May 17th 2020

[H] Another month gone and we’re still finding plenty we can get on with despite lockdown. Malcolm is still “self-isolating in the digger” for a couple of hours most days, but he’s now moved on to pecking rock. Part of the new house is going to be built where the crag is so the crag’s got to go. Some of the rock breaks away ok, some of it is pretty stubborn. It’s very noisy and it seems never-ending but, bit by bit, the big lump of rock is slowly getting smaller.

We have installed a drain along our new boundary wall to help disperse surface water that used to cause flooding at the foot of our drive and overflow into next door’s garden. Fingers crossed this will help both us and the neighbour, although you never really know what the water’s going to do until it rains heavily (and we haven’t had any rain for a couple of months now). On Friday we moved the caravan, down from the top of the old drive to a new location by the gate. It was a bit tight manoeuvring the car and caravan down the steep slope and bend in the drive but we managed it with no damage done to either car or caravan. The caravan is now the other side of the drive from our power and water supply so we’ve buried a length of old downpipe (off the old house!) under the drive so that we can run the power cable and hosepipe through it to the caravan’s new position. Hopefully the caravan can stay here for the duration of the build as it’s out of the way of any excavation or building.

With the caravan moved, Malcolm is now free to start digging away at the top of the crag. We have no idea how much of it is stony earth and how much is solid rock and he’s dying to find out. First job - dig out the old power cable and water supply that ran up to the old house. The old power cable was a beast of a thing, full of copper and lead, weighed a tonne and was well buried about two feet under the old drive. But with Kubi’s strength and Malcolm’s increasing ability at the controls, the cable was out, beautifully curled up with the rest of the scrap metal and the trench filled in again, all within half an hour. That digger is worth its weight in gold – we couldn’t do any of what we’re doing at the moment without it.

At South View all the walls and ceilings on the top floor are now gone. The old lime plaster that we stripped off the walls is non-toxic and environmentally friendly so we bagged that up and added it to the hardcore at Cragside to help bind the larger bits of crushings together. The lathes make great kindling and old timber studs can be re-used or chopped up for firewood. The only things we’ve had to set aside to take to the tip are the old night storage heaters, plasterboard from stud walls and the cement render that some of the stone walls had been patched with in the past. Having cleared the top floor I then spent three days re-plastering the stone gable walls with insulating lime plaster. It’s amazing stuff - very light, easy to work with, good thermal properties, eco-friendly and, most importantly, breathable.