dig. I've covered the area in cardboard and some tarpaulin for now and soon I'll get some compost to mulch over the card - so I can plant some winter salads and other winter and spring crops. I'll probably just plant up a small area this year and do most of it next Spring. Sam was REALLY worried that with power (meaning potential to be online all the time) and the tunnel up that I'd disappear from the build, but I've been very restrained and am still mainly doing 'house' stuff (but will be able to blog a little more often).

For the past while I've been oiling the upstairs ceilings - with a mix of linseed oil and white pigment. (The pigment helps give the wood a pale almost limewashed finished, which is handy as the wood had darkened too much while we were away .. we'd planned to oil it in 2009).

Here I am paintbrush in hand.

You can see the difference the pigment makes in this picture.

Other than that, I've been sorting out water filters - so we can have running water in the house (that will be BLISS) Sam's sorting plumbing and dry lining and I'm occasionally remembering to weed the garden.

Our supervisor and morale officer, the wonderful Sally Bongo, is on light duties for a while after having a cruciate operation a couple of weeks ago. She thinks she can jump as normal (which won't help her heal) so we have ramps to the doors and barricades on the stairs. Luckily she's on great form, now has her stitches out and is putting up with us lifting her in and out of the site office caravan very well (she looks at us like we're very silly, as she KNOWS she could jump up just fine).

Once the ceilings are oiled and the dry lining complete, we'll be able to paint the walls upstairs. Then we can put down the floors up there and when the bathroom is done that will be the upstairs pretty much DONE. Happy days.