There has been no news from the garden for a while, I have to say that it has been a bit more neglected than I would like, but I guess it is winter, however we did lift some delicious parsnips and took them back to my parents for Christmas day lunch, which M did a super job of cooking...roasting with parmesan. And of course as allways there are still those indestructable turnips available, unfortunately our kitchen doesn't lend itself to doing anything particularly creative with them!!

The Christmas period has meant a quite time for the builders, no they are still not finished, but at least they haven't been here over the festive season!! On the last Friday before Christmas they turned up, dismantled the porch roof and rebuilt it at a different pitch - they didn't quite finish so we are hoping to see them early in the new year. And of course there was no sign of the renderers.

However, we have continued to make progress, mainly on the plumbing and central heating. Most of the pipes are now laid out, v. exciting picture....

Today we managed to get the pipework in for the radiators for the front room and dining room which did necessitate M heading under the floorboards - urgh... filthy and a bit scary really, but he seemed to be having fun....

Hot off the press...

The boiler has gone in!!! Still alot to do, before we are near firing it up, but it is an encouraging sight!

Builders have pretty much finished, we are waiting patiently for the renderers to arrive. Had this week off and have been making a start on the central heating system. The old tank is out, the new one just waiting to go in and we have been taking out old pipes and radiators and installing the new.

velux windows went in, on the dining room roof yesterday...

and the builders are really starting to tidy round and clear out from the inside of the house, so just a bit more work on the roof and the rendering and they should be out-a-here!!!!

The back walls are now down in the kitchen...

There is such a lot of space! We couldn't quite beleive it the first evening we came back. It's pretty grubby in there, so pizza for tea? - I think so!!

Going to be making a start on plumbing and electrics, had a good planning session with M's dad this weekend so raring to go.

Sorry it's been a few days since the last post - left you hanging over the windows saga... well when we returned home they were all installed successfully.

It's hard to say what has moved on on the rest of the build, it doesn't feel like things are moving on. The build is now 3 months behind and it is easy to loose faith that the builders will ever leave. Latest end date is 15th Dec, we'll see....

They have started taking down the back walls downstairs...


Which is progress, except that the back bedroom door wont close now, so more drama!

M& I have been getting on with the finishing off of the bathroom, now that the new window is in..

Quite a morning... earlier this week the builder asked us to line up the windows people to get them back to fit the doors... now the doors can't be fitted with the scafold in the way (they open outwards) and the doors have to be in before the rendering is done or internal walls are removed, but the scaffolding is needed for the rendering to be done....are you with me so far? Well the compromise was that the builder was going to get the scaffolding moved until the doors went in, so a day was agreed (that day is today) and the windows chaps called in...except they arrive to find that the scaffolding hasn't been moved and there isn't a plan to move it!! Dave the head builder asked his guys to do it, but the fact that it was rather difficult so they didn't think they would, was not quite communicated back.

Anyway, the house this morning was filled with 7 people walking backwards and forwards talking in adjatated fasion on mobile phones...but we now have a sollution which if I'm not mistaken involves one of the builders moving and replacing various bits of scaffolding in a balletic and magical style. We have to head back early today to see everybody before they leave and so find out whether it all went to plan...

Had windows chaps back yesterday, who got all the remaining windows put in, just the doors at the back of the house to go...

The roof structure is in place and has a covering on it, there are even some tiles going on at the front as shown in this picture...honest...!













Hopefully the windows chaps will be back today or tommorrow, and we even had Rob back for one morning to put in the threshold bricks for the back doors. And one final piece of good fortune - we have lots of lovely left over waste wood from the roof, that will help keep us cosy warm at night...

We now have pretty much the full roof structure in place....

Sad to say that Rob seems to have been moved off the job, so we have been a little ill informed for the past couple of days, but it all looks like good progress. It was a frosty morning when I popped out today to take these pictures, so I also took one of the greenhouse and paths looking neat and rather fetching in the frosty air...

The first hip of the main roof was completed yesterday...

Hip - Hip - Horay!

Mark has a new work phone so we tried to take a picture of the roof activity, but not so clear at a large scale....

anyway - activity and builders and roof - wow.

More porch....

also, the very beginings of a roof appearing ... all but the very keen of eye might struggle to spot that there are two beams going across the roof space !!!

Lots of activity today, the old door to the kitchen has been blocked in and the small return wall built up...

More work is going on with the porch.... (Taz there, being the least camera shy of the builders)

And finally, I have had to clear out the back/clothes/junk room, in order for various important preparatory holes to be created for the immenent arrival of the roof.

No pictures today, but news that the issues with the roof have been resolved, the steels are being ordered and the builders should be able to get on!! Woo-hooo!!

More space revealed!!! The wall between the kitchen and dining room came out on Friday, that along with the enlarged hall is certainly giving us a taste for the space we will eventually have.

The dust and mess is reaching epic proportions, and I do have the feeling that we are camping out in the house now. It's a good job these photos are grainy as I couldn't bear a permanent record to be kept of what we are living in at the moment.

