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.

Ready To Spring Into Action

We've had two sunny days in a row up here in Castlewellan - bliss.

Sally has been taking advantage of the good weather and has taken to sunbathing on the doorstep. Good move methinks.

I have been joining her as often as I can. I'm nursing myself through a cold right now (I rarely get them) and although it is cold morning and evening the warmth of the sunshine is delightful (and with all the sneezing and nose blowing I haven't really been fit for much else).

I'm glad to be on the mend, for its really time to spring into action with the house building again.

Our official letter, the one they send a month after the initial decision - giving time for people to comment etc, was apparently sent out today. That will be 'the end of it'.

The couple of days of sunshine has been a morale booster - I'm dreaming of a sunny and warm Spring and Summer, with picnic lunches on the grass and moments of caught sunshine inbetween flurries of activity and general getting on with things. (Sally will be morale officer - usually found snoozing, as below)

We'll return next week - Sam wants the letter in his hands before he starts anything!

There are stud walls upstairs to put up, taping and jointing for me to do, the reedbed changes to sort out - it won't be dull, thats for sure.

Leo, another doorstep sunbather, is head supervisor - and cats are no pushover, so the work will have to be good.

In between my snufflings and sneezings, I've had moments of pure excitement - that we'll have a home again, that we can actively make progress and be where we want to be.

Until then, fingers crossed that there will be some more sunshine for Sally to enjoy.

Of course, it wasn't only the animals soaking up the rays. I've been tending to a few plants too. Here are the broad beans that we'll bring down to Leitrim to plant out.

Here's some garlic that will come down with us too.

Here are some saladlings that I sowed late last Autumn, as a trial. Now, there isn't a lot there, but they are coming on. There's pak choi that I might use soon and I'll probably pot on the lettuces and other wee orientals.

I did a similar trial, sowing last autumn, in the glass roofed barn. These are really coming on well (even though there isn't a huge amount, its good fun to see how well they do). Again, I have a mix of orientals - pak choi and mizuna, some lettuce and corn salad.

I also started some broad beans inside the barn early in the year and I've kept them inside until now. I'm not yet sure if I'll keep them in, for a very early crop, or harden them off - so they get to experience the great outdoors. I've interplanted them with some white viola - just for fun.

Earlier in the year, I sprouted some peas, to test their viability, and I used the tips as pea shoots. I decided to stick the remaining shoots in a pot in the glass barn. I don't know if they'll grow well - as the tips have been trimmed - but I intend to find out.

Last, but not least, are the tomatoes and peppers that were started indoors. I repotted them today and I'm hoping to transfer them to the glass barn now, before they get too leggy.

Next time, I'll post some pics from our last trip to Leitrim .. and soon, that will be our main focus again - thank goodness.