Week 15 - Campers and Cladding

I know what you’re all thinking, it’s Keith's week to write the blog so it will be all technobabble and nothing interesting… Well I’m sitting here on a Sunday evening after we’ve put in a good shift on the site. Ju has retired and I’m on the last 3rd of a bottle of Rioja (not to mention the 3 beers before dinner) so I hope the lubrication will help me to step out of the dark side... You will be the judge of that of course...

I must also confess to having had a wee taste of “happy tea” this week. It is a medicinal after dinner herbal tea - an alternative to Mint or Camomile. I can strongly recommend it as a tonic for the mind. The supplier of this tea, if reading this, may be anxious about being tagged but relax Mrs. X, I’m not going to disclose any names.

Since the last blog, Saturn has traversed Venus and the Pink Moon was seen in parts of South America ... and we finished cladding the endless walls of our enormous shed. Hancock was found wanting (what he was wanting is pretty clear from the video footage) and another pile of stuff, x2 times larger than the last pile, was delivered to our building site. See below, catching it in a sunset to make it slightly more interesting...

This time it’s the local stuff that we will pack down on the bedrock so when we build our footings, they won’t sink into the ground. By the way, that phenomenon is generally known as “subsidence". You might have read about that in the small print of your building insurance policy. It's likely to say that if you experience subsidence, they will pay out a teeny weeny bit but after that you are on yer own! When you scan over it you think, “Oh great! They will pay the first £10,000 so it’s totally covered”. The reality however is that when a house sinks into the ground the bill can be huge. So it is quite important to try to avoid it. That is why we decided to dig down to the bedrock and work our way back out of the ground from that. It removes any doubt. You can't see it in the photo but just below the mud is solid stuff!

Sometimes we create the inevitable temporary water features but that's ok...

It’s a curious thing, we have lived here now, on an island, in a caravan, without any services for over 3 months. It really has not been hard. We have what we need and we have adapted to this life remarkably easily. We discuss what we miss the most and to be honest we struggle to identify anything much. Julia misses seeing her friends regularly and misses the runs, the coffees and dog walks et al. But, when offered the chance to exit for a weekend break, she declines. So even that is not such a massive pull. My friends are dotted all over the place so I’m quite used to not seeing them for months on end anyway. The lockdowns have also got us pretty used to isolation, even in the city. I guess I miss indian takeaways and I appreciate a really powerful shower. We went for a sleep over with our friends John and Lucy last week when they had mutual friends visiting. They have just finished their build on the island and it is a really impressive house. The shower (which is the most important part of any house when you live in a caravan) was superb! John and Lucy's house... Oh to be at that stage of the project!!

We work most days. Last week we took a lot of time off with friends visiting and that was really nice but we’ve already put in the hours to compensate for it. Generally speaking, we work every day and we don’t have weekends off. We don’t rush out first thing. We like a coffee and a read of the papers in the morning but by 9:30 we are always out and about and sometimes we finish at 8pm. It’s a choice made happily though as anything we put off today must still be done tomorrow. Now that the weather is warmer the ground has come to life and everything is growing. It feels like the land is fighting back at us. We are trying to tame a corner of wilderness and the last growing season, before the job is done, resurges without hope. A bit like the Battle of the Bulge I guess.

Julia received an “interim” poly tunnel as a birthday present… a micro garden! It was very windy in the early part of the week which not only stopped us from cladding the shed but also threatened to take Julia’s birthday present to Tiree! We reinforced it with stones just in time thankfully...

We had our first residential visitors this week. The week before we had friends visiting the island but Stevie and Diane stayed with us. When I say they stayed that is a matter of judgement as they rented a camper van and parked up on our plot...

We went for long walks, snorkelled in the sea and Stevie and I went fishing. Once again it was a requirement to succeed as Julia was making fish pie … so fish had to be caught. In spite of the poor conditions, we managed to eek one 5lb-ish Pollock out of the sea which was just enough for Ju’s pie. Stevie did not land a fish and was teased relentlessly - not helped by his earlier bragging about winning fishing competitions of the past. The banter was almost better than the pie! (just kidding Ju!). The weather was kind to them and I’m sure they will be back soon. My second attempt at filleting...

Regarding the build, we have knocked out some more bedrock which will help us lower the finished floor level a bit. The plans allow for the floor level we can achieve now but the house will be higher off the ground than we would like so we are trying to lower it as much as possible. The cutting and smashing of rock, although challenging, will reduce the floor level by about 20cm. You basically cut lines in the rock with a massive saw and smash it to bits with a sledge hammer. Not very high tech but it works … not without risk though!

We have now dug out all the footings to bedrock and in some places the “trench” is nearly 2 meters deep. We have about 50 tonnes of local rock and gravel to pack down on top thanks to Brian and Tom, our farmer neighbours. We use wheelbarrows to fill up about 15cm of depth and then whack it down with the 100kg “Compacter” machine, now known to us as Tyson. Tyson belongs to Patrick and is on loan to us… a bit more like a pro footballer than a boxer I guess! Ben with Tyson under control...

The shed is now clad on 4 walls but we decided to clad over the personnel door and the windows as we can cut them out later on. It will be fully functional as a dry storage place sooner that way. We managed to put one roof panel on today which was very challenging with just the two of us. It involved a complicated set of ratchet straps and pulleys to lift the panel into place and a lot of messing around with the scaffolding tower and ladder. I've decided to borrow a mountaineering harness for the next step as I will have to be standing on the roof to carry on and although it is just 15 degrees, it is quite slippy stuff.

And the off cuts...

Julia continues to amaze me with her culinary treats… latest ones were some biscuits she made this week … Ben and I had an awkward stand off over the last one at lunch but I decided I was not hungry … honest! This is a couple of samples that were "gift wrapped" for a neighbour.

Tsala also had an active week stalking the plot which finally paid off when she murdered a poor wee rabbit. She hasn’t actually ever killed anything (as far as we are aware) so she didn't know what to do with the poor injured beast. Julia had to dispatch the near dead bunny and the whole affair seemed to traumatise all involved. Happy to report there are no photos of this incident... The light here at the moment is fantastic. This photo was taken last night at about 11pm… It barely gets dark here just now and, not that I’ve stayed up all night, but I suspect that you could see enough to walk around all night with clear skies. People talk about the “green flash” that you get in the final seconds before the sun sets over sea. I saw this for myself this week and tried to photograph it but despite seeing it, there is no evidence in the pictures.

So that is all from us this week. We’ve been to the pub, had coffee with neighbours, had friends round for supper but that is thankfully quite normal now. Let’s hope it stays that way! All the best to you all from Keith & Ju x