Time, again for the "where's M" competition, I do think he might try harder with his hiding places....

In other news, we got the paths completed around the greenhouse at the weekend, so all the gravel and paving slabs are down and it looks lovely and neat. We also made a start on finishing the fence posts off with their little caps. M bravely managed one side of the garden, but seeing as he had had his arm stabbed with various vaccinations for his trip to Kenya, it didn't seem like the ideal task for him. So he was swiftly re-assigned the job of propping up the sofa and reviewing the television, in which I soon ably assisted him...

The hall cupboard was taken out yesterday, so we can now get a feel for the size the hall will be when finished. Things are getting very messy and very cramped though as we try and hide ourselves and our possessions in the few "untouched" rooms left. But we'll not dwell on that this morning, instead lets have a game of "where's M?" with two photos of the hall from yesterday...

Enjoying our new windows...

The windows are in in the front and back bedroom, the bathroom and the bay window. Also the new kitchen and utility room windows are in.

We did have a "visit" from a neighbour to check them out... the old chap just wandered up to the front of the house and stood there having a good look, whilst I was stood in the bay window talking on the phone!! I don't think he approved, but never mind.

The veiws out are brilliant!

Windows have arrived and are going in, they arrived on Tuesday, here we have a shot of two of the 5 packages received, being propped up by Taz, one of the builders...

Fortunately the window fitters arrived soon after and took charge of where they needed to be stored and how to move them safely etc.

So now the bay window is in (sorry forgot to take a piccy this morning), and it looks fab! The bathroom window was removed yesterday and we were left with a bit of hardboard covering the hole. With a little feature gap left so that we could see the dawn sky while showering!

The porch apears!!! We have an exciting bonus drawbridge too.

Also in the news...with the brickwork almost done, Kev has moved on (hurrah!) to be replaced with freindly, considerate Rob the builder, who doesn't smoke and thinks that it is important to keep the site neat and tidy.

As we enter into the final month for the extension shell, the most difficult parts are about to start, the roof, the co-ordination with the window fitters and the knocking down of the back walls. It is not going to be pretty...

It is nearly time for the brickies to leave us... Apart from the porch, the front garden wall and a few small sections on the house, they are pretty much finished. So it will be roofers next and we will be getting the window people in, hopefully very soon; the extra draft proofing will be appreciating as the nights draw in....

We've been getting peas and french beans for the past week, yum, here's a picture of M picking some peas...

And another, beautifully showing the new greenhouse in it's rightful place!!

So now for the greenhouse... a greenhouse has been in the planned scheme for the garden from the begining, looking into it, we decided to go for a timber framed, and rather large one. The greenhouse has been a source of concern for a while. Worrying about the delivery of the green house... how will we get it past the scaffolding? Worrying about creating the base....so much stuff to clear out of the way and lots of hardcore to move to the back of the garden (again via the scaffolding). Worrying about putting it up...it might save us money but would we end up wrecking it? And then worrying about wether it is too big and so on....









Well it was delivered on Wednesday, the delivery people were kind enough to help move it through to the back of the house, so first worry dealt with. We had already created the base earlier in the week. The third worry was slightly justified, we had M's dad here to help, which was great, but the instructions sent by the greenhouse company weren't. We called for clarification and was told by the fitter "first thing you should do is throw away those instructions"...mmm great. But by the end of the day, as it was getting dark, we had finally got it put up...

M's dad came by earlier this week to help us put up the new greenhouse (more of that later), so have some up to date pictures from his digital camera. In the picture you can see the roof going on the utility room and tool room, the walls are up to window level on the 1st floor and on Friday they put up scaffolding on next doors drive to enable them to start on the roof. Our neighbours have been brilliant and put up with a lot, at little notice and requests to the builders to give us notice of events that will impact on our neighbours (such as knocking down walls, creating large holes or putting up scaffolding that prevents them getting into their garage and covering their car in cement splashes) have fallen on deaf (and cauliflower) ears. Insurance covers some things, but common courtesy makes the best start.

Looking forward to when we can invite them back for a slap up thank you meal.

How about a few pictures from Jamfest-06?! In August we went up to my parents place nr Hull, with my brother, to pick the fruit and make jam, we did the same last year, so were hoping for good results.





It was a great sucess, we picked lots of fruit, mainly greengages and "yella fella" a small yellow plum, that we have yet to identify but know that it makes good jam.









We ended up making 3 rounds of greengage jam and 4 of the yella fella, 53 jars made on the day, not including the 10 jars of plum jam Mum and John had made earlier. Hopefully that should last the year!

things are happening quickly now, as per usual, the pictures here are way behind reality. The downstairs space is now completely defined, all walls in, door openings complete and with the beams for the 1st floor in. They have even got up to the bedroom windows.

We had the first sweetcorn tonight, yum yum!!! 5 minutes between being picked and going in the pan. Mmmmmmmm!!! More to come and we can't wait...as M says "mmm that is some sweeet-corn"...