After a particularly busy week where a work trip and village event prep meant that we didn’t have a single free evening, we were grateful that we managed to grab a few hours on Sunday afternoon to try and catch up a bit on our chores. Our first job was to move the time lapse camera – we try to download the photos every month but this time it’s been two months since we did anything with it. As we now have the scaffolding up, we decided to move it higher so it’s got a better view of the whole site. Hopefully we’ll be able to share some of the early videos soon – the camera takes a 5 second video four times a day, so it’ll be interesting to see the changes.
Other jobs we managed to do were to sweep the back terrace – it sounds a small job but as it’s next to the bird feeders, it invariably ends up strewn with dropped nest-building material – as well as filling with gravel from the paths when it gets stuck on your boots (I can’t wait to get rid of it all, but that’s a huge job in itself). And we planted out various vegetables and flowers to make space in the greenhouse – including caning the cucumbers and melons so they’re not causing havoc draping themselves across the greenhouse floor, and filling up our pumpkin/squash bed. There’s still a lot to do but it’s looking a bit more manageable – a few more days (or a lot of evenings!) and we should have caught up. Then we’ll move onto weeding and cutting back all the shrubs so the place is less like a jungle – the plants seem to have appreciated the hot weather and all the watering we’re doing! A lot of the leafy seedlings we planted have bolted in the heat, so we’ll replace them as soon as we can.
Oh – and we managed to fix the toilet! We’re counting it as a small win – not least because it’s given us confidence to try a few more things (when we get the time) – the fittings in both the bathroom and ensuite are old (both stylistically and looking worn) so we’re going to give them a go when we next have a wet day or have caught up with the garden jobs.
Our builders have been loving the dry weather and have made huge progress this week. Last week they’d installed the first roof light in the three-bed barn – now all roof lights are installed and they just need to finish putting the tiles back. Our carpenter Dean has also been incredibly busy inside the barn – he’s installed the first floor above the new bedroom and bathroom so you can get a sense of how the building is going to look. It’s almost a shame that we’re going to finish that barn in a later phase, as it’s exciting seeing it progress so fast.
We also now have a wall along the whole of the shippon – not just the section that’s going to be the one-bed cottage. Our builders have put in the steel lintels above the windows and doors so that the building is now structurally able to stand without the internal acrow props. With the insulation starting to go on too, it looks like a real building again! Our stonemason has been incredibly busy building up the walls of our garage ancillary building too – his work is genuinely incredible. We’re starting to run out of stones already though, which is so frustrating as we have plenty of stones we didn’t get time to dig out from the footprints of the old barns, one of which is now under the builders’ cabin. We’re doing whatever we can to save money so having to buy something we have but can’t access is a little galling.
We took the opportunity with this weekend’s visitors to test out a local day out to the coast – walking from Uplyme to Lyme Regis, crossing the county border into Dorset. It’s only just over a mile walk each way, down the River Lim path mostly through woods – nicely shaded in sunny weather. We started off at the Talbot Arms in Uplyme for a drink before setting off, then grabbing lunch in Lyme Regis. We want to be able to offer our guests plenty of ideas about things to do – this one is particularly good for dog owners as most of the beaches in Lyme aren’t dog friendly in the summer months, so this gives an opportunity for pooches to stretch their legs before getting to Lyme where it’s a bit busier.
Ley Farm Cottages 