Week beginning 8th July 2024.
We’re expecting our final delivery of larch today and we are all fired up to finish the last bit of cladding on the mega-shed.
While we are waiting we are getting on with some wee jobs – Molly is sanding down the last few filler fixes on the plaster ready for retouching and Pete is painting some moulding timber to cover the ends of the tie-down straps in the house.
The delivery has still not come so Molly is doing a bit of gardening and Pete is cleaning the inside of the car so it’s ready for its first service.
It’s getting on into the late afternoon and still no delivery, we are getting impatient and Pete has tried phoning but no reply. We have decided to do a bit of extra sealant around the sink and splashback so we are getting on with that.
Finally got through to the timber mill and they say that the larch hasn’t been uplifted so it clearly isn’t coming today. It will have to wait until Thursday as we are off to Edinburgh for dental appointments and to get the car serviced, and more importantly Pete’s sister, Anita, is coming over from Italy tomorrow to look after Ursula following her operation.
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It’s late on Wednesday evening and we have just arrived back at Gar Bothan. Our trip to Edinburgh went well with Anita’s flight arriving on time and mum being very happy to see her.
This afternoon we went to the Talbot Rice Gallery to see an exhibition of work by the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui.
On our way into the exhibition, in the courtyard of Old College, by the war memorial, is a display of pictures of Palestinian victims of the war in the Gaza Strip which moved us deeply. It is one thing to watch and listen to the news but this memorial really brings home how cruel war is. The photos of children, mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, brothers, sisters – just ordinary everyday people, are so simple and yet so powerful. Until this war ends many more people will die and most of them will be innocents as always happens when leaders without vision resort to violence.
Just as it is deeply depressing that human kind has such a dark and violent side it is also so encouraging and heart warming to see how positive and creative humans can be and this exhibition by El Anatsui is a joy.
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It’s Thursday morning and we are off to a slow start but are once again looking forward to the larch arriving so we can finish the mega-shed.
Three silver birch were wating for us outside our front door, we didn’t hear the delivery vehicle arrive so it was a bit of a surprise. The trees are Molly’s birthday gift to Pete and will be planted strategically in the front garden.
It’s just after lunch and the larch has finally arrived, they’re lovely fresh cut, straight cut boards and we are getting right down to preparing them and fixing them to the east elevation.
Compared to our previous experiences with cladding the house and the mega-shed this is really easy because we don’t need to ‘persuade’ the boards as they are perfect. It’s just a case of presenting them and nailing them on.
It has only taken us three hours to finish the six meter stretch of cladding. It’s true that it wasn’t complicated by doors and windows but nonetheless that is really fast for us – if only we had larch like this for the whole build, our lives would have been much easier.
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It’s Friday morning and we are finishing the back of the mega-shed with a trim between the soffit and the cladding by using up some of the old leftover larch, we’ll also cover the gaps on the gable ends. It’s such a shame that the neatest cladding is on the back of the mega-shed where no-one can see it, but hey, ho! That’s the way it goes some times.
Our next wee task is to plant Pete’s trees so we are positioning them and making adjustments before digging the holes. we have grouped them in a triangle so they look good from both inside the house and the road. It’ll be interesting to see how they change the feel of the plot as they grow.
Our final task for today is to fit a trim between the soffit and the cladding to the front of the house, using the new larch. Another easy task with such nice larch.
To all intents and purposes we are ready to apply for our completion certificate so Pete is contacting Andrew to get the ball rolling. With any luck it won’t take too long and then we can move in for real.
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Today we are going to take some rubbish to the dump, do a shopping and try to get back in time to go for a bit of a hike. We used to go on regular hikes but that has fallen by the way-side since we started our build so we are keen to pick it up again.
Just back from a walk from Duncan Ban McIntyre’s Monument up to the masts high over Dalmally where there are amazing views over Loch Awe to Loch Etive on one side and Ben Lui and Glen Orchy on the other. Entering the forest we startled a deer which jumped out just in front of us then, as we approached the top of the hill, we were joined by a Golden Eagle and finally on our way off the hill we saw our second Jay in one day. Now we are totally worn out because it was a long slow uphill climb, much further than we thought, and we aren’t as fit as we should be. Still it was good to do and a reminder that we need to go for hikes more regularly to build up our stamina.
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It’s Sunday and rather than take it easy we are going to disassemble our work tables and build a bench, with storage, along the north elevation. We are keen to reuse as much of the timber as possible but this does mean that it takes longer to do the job.
It has taken us most of the day because we started by clearing space for the bench and putting the stuff outside and at the end we had to put it all back again. It is worth it because we can now start transforming the space from a workshop to a studio. Our aim is to get back into making visual art just like we were doing in Portobello.
It’s been a different kind of a week, much more of a mix of activities and maybe the first sign that we can start getting our lives back to something resembling normality. We can but hope so.
This week makes very satisfying Reading. Nearly there now. Well done you two🐞
Thank you Ursula. There’s a great satisfaction getting various different jobs done. None of them have been on our list as we work towards getting our completion certificate but they have or have become part of what we envision as our beautiful home. Mx