Bricks ahoy!

We all got our tape measures out this morning and are now agreed footings for the garage have been laid out one foot too short. More concrete will be required. This hasn't prevented them starting work on the block work for the rest of the house.

This is still only up to floor level - once they have finished all the way round they will fill up the hole with insulation. Unless it rains, in which case we'll have a swimming pool instead.

Going up! (1 of ??)

Heading back up to ground level - the concrete for the footings going in today. On the left you can see Peter the Architect and Ray the Contractor. We are however exercised about the question of whether they've made the workshop the right length. We think that they've dug the trench slightly too short.... but that's tomorrow morning's problem:

Latest

Let me introduce you to the site office aka Ray's Shed

It is a splendidly appallingly vivid shade of green and smells of new paint. And next the workshop-to-be

Best not to show the builders the following picture

while below is what it looked like as I passed in the Cirrus yesterday. the arrow to the right marks the plot and foundation work, the arrow to the left is where are are now living:

Not completely without foundation...

The building works are progressing apace but don't worry, there are other bits which are still causing sufficient stress to keep us on our toes. Yesterday Ray-the-Builder laid out the house position on the plot - to my delight using pink string! So we were able to walk round the inside of the new house for the first time...

TA

Some stay in caravans or move in with the in-laws; this is our Temporary Accommodation: We are the building on the right - a converted outhouse of some sort. On the left is the old coach house which is now a gym, and the shadow is from the wall of the gorgeous walled kitchen garden. The big house itself is behind me - a very fine agglomeration of a Georgian country house and a farmhouse joined together in more recent times. Our walls are clad magnificently in climbing hydrangea which is just about to come out - it's going to look gorgeous and will no doubt feature in a future blog page.

House? What house?

It's impressive how well they've cleared the site! The huge tree stump is out and there's no hole.

For the amusement of all who are following the blog, just to the left of Alan you can see the trunking sticking out of the ground with the water supply that we can't turn off without causing a drought up the hill. Looks like that is next week's problem...

Took them only an hour or so to do this:

Mind you, the wusses then vanished - put off by the torrential rain for most of the rest of the day...

Wednesday night

Still on track...

Did I mention that yesterday the Electricity Board came and connected the new power supply exactly when they were supposed to? No, really! Less than a week of the new government and everything's sorted out already?!? Anyway, close of play today looks like this:

Utterly roofless...

It all starts tomorrow

It was very exciting last week to get a build programme - and here it is:

Shall we open a book on whether it all goes to plan? No takers? I thought not! Still, tomorrow the demolition crew arrive to start dismantling the bungalow. We've emptied everything out that we want to keep, and Charlie next door has had several roof tiles although the demolition crew belatedly decided they want to keep them and stopped him taking any more. So this is what it looks like today.

I have to get the early train up to London and won't be back till late - what will it look like when I get back?

Good news bad news

Well the GOOD NEWS is that by Sunday night we'd completely emptied the bungalow - stuff had either moved up the hill in with us or was stored in the stables. The BAD NEWS is that the broadband wasn't due to be installed until sometime up to today (remember that)in spite of it being them at fault for screwing up the installation when we originally asked them. The GOOD NEWS is that on Tuesday morning the electricity board disconnected the electricity. The BAD NEWS is that the water board failed again to find the stopcock. The GOOD NEWS is that we had our pre-start meeting with Ray the contractor and Peter the architect yesterday and there seems to be a plan for pretty much everything, or at least a plan for a plan. What appeared to be more GOOD NEWS was the water board coming back and finding the stopcock!! Hurrah we said and turned off the water. The BAD NEWS was that an hour or so later the next house up the hill came round and asked if we knew any reason why they had no water...The next BAD NEWS is that Plusnet now say we won't get broadband until the middle of next week! The next BAD NEWS is that Ray has been speaking to the portakabin people and they can't get a cabin on site for a site office. The GOOD NEWS is I think we are now beyond caring but it may be tempting fate to say that :~