Week 23 - Blockwork and Dolphins

I hope you have all had a good week, we certainly have here on Coll! It has been a week of great progress and a lot of fun.

Tom, Sam and Patrick's help has really transformed our project and I'm please to report (Blog delayed by a day to be able to say this!) that all the walls for the foundations are now built!!! This is a huge milestone.

With the walls in place we can now visualise the house and what the space inside is going to be like. I so can't wait till it's built!

While the blockworkers beavered away, Ben, Keith and I continued on with “landscaping” and drains. Up to now we've left some of the drains open but now it is time to start burying them so we can drive the digger and the telehandler all the way around the house site. So, along with Hughie (the laser level), we checked the gradients, filled the drain with a mixture of drainage pipe and gravel - all wrapped up in a "Teram sausage". (Teram stops weeds/roots penetrating the field drains and blocking them up).

Here s an old photo showing one of the teram sausages in the making...

Keith worked with Tom on the last wall today so at least he has contributed a handful of blocks to the 1000 or so laid! They built the internal supports for our thermal store (which apparently is going to be heavy). Meanwhile, I was busy preparing the garage floor for painting but I did note that, after Tom's wall had 6 blocks down, Keith's only had 2 ... :-) Thank goodness we didn't try to do all the blockwork ourselves.

Keith spent a couple of days this week digging ground with Digby to both help bury the drains but also to build the ground level up to meet the new walls. Apparently there are 100's of tonnes to shift to do this and deciding where to pull the earth from is quite a dilemma. As Keith dug out ground he revealed some really beautiful bedrock which I cleaned and have planted various herbs amongst the cracks. It is right outside the to-be kitchen so a great location for my herb garden! Let's hope they take!

I also spent a whole day this week, peeling the protective covering off the new shed door. It was horrendous, and kept ripping. According to various blogs I have read this is likely due to the door being left in direct sunlight for ages. I wish the supplier had warned us about that! This shed just keeps on giving...

Neither Keith nor I have been sleeping that well this week - not really sure why as the project is progressing well but it might be related to burning the candle a bit! We have been out 4 times this week for various things. I've been attending Yoga classes with Helena and last Wednesday was her last session so a few of us went out to the cafe for an after-yoga meal...delicious as ever. It wasn’t a late or an alcoholic soirée but great fun. Friday we missed the shops and our cupboards were bare, so Keith and I thought we would have a ‘snack’ at the pub. Enroute we met Rob on his quad bike and an agremeewnt was struck that we would bring chips from the pub and he would provide chicken. Voila a meal! The chips took a while, so a few drinks were had...

On Saturday I was grateful for a quiet night in as Keith ended up joining some of the guys for drinks in the pub. It got messy and Sunday was pretty much written off for him.

While Keith was feeling sorry for himself, I went for a lovely walk on Crossapol with Lucy and Tsala. The sun was shining but also there was an intermittent sea har. It made for some atmospheric photos.

By early afternoon the bed slug was feeling much better and we were invited to go out on the boat with Rob to catch supper. He too had been with Keith in the pub, and neither were that inclined to have one of the beers I had brought with me. However "hair of the dog" prevailed...

It was a fabulous evening for a boat trip, we saw a loads of birds, a couple of porpoises and then a whole group of dolphins. They played infront of the boat for a while which was fab. This was a shot of one of them no more that 2 feet from me at the bow of the boat as we sped along together.

Fishing was easy on the mackerel front, but not so good on the flatties (dab). They had to catch mackerel first and then use them for bait for the flatties.

With mackerel in the bag (and supper assured), we set off for the Dab. They caught a couple of flatties with one big enough for the pot but were slightly scunnered by the unwanted mackerel and sathe taking the bait as they lowered/raised it from the sandy bed. As ever, after one beer and with the sea motion I needed a pee - so a quick detour beaching the boat on the island sorted that out and then we continued with the fishing. If I’d been a man it would have been so much easier!!! No more flatties, so back home to cook the one flattie and remaining mackerel. We had my homegrown tatties, lettuce, Robs cucumber and rocket, the freshly caugh fish and a cold glass of white wine. What a feast and hence no blog last night!

Weather here today was spectacular and even Keith went into the sea without his usual steamer wetsuit on! We are expecting good weather for the rest of the week too. I'll leave you with the sunset from tonight...

Have a great week everyone! X