Week Six

Week beginning 11th July.

We are leaving Tarbert Holiday Park after six weeks and moving our caravan up to our plot with the help of Molly’s cousin, Duncan. It has been good staying here not least because of all the friendly staff and the holiday makers and workmen who have been staying here. A big shout out to Caroline and colleagues at the Correnbuie Cafe where you can get great baking, hot filled rolls and nice coffee.

It is taking a lot of effort to prepare for moving because we have to make sure everything is safe and we put our breakables in the car. All the cupboards are taped with electrical insulation tape to stop them opening in transit, this is a wee trick our friend Tommy taught us. We are taking down the awning (a sort of tent that is attached to the side of the caravan to provide extra space) and will put it in our storage container until the groundworks are at the stage where we won’t need to shunt the caravan about the plot.

Heading north from Tarbert to the plot with the help of Duncan. Our wee car is too feeble to pull our caravan.

We are delighted to have received our first post and all the way from France from our friends Frederique and Clementine in Annonay.

Thanks postie because we are not quite official yet.

Duncan helps us get the caravan in place and leaves us to sort a few practicalities out like getting the water system set up and all the breakables unpacked. Oops! We have made a rookie mistake – we haven’t packed away the eggs and so we have a nice (?) omelette mix to clean up.

Things have changed a bit here because Lorne has had the digger delivered and we have a new view from our caravan window.

It’s Thursday morning and the portaloo is due to arrive so we are checking out where we can put it that is convenient. Health and safety quite rightly dictates that we need to provide a toilet for our contractors but it is quite a shock to find out how much it costs. The guy arrives and skillfully manages to reverse his truck between the digger and the caravan to place the portaloo where we want it.

By Pete Ross

After years of living in a beautiful Victorian flat in Edinburgh, Molly and I have decided to sell up and build our new house ourselves in Argyll, Scotland. We have called it Gar Bothan which is Gaelic for warm bothy or cottage or hovel!!!!

4 comments

  1. Go ahead, Pete and Molly! It is super interesting and impressive to see Gar Bothan grow. We are v excited for you and not a little jealous. I have loads of ‘technical’ (boring?) questions for you. I’ll save those for when we next see you. More power to your elbows!
    Robbie (and Anne)

  2. hello , thanks a lot for all these details . We are very proud that you have quoted Clementine and I in your blog . As I am not english fluent ( as you can see) could you tell me what a portaloo is ? (it’s
    not in my old dictionnary ) best thoughts and wishes of success in your adventure !

    1. Hi Frederique, a portaloo is a very small chemical toilet in a unit that can be moved to different locations 😊

  3. Post already! Really great to read about the move to you both getting ready to live onsite, the next steps in sight! We have cleaning our flat, excited to be seeing you after your Week 7 of work.

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