Drives

Friday is my research day and one of the papers I was reading this morning was  Rebecca Blood's "Weblogs: A History" (2000) where Blood describes the change from filterblogs to journal/diary blogs that software like this enabled and the very personal everyday diaries that emerged - and the desperate need for readers they expressed.

It made me wonder why I - never interested in blogs before - hunted for self-build ones and now indulge in one myself. I suspect that I went looking because this whole experience is not one that is really (in a personal way) well documented or easy to describe. When I found them (see the ones I follow + lots abroad) I felt we weren't crazy - or at least we weren't alone!

I wonder if, since 2000, all the project-type blogs (for want of a better phrase but writing on finite processes like travel, pregnancy, business set up, house building etc) have changed this a bit? And if blogging on housebuilding comes partly from wanting to share in a community still (and perhaps to brag a bit in the Grand Designs age??) but also to work through the anxiousness and rage the process engenders. I will be sending this link to friends & family and perhaps colleagues eventually as a way of letting them know where things are at - and perhaps so that a 'house' doesn't appear to have been magicked from nowhere overnight rather than painstakingly brought together by numerous people, machines and processes - BUT, I think I am getting into doing this because I feel less awful about the process when I've written about it.

This week we've heard the guy we bought the land off has been on to the planner about our drive being too steep. Ours was one of two plots with a shared drive which he's had outline planning permission for for years and he has just been given 1 final year for a generic detailed plan for a 4 bed house. As far as we know he wants to sell it and the farmhouse and land so won't be building it at all if he has a choice.

We're in a little lane between bungalows and a farmhouse and need to have enormous splays left and right and a partly shared drive to not cause obstruction when we pull out onto the road. We also have to have 3 parking spaces and the architect and planner have worked really hard not to turn our little plot into one big drive...so not sure why the other owner is interested...bar the fact he'll have to contribute for his side I guess!

Here's an enthralling visual snippet with ours on the top:




Its only the second sunny day since Rob moved here so I'm off to meet him and the dogs for a walk!