nobody loves you when you're down and out

It's Christmas Eve. I nearly got trapped off the island today but with Jayne at Kinnererach three miles across the water. Waving not drowning. The ferry stopped running at midday. Lucky I was tipped off that things were getting a bit bleak. It was a close run thing.

So we're together and the weather outside is dreadful, but the fire inside's delightful.

Our friends here know we've hit a dead stop. One of the reasons for wanting to stay on Gigha is because we live in a place where our friends look out for us, as we do for them. You can leave your front door unlocked for weeks on end and no-one will nick your stuff though people might come in to feed your goldfish or check your heating is on and your pipes haven't frozen. Fuck the advertising executives' "Big Society". We are going to need a lot of help, and we'll get it - but then we'll help out when our friends need help too. We know there are the spiteful and malign few who glory in ours and others' problems.

Today the Halifax has published its annual survey and 42 of the top 50 places in Britain are in the south and east of England. There is nowhere in Wales in the top 200 and nowhere in the North of England or Scotland features anywhere near the top 50 either. It's a survey for commuters by commuters. Love the Anglo Saxon M2/M3/M4 corridors. Screw the Celts, Gaels and especially Geordies, Dalesmen, Highlanders and Islanders. We should all live happily ever after in Hampshire or Royal Berkshire. To most people I know and respect this would be purgatory - at best.

Would you leave your doors unlocked in Hampshire, Surrey, Herts., Kent ?

Why would anyone believe that a failed bank can judge on quality of life ?

longest night / shortest day

Can't sleep hence the unearthly hour of this blog.

We have lost most of what was left of our life savings and the crucial funds needed to complete the build and realise our lifetime project in 2012. Our reserves are dwindling, insufficient and will erode rapidly if we are stalled for any length of time.

We can probably finish the carcass of the small roundhouse by building it ourselves but just short of it being in a liveable condition. So we have to maintain additional costs of living at a time when we can least afford it.

We do not know how we can refinance the project as it is more than difficult to get enough reliable outside work to cover any mortgage - itself difficult at our age and in the current climate. The solution for most problems is to work through them. It is by our own efforts that we recover from the slings and arrows. However, it is not lack of willingness that is the issue.

I need decent part time work to repay a mortgage and not on short term contracts on very low wages. But this is the Kintyre economy. There is little else. Hope is at a premium here. Even my occasional supply teaching wages have been reduced by over 40% by this government. I do the same job, with the same commitment and skill but suddenly I am worth less - read that both ways. The SNP have lost my vote. So they too are worth less.

Both of us have the philosophy of being self reliant and believe in self determination.

You should earn what you get in this life yet this society is full of the undeserving rich. Politically the lunatics run the asylum and the crooks run the economy. Or are they one and the same ?

The economy is actually a massive pyramid selling scheme which is finally slowly toppling with the only people insulated from the effects of this being those who designed it and those who run it. If the cream rises to the top - then the scum floats above them. (I used to be an angry young man and, rereading this, I'm pleased I've not lost the knack of a wee bit of polemic.)

Age discrimination is rife. Somehow you become stupid once you are past 50. It's as if lifetime skills and experience, let alone intelligence and education are wiped out. At interviews I am obliged to undertake very basic, demeaning and almost insulting IT skills tests to satisfy some recruiter's lack of trust in their own judgement. I've worked with computers for over 20 years. I've written over 500,000 words of technical and strategic reports, done original research and development. Take a letter Miss Jones.

We have already been turned down by our preferred lender "because you're on an island". This story will have to wait but is a perfect demonstration of the irrational, ignorant and prejudiced way English based businesses look at Scotland. Nationwide means the south and east of Englandshire and not the UK. The underwriter who made the decision had to Google Gigha as he'd never heard of it and clearly had a well informed knowledge of the property market here.

We can't finish the build and move to Ardailly as it stands. Our plans were to be pretty much self sufficient asap and we would use the small roundhouse to generate income to cover our retirement. That option is now denied us for the foreseable future. Joseph Heller got the philosophy of life just about right.

Thankfully I can't comment on what has happened to us as it will be the subject of criminal investigations.

Anyway we hope all our readers have a better Christmas than we will.

Kit Part 2

This afternoon we received a letter from Tim's accountant that he has ceased trading. No more kit and no build. Letter dated 2/12/11 posted 7/12/11

Money lost ? Yes

How much ? Not sure yet but we can't cover it.

Watch this space.

