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"...

Came home on Tuesday night to find a sizable hole in the back wall. At first my thought was "why have the buildiers been chucking our stuff about", only later realising this was their half-arsed attempt to protect our stuff from the falling rubble. A calming cup of tea was also out of the question as the kettle was full of rubble. Here's hoping that we don't get too much rain...!

We now have lintels above the garage door and french doors at the back and should soon be seeing the start of the 1st floor.

Took a couple of pictures on my phone last night, bit grainy, but here you go...

First one is veiwed from the front, showing the garage at the side of the house.



The second one from the back, mainly shows the scaffolding but I promice there is quite a bit of progress behind there!

Better pictures will come shortly....

The garden has been coming on since the pictures in the earlier posts, this is the most up to date image I have....

But as I am sure you are getting to realise, the garden has moved on from that shown here!! It does show the lovely new fences down each side, but much more of the paths around the bed have been completed using the old crazy paving and finishing off with gravel.

We are having some time off in September, so are hoping to get more done out here including the installation of a very flash timber framed greenhouse. Hopefully we will also have time to put in the framework of another flower bed and start the pergola that will really define the top part of the garden.

Back to the extension, the garage and workshop space had a concrete floor poured, and the other parts have had the start of the suspended floor put in and the walls have started to rise. We can see where doors and windows will be, can see the veiws we will have from the kitchen sink and the patio doors!

We really need to go digital, because we are already quite a few courses above this veiw. Scaffolding has gone up for the higher levels and first floor.

It's about time we had more pictures of M so lets look away from the extension, back to the garden.

Here he is lifting the first early potatoes, which were "red duke of york", we have since lifted second earlies and maincrops, just the salad potatoes to go.

There he is again, lifting the carrots. They were much better this year, with no carrot fly thanks to the enviromesh.

We are currently lifting and trying to dry the onions for storage for the coming year, not an easy job as there is limited flat space for drying. In their space I will try and get some cabbages in. We have also been enjoying kohl rabi, rocket and spring onions at the mo.

The first proper job on the extension was to remove the garage. It was constructed from bolt together concrete panels, so we were able to post it on the Freecycle network and had a lovely chap come round to help us dismantle it (he even stayed to help break up the base) and then he took it away for the garage to start a new life.


From then on the builders took over, clearing the rest of the site.

They started with the drains which was an interesting time as the drains from the kitchen sink were taken out, meaning that clothes were being washed in the bath and washing up done in a plastic bowl which then had to be carried out to the front of the house to throw down the drains. Our builders have since kindly rigged up a system for temporary drainage. Funny what you end up feeling grateful for when you are deprived of the more basic "luxuries" for a short time.

Then they started with the foundations, and we could really start to see the layout. From the picture you can see the utility room with a bit of the toolroom at the back of the garage next to it. The kitchen/dining room will run across the back. We so far haven't had that "did we make it too small?" moment, which is probably a sign that it will be massive!

Another project that has kept us sane, was the installation of the wood burning stove. As already mentioned, the heating system here is on it's last legs and is not aided by the drafty windows etc. We decided to put a wood burning stove in the front room, to replace the old gas fire that we had never dared start up. I wish I had a picture of the old surround for the gas fire, as it was made up of such an asortment of tiles that only had two things in common... being pale and ugly. But I don't, best I have is the hole that was left after the destruction of the old fire.

We bought a lovely chunk of local stone for the hearth, tidied up the fireplace and installed the stove. The installation of the chimney liner was perhaps the most troublesome, with M's dad on the roof, an M climbing up the chimney from inside...he does not have the obvious chimney sweep physique! Despite having had the chimney cleaned, it was a mucky job, even now we still find patches of the black soot on M and behind some item that has not been moved for a while.

We got it installed early Autumn 05 and it was brilliant, it made the room so warm and cosy, it even gave some heat to our bedroom above. We like it so much that another one is planned for the back kitchen and dining room. It has also been a small comfort we can offer our brave winter guests, "would you like a roasted marshmallow, before heading up to the unheated, drafty guest bedroom...?"

We should be getting a heap of photos developed this week, so I can start talking about the present time, but until then I will talk a little more about some of the projects we have been doing in the house. The first was the bathroom (well really it was the electrics, but that just doesn't make for pretty pictures), when we moved in, it was dire, and after working hard it is dispiriting to have to have a splash in about 3cm of water in a dirty old bath. So...

we installed a huge shower cubicle (bliss), a new loo and sink (with water saving fittings and ultra low volume flush) a pretty roll-top bath and a mirrored cabinet with hidden shaver socket. The tiling was also pretty special - we used huge white tiles, but they were actually fairly easy to put up and look so neat and impressive. It has been one of the things that has kept us going, living here, to be able to have a lovely warm shower, in a clean and bright room. Well it is nearly all clean and bright...
We cannot finish the wall until we replace the window ("after the extension") and we cannot do the flooring until we sort out the heating system ("after the extension"). But to us, it is a fab bathroom.

The other part of the story is what we are doing to the house. When we first drove down this road, we wished we could find a house here, the park opositite is beautiful and we could see the houses had big gardens (perfect for veggies), we didn't really care what the house was like!

Our little house needed alot of work, the heating is on it's last legs, when we moved in we spent alot of time on the electrics, putting in a proper bathroom, installing a wood burning stove. However, we had decided from day one that an extension would be a good idea.This has meant that lots of stuff has not been done because it needs to wait until "after the extension". Our plans are pretty huge, and now are finally underway - builders are here and building. As soon as I get our pictures developed (not in the digital age i'm afraid), I will update this space.

So, over the winter of 05 and spring of 06 we started turning the beds into raised beds, we put in a nice new fence on both sides and started creating paths around the beds - reusing the old crazy paving from the drive and garden, but also adding in some gravel. To up the defences, we installed an ultrasonic cat scarer, hoops covered by enviromesh (keeping out pesky small things) or netting (pesky birds and cats) and using nematodes and slug beer traps (it must all be organic!).

So the crop this year is faring much better, the slugs won in the early part of the year, over the beans. But the potatoes have not had any slug damage, we have been enjoying, radish, turnips, spring onions, rocket, leaf beet, garlic and carrots. Onions are about to be brought in, sweetcorn is going well and we are making a last dash to try and get some peas and beans.

Now, hear's the real important content...the development of the veggy garden and the house, lets start with the veggies.

We started out in November 04 with a big back garden, which contained a shed, a garage, a big apple tree, a white plastic seat and some grass. Year and a half on, funnily enough only the garage and some of the grass has gone, but much more has been added, but we will get to that in due course.

In the first year we dug in some veg beds, while Mr C was in the warmth manfully tackling the electrics, I spent many a winter and spring weekend digging for victory. That year (05) we planted potatoes, onions, spring onions, leaf beet, sweetcorn, runner beans, broad beans, carrots, kohl rabi, swede and turnips. We were invaded by slugs, carrot fly, blackfly, cats and more slugs, undetered we decided to strengthen the veggie fortifications and plans were made for the next year....

This is what we really look like - (we like hats), I especially like Mr C's hat when he wears it at a rackish (sp?) angle, mine keeps my ears warm...

Mr and Mrs C, relaxing at home.

This is the start of the blog so while trying to figure out how this whole thing works, thought I would start with an introduction...hello, I am Mrs C and the fella with the hair is Mr C, we are TeamChallis...