I would walk....

We made it!

My brother, Ben and I did the 42 mile Across Wales Walk that the Rotary organise each year last month - starting at 3:50 in the morning at Glandyfi and finishing at 7pm at Anchor in Shropshire. I raised almost £400 for Caffi Cletwr - a community cafe project in Tre'r Ddol and Tom and Ben raised money for St Francis hospice in Essex where they both live.

After a lot of practice (mainly with Meg the lab, my walking buddy) it was actually not too bad...it is so well organised that all we had to think about was getting from stopping station to stopping station, our bodies, water and food - which meant no thinking about work for a really long time!

The weather was, predictably, wet, but much better than May's heat wave walk (see below) ...after that 25 mile one we just couldn't contemplate another 17 miles but walking through the wind farm at about 34ish miles we were quite impressed with ourselves!

All in all if I was given the choice of doing this walk or moving house I'd take the walk EVERY time.

Didn't help that Tom left his boots in London of course and did the whole thing in trainers...

Walking, Moving, Raining...but not Pouring

So, its July - and we moved from our rental on our first wedding anniversary...fun! And not, as per the original plan, into a brand spanking new house which would have room for all our stuff and animals, but into my little flat by the sea...

Lovely, but a fit tight enough to send Rob - who works from home - over the edge...

Given our experience and all the stories we hear once people know what we're up to, the temporary homes necessary to build THE home seem more and more interesting...rentals mean contracts and fixed dates that building a house seems to laugh in the face of, so I can see why people go down the caravan route (currently scrubbing mildew from my little Abi Maurader which one day will be my office/dog hanging out room - pics to come) but it must drive people spare.

We put more boxes in storage but can barely move at the moment and my lovely long corridor will soon have to host a 10metre long washing line because even now, in JULY (!), it won't stop raining.

Which accounts for the lack of any concrete being poured and my filling space with tales of moving joy. Although, I must confess that after 3 van loads to the flat, 1 to the dump, & 1 to storage we did sign the contract with our house builder (get in!) and then had a tasting meal at Ynys Hir which was amazing and duly special.

Hum, might leave the big walk story for another post...

Pretty piping!

Hours and hours in the rain but the underfloor heating pipes are in and all connected up! Thousands of tag ties and a lot of piping under heating engineer John Cantor's watchful eye and it looks pretty good.

This is where Rob'll be working - and John is connecting up at the manifold which, fingers crossed, will appear in a cupboard:

Two pipes interweaved:

The whole ground floor - it looks like a circuit board ... or a 70s string painting. It was great to be able to balance in between the pipes and on the mesh and imagine being in the office, on the couch, or looking out the kitchen window...

I have just been told, however, that we need to go down after work and add another thousand tie tags as there aren't enough to stop the pipes moving when the concrete moves in...just hope it isn't raining at the time!

ummmm

We're a bit disappointed that the membrane covering the EPS has been punctured quite a lot. It looks like the surface wasn't flattened properly so to even out the height the mesh and a-frames have been manipulated a bit and have damaged the pink layer:

The membrane is supposed to protect us from the slightly high radon levels caused by the mines in the area ('Romans' and Bwlch arian) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries...

The height of the breezeblock is where the concrete will reach and it varies a little around the slab:

And there are a few gaps to fill in - if cold air gets into the EPS and through the membrane we'll have cold feet!

bottom layer

Here's the first layer of our slab - apparently the bricks lining the retaining wall are being laid at the moment...

And here's the EPS - our 'floating' slab that should protect us from the cold coming up from the ground - though I don't know that anyone believes us at the moment!

Breeze blocks will then frame the EPS and make the boat/bowl for the concrete to fill and form our floor; we're having a polished concrete floor downstairs to make life easier with animals etc but it doesn't make things easy for the pour...

Floods...

We've had about a day and a half without rain - if you add up the bits here and there - and the ground is pretty wet. The floods in Talybont, Dolybont, Aberystwyth and the A487 cut us off for a bit but the houses, roads and caravan sites are going to take a lot longer to recover. Lots of people are looking for places to rent as insurers have told them it'll take 5-6 months to repair the houses.

This is from the road towards Cors Fochno/Borth Bog:

Debris brought down the hill onto the A487:

Trying to get to the station in Borth via Ynys Las:

The stream by our house went from dribble to torrent overnight:

Even Springwatch at Ynys hir got a soaking! So not a lot of work done for a few days - the foundation builder's office was flooded - but the site drained ok, considering it's a bowl nearly ready for filling.

No surprise no concrete then.

Weather...

This is what is happening today, tomorrow - not Saturday, a bit Sunday, and then again on Monday... we're awash! Things got so bad yesterday the guys on site rushing to get ready for us to put in the underfloor heating pipes were cursing eco builds and we've found a lot of measurements are out so some salvaging to be done. When weather permits. So, no concrete for a bit.

In contrast, here are some pics of the Sarn Sabrina walk my brother, his brother-in-law, and I did a couple of weeks ago in insane heat. 

A few miles in...

Above Clywedog...getting hot... 

At the source of the Severn, shattered but glad of the wind...

No photos of the last 8 miles or so but burnt shins and very sore feet were in evidence. And there were some rumours that 2 thirds of the group might have something on the day of the Rotary Across Wales Walk but we shall see!

More wall loving!

Couldn't resist a quick post to illustrate my affections for these walls!

Electricity cables being laid now and we have a sceptic tank -it feels a bit odd having that first but it's all good!

Walls & Gabions

This is what I actually see from the top deck of the bus when I try and take a picture at the same time - if you look reaaallllly carefully you can see a bit of yellow digger...

Aled and his guys are doing our ground works and foundations and he's also going to tender for the house build now he knows we have Mike coming in to do the air tightness and windows. So far its been great!

The area was cleared for the corner retaining wall - our last architect reckoned we didn't need the bit by the neighbour's bungalow but they feel differently!

Then I arrive and this had happened: 

Its funny how far you've come when aesthetics have nothing to do with your emotional responses - one woman's ugly grey breezeblock another's beautiful wall. I'm sure it is made of awful stuff as is the concrete to come but I can't help but be grateful that something so sturdy looking has begun our build proper - its going to be grey brick with concrete poured between them and the blockwork.

I may have had my my taste scrambled by this whole affair, however, because I do actually really like  gabions, who'd have thought it? Rob was down on site last week helping fill them out and I love the texture and contrast they'll have with the brick.

We hadn't thought through how to top them off though as the bank is rather steep - hoping to bring the angle in a bit and try to have some wild flowers like our present lane: 

The tender for the build will have its final details tweaked on Wednesday and if we hurry up we should get started in time for the great British summer ;-)

Groundworks!

Some action on site!

I know I have driven past house builds before and wondered at how long they have taken to get going but shall forever hold that thought. After our 9 month set back seeing some action is incredible and almost too fast to take in (I'm sure everyone else passing thinks its snails pace!)

We staked out the house early in May for the builder to start the ground works and foundations.

Can't quite believe that corner will host a house - in the not too distant future!

And we had our first beer sitting on the mound on the left last Friday - one of many no doubt...

I'm sure the tulips won't survive the trucks but every little counts and the hedge clearly didn't mind its move too much. We're both booked onto a willow fence making course at CAT in December as we're trying to think of creative ways to keep out the sheep that don't necessarily involve a great big bit of wood in everyone's face: Woven Hurdle fencemaking

We popped by a few days later in the pouring rain and the builder, Aled and his team had started laying out the foundations for the retaining wall...I stayed in the car!

Next post will feature the wall itself and some fine looking gabions...can't believe how excited I am by walls these days.