September 16th 2019

[H] Progress over the summer has been slow as we've been distracted by visitors, a family wedding and holidays. We have managed to clear a lot of shrubs and trees ready for groundworks to commence, chopped them up for firewood, dug out some of the front bank, started the terracing, steps and stone walling around the shed area and been up to the local quarry several times with our trailer to collect a tonne at a time of hardcore to make up the base for what will be a paved area next to the shed. And of course each time that tonne needs shovelling out of the trailer into wheelbarrows, carting around the house, tipping out, raking and packing down. It's all been quite physical and, for much of the summer, I've been complaining that it's too hot. 25℃ is all well and good if you're sat in an air-conditioned office or relaxing in your back garden with a cold drink, but if you're outside in the sun doing manual labour it's horrible!

We took the railings off the garage roof terrace, which wasn't quite as simple as it sounds as we had to make sure they didn't crash through the conservatory roof below and getting them safely down to the ground required some rigging up of ropes. And we had to install a new driveway gate on the boundary before we could remove the old gate, stone pillars and railings (we can't leave the garden open to the common for even a few minutes as the sheep would be in like a shot, eating everything!). The new gate gives us a wider opening and easier access for lorries delivering supplies when we get to that stage.

With new gate installed, Malcolm & Helen's dad set about demolishing the old stone pillars:

We had thought we might build the outbuilding over the summer, or at least start it, so that we could use it as a site office/store once the build proper starts. But we discovered that the electricity and water supplies to the existing house (which we're still living in) run underneath where we wanted to dig the foundations. We enquired about having the mains electricity cable shunted over by about six feet so it was out of the way, but Electricity North West quoted us £4k to do it. So we decided not to bother. As it turns out, we wouldn't have got very far as we seem to have been quite busy enough with everything else.