No more power lines! 

After last week’s storm disruption, it was a relief to receive confirmation that National Grid would finish connecting up the power on Thursday (although a day working from home without power was stressful to say the least!). But the outcome was definitely worth it – the power lines are now buried underground from the first pole in our garden through to our neighbour’s pole, and the overhead cables and the pole in our orchard have been removed. There are still a few things to finish off – the stay in our vegetable garden has been left in the ground along with a length of cable, and our neighbour still has the old pole as while the electricity supply has been moved to the new pole, Openreach still need to move their cables across. A huge delivery of stone arrived on Thursday too and our builders have been very busy filling in the trenches; and our brick delivery arrived on Friday ready for us to replace the gravel path with a brick one next week. 

Our builders have also dug out new trenches in the courtyard and started laying the pipes for the sewage from the three new barns – which will go out into the courtyard and then underneath our main barn and out to a single treatment plant behind the barn’s back garden. The plan is also to route the farmhouse sewage into this too and fill in our existing septic tank, as the new one is much more efficient in terms of cleaning.  

Another level of scaffolding has gone up around our garage building so the stonemasons can reach the top of the roof. It’s much bigger than the previous one storey building but the stone walls mean it fits really nicely in with the surrounding buildings. There’s a lovely view of the farmhouse from the scaffolding too – such a shame there won’t be a window to see it once it’s all finished.  

Inside, our new house is fully plasterboarded now, and our ensuite plumbing has been started. Our ‘plant room’ (cupboard!) has been laid out too in a way that hopefully means we’ll have enough room for shoes and coats too, to keep the corridor clear. We went in to have a look at progress and start to think about paint colours, as it won’t be long before the front door is in, the plastering is done and we need to be ready! It’s definitely exciting to see it all come together, even if it is starting to get a bit nerve-wracking just thinking about how much work we’ve got to do and when we’ll fit it all in… 

We mixed things up this weekend – starting with our annual ‘autumn colours’ walk on Saturday, which is really an excuse to make sure I get out and actually enjoy where we live as it’s all too easy to get caught up in jobs or visitors (we also have an annual ‘spring bluebells walk’). The leaves weren’t as orange as they were this time last year, but some fresh air and lovely views still made for an enjoyable walk, even if we did need to hotfoot it past a field of cows before they noticed us! 

We also made a start on a couple of badly-needed jobs in the garden while it was dry on Saturday, and then carried on painting the top floor on Sunday. It seems to be taking forever because there are so many fiddly areas, and everything needs three coats (including the primer). We finished the shower room and the new door this weekend so that’s ready to be hung and our builders to install everything now, and primed the rest of the plastering up the stairs and on the landing. Hopefully we can use the next few evenings to catch up…