Kit Part 1

Jubilation as the first part of the kit arrived today and was offloaded successfully by Rob with his Manitou. Very short notice from Tim and risky weatherwise but the small roundhouse is mostly here.

the sliding floor

Today we finished the floors.

the art of laying concrete

We are three hours work away from finishing all the groundworks.

We've done a full day today - our first for over a week, given so many rainy days.

Between times we've managed a few half days only. We hit 299.5 bags of cement this afternoon. Only another 24 or so to go on the floors.

Two middle aged self builders, me with arthritis in both hips and with dodgy knees and Jayne with trapped nerves and both of us waking up with pins and needles in both arms, have mixed about 110 tonnes of aggregate and 20 tonnes of cement - that's 800 bags offloaded and piled into the mixers. We have laid almost 250 square metres of concrete floors and over 100 running metres of concrete footings. We've taken a full 12 months, but the concreting has taken less than four weeks actual work - though rain has stopped play quite frequently. No taking the quick way out with teams of groundworkers, ready mixed concrete and pumps placing it exactly where needed. Just the two of us. A hand mixer, a pan mixer, two rakes and a wheelbarrow but just the two of us plus Adam barrowing for just one day. We're chuffed to bits.

goodbye and thanks for all the fish

Last day on the fish farm today. At least it rained both yesterday and today so I didn't miss any concreting time. I've done casual and relief work there for two and a half years but as it is the worst paid of my jobs and becoming increasingly difficult to fit in alongside the build it had to go. It has over 750,000 salmon and produces over 4,000 tonnes of fish each cycle. The work is pretty physical and often involves long and thankless shifts at short notice. My longest shift was 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. harvesting- and that with barely a break. Also worked 7 p.m. to 7.a.m. when we were grading which was actually a lovely starry night. I've been fortunate in being able to sample the product fresh and it is pretty good. All fish should be slightly undercooked, but I find it hardest to undercook salmon for some reason. Like yacht deliveries (another job I've done in my 50s) it is really a young man's job. Not sure if I'll miss it or not as I really like working on the sea.

X67 RIP

Had to scrap the car today. Can someone tell me if the fact that a timing belt failure is almost always fatal for an engine is deliberate designed in obsolescence or just a failure in engineering. Why should one bit of rubber cause a whole car to have to be scrapped ? Actually it was the idler - but the same principle.

It had done 162000 miles and some bits will be recycled. Salvaged fuel, towing hitch and battery.

still raining. still dreaming reprise

After two days of high winds and driving rain we have another three or four days rough weather to come before we can get on to finish our floors. Mixed blessing as it gives us a bit of time to recover. We need three full days and a half to finish off. Almost 250 bags cement used about 90 to go. Missed the fine weather window a few weeks ago as I was on the fish for the last fine weekend - but my last weekend on the fish farm is coming up.

concrete wellies

The weather forecast is for gales and rain for the next forty eight hours and then showers, so there is little chance we'll get any more concreting done this week. We have dodged the showers the last two days but tractor problems have meant we have only managed two half days - with extended coffee breaks during squalls. Both days we have poured two cubic metres - about 4.5 tonnes wheelbarrowed right across the big roundhouse and placed for Jayne to rake out and level. All the floors are now filled up to the reinforcing. We will still take three days to finish as we have to wheelbarrow another 9 to 10 tonnes to the west side and beyond to the sunspace. And the weather is still against us. Force 8-10 gusts tomorrow and Thursday mean the ferry will probably be off too.

The concrete won't though as low temperatures and rain water on top of what we've laid will make the cure very slow.

Both of us are suffering aches and pains so this enforced break might be a chance to recover. Jayne has pins and needles in her right arm and probably tendonitis to accompany back pain. We are both tired and our combined age of 116 means we have slowed down a little.

it was 40 years ago today....

In October 1971 we had left school and a sizeable number of us from Milford Haven went to University College London - most to do medicine and other bloodsports but I went to read Geography and Geology. So this was Fresher's Week. I joined the Rugby Club, Fencing and Geogsoc. We all eyed and sized each other up. The narrow minded English took the piss out of my Welshness - remember England had only beaten Wales at Rugby - NOT Rugger - twice in the previous 25 years. It was the Wales of Barry John and JPR Williams.

The Fresher's Ball was headlined by Mott the Hoople but I wasn't into them so didn't go.

It was the beginning of an extremely un-illustrious academic career - my own performance was a steady slide over the three years I was at UCL but the farm boy in the city certainly had fun. I took in fifty bands in my first term. That was eleven weeks of academic study.

On reflection UCL was probably the wrong place for me and the Geography department the wrong department. I did not know what I wanted to do at 18 and at 58 still don't, though I have succeeded in achieving my life's goals - except one. Those achieved were; sailing across the Atlantic, going to the Azores and landing on St Kilda. Academically, had I studied Psychology, Architecture (I loved the Bartlett), or Oceanography - all lifelong passions - then my life would have been so different but not unrecognisable as I would have probably made all the same mistakes but in a different setting. Anyway this weekend my fellow freshers - the Herne Hill Six (or 8) are hopefully enjoying themselves in Charlotte St without getting too maudlin. Mr Kwai's Chinese restaurant at the Warren St end of Tottenham Court Rd. may be no more but its memory lingers on....

the concrete fairy

As of Saturday evening we have about 62 sq m left to complete. It has rained every day since Wednesday and only one and half days work done last week, what with breakdowns and rain. We are aching all over from raking out tonnes of concrete up to 10m across the big roundhouse. We have suffered for our art. Jayne levelled the sections we have completed today and we are within a gnat's whisker of our tolerances (5-7mm across the 12m floor diameter). We have too many shrinkage cracks as it rained heavily on the wetter loads we used to tamp off with but these are mostly hairline and can be filled after the cure is complete. So our mixes ended up too wet in places. Scary though to see cracks in new concrete. All we want now is four days dry or the concrete fairy to magically pour the last third. Oh and the timing belt went on the car so our spell of good fortune continues...

another day

Another day another problem. Tractor hydraulics knackered - seals gone and spewing oil everywhere. and all this just as we were about to mix our last load for the strip we had shuttered. So out came the wee mixer and we hand batched 6 loads to finish off. We have now completed the small roundhouse and almost a half of the large roundhouse so we have about 65 sq m left to do. No idea when the tractor will be repaired and when we can finish the job.As it may well rain again we'll just have to play it by ear.

organised rain

We were all set for a busy day and had rebuilt the ramps for reversing the tractor up to the edge of the big roundhouse to empty the pan mixer last thing yesterday after finishing the small roundhouse. Then at 7:30 this morning Jayne said it was raining. Back under the duvet and by 9:30 it was still raining. As a front was due about 4'ish (actually it came in two hours early) there was no point starting to concrete anything as it would not go off for 48hrs if it got rained on so I fiddled about with bit of shuttering and then retired gracefully home.

day floor

Day four dawned bright and showery - unexpectedly wet - so we had an extra half hour in bed as we are both aching and Jayne's trapped nerve was playing up.

Started concreting after lunch. We have now completed two thirds - 40+ sq metres of the small roundhouse and 28 sq metres of the big roundhouse including a ten metre rake out which was very very hard going. Still we have now finished 68 sq m of 195.

Forecast for the next four days is pretty good so we should be near to completion sometime next week. The tractor is 2WD and pretty awful steering on greasy ground, not enough weights on the front so a bit light.

day one floor laying

Fifty bags of cement, about 30 square metres of floor laid. Half the small roundhouse, including round the difficult shower room pipework.
Jayne the perfectionist was not 100% happy with the tamping but it looked okay and well within our required tolerances. Jane and Amanda popped down mid afternoon on the quad and helped out for an hour or so - it really does make a difference. I mixed while the girls tamped.

We did have a wee shower later which speckled our screed. Hope it all goes off before the overnight rain comes in.

squally showers, rain later

After four days when we could have poured quite a lot of floor concrete, it started dreich at 7'ish this morning and has got steadily worse - so no concreting today or Wednesday as a gale is due. Last weeks storms and then two long days working on the fish farm over the weekend have entirely thrown our timetable - we are almost two weeks adrift. There is no point working for someone else in good weather unless the money is pretty good. Something has to give.

a week later

It's Saturday evening listening to Travelling Folk on Radio Scotland and the arthritis has kicked in after a 12 hour day on the fish (hanging nets - quite a physical operation as they are 80 or 100 metres in circumference and 10m deep). A 7:30 start tomorrow grading - another physical day - and then a week concreting floors. The gales and storms of Monday and Tuesday did not damage any of the sheets of plastic as Jayne had weighted them down really well. Did not get home until Thursday lunchtime after leaving on the 7:35 on Monday. Great hospitality at Lachlan and Fiona's for two nights then Wedndesday was another 12 hr day - I ended up leaving Luing on the last ferry at 10 p.m. after giving a talk to the Community Council about renewables. Luing could have a a great project with a marine turbine as the Cuan Sound runs at 8-11 knots. So it's been a busy week. Campbeltown Grammar enjoyable as usual - only a very few immature 14 yr old lads. JCB working okay now though the flywheel needs tlc. Problem is that by Monday morning when we get the mixer going I'll be knackered and hobbling about. Suppose that's what the pain barrier is for..

Hurricane Katia

"As any fule kno a hurican menes verry strong winds". Hurricane Katia is on its way - waiting a few hundred miles out into the Atlantic to blow our plans away - if the forecast of 40-65 knot winds every day between now and Weds morning is anything to go by then there will be no more building this next week - and no working in Campbeltown either as the ferries will be off - so it is an ill wind indeed.

workin' nine to five, tryin' to make a livin'

The next few days are day-job days even part of the weekend. Today was a teaching day - covering Music at Campbeltown Grammar School (actually non-selective), with Monday and Tuesday to follow, then energy job Weds. Have to also do a good few hours energy job over weekend too. This means we expect to start concreting on Thursday next week for two days, then fishfarm job for two days over the weekend and back to concreting until it is finished. Today was real fun as I had Higher and Advanced Higher Music half the day and some incredibly talented musicians to listen to and chat with. Unbelievably Led Zep are still a huge favourite and it was quite amusing to be told in all seriousness that Bonham was the best rock drummer ever by a sixteen year old - who did then accept that Keith Moon had his merits and that the two drummers of both Allmans and Genesis in full flow were also worthy. Of course he had never seen these acts but must spend a lot of time listening to 70s rock. I listened to a version of Satie's Gnossienes, as well as some excellent guitar playing. A young fiddle player of real talent just confirmed that Kintyre is not just a centre of excellence for pipers - it's a place full of music of all genres.

Anyway all this side-tracks us from our house building and juggling the need to make a living with actual construction but needs must.

Things may come and Things may go but the Art School Dance Goes on Forever

This is a long forgotten 60s album by a band called Piblokto! which featured a highly inventive lyricist by the name of Pete Brown - a good friend of Jack Bruce, one of my favourite musicians and someone I saw a number of times in the 70s. Imagine my surprise when I went for a pee at the public toilets at Macrihanish recently and these unforgettable words were scrawled on the wall. Dated 2009 I think, so fairly recent pencil work. Perhaps it was Pete himself or even Jack out for a round of golf on the links course there or just walking the dog on the stunning 9 mile long beach.

one step forward

Today the part arrived for the JCB. So did the new tyre for the quad. We were very apprehensive about starting the JCB as without being able to move it we have got serious problems as it is in front of the pile of 60 tonnes of aggregate. The machine did not start. Then the starter slipped and would not engage. Took starter off and shifted flywheel round a bit and put starter motor back on. Preheated plugs and let it go...after an infinity of chugs we had ignition and lift off.

Not so lucky with the quad. The wheel seems to be wobbling horribly which means a twisted axle or knackered wheel bearing. Still it was one step forward.

And we finished laying out the reinforcing and are ready to lay concrete.

The wonderful world of Google

The software that processes this blog as developed by Google is seriously flawed and we are having major problems accessing and editing the blog. Just thank God they are not in charge of our Nuclear Deterrent

First wack

This is the Trust Wacker plate as ours has been serviced and a few spares installed. The company - Evolution has a first class after sales service. This wacker plate compacts a lot faster but the same kilonewtons and is a very heavy lift for two. Your demonstrator for today is Jayne.

Archive footage as we have finished this job for the whole building

if in doubt insulate

We bought 75 boards of 2.4 x 1.2 m 100mm insulation. 216 square metres in all and have just three left with some offcuts after completing the underfloor installation. We have squeezed in expanding foam between every gap we could to minimise cold spots. We managed to buy these boards last July when the price was 40% below present levels so out squirreling opportunism has worked well for us

beat the heat

Izzie feels the heat - on those days when its warm and especially after chasing a few rabbits

a waiting game

True life confession is that the football club I support - the Toon - never win anything. You follow your club because you do. It isn't a rational choice which football team you support unless you're a wannabe or Manure glory hunter. (there are genuine Man Utd fans too you know)  I was  born in Morpeth. Now self building is equally a futile process as you are constantly knocked back by events. We still have no JCB and no tractor. Are we downhearted ? NO... because we are not ready to concrete anyway being still placing DPMs and underfloor insulation - not superinsulation but still 25% over Regs requirements. We are slow and meticulous and seal every gap with expanding foam. It is the happ'orth of tar argument. £6 of foam seals gaps in several £100s of slab insulation. Even if we spend £100 on expanding foam it will payback within 2-3yrs and no-one will ever lift 150mm of reinforced concrete to seal the gaps so we only have this one chance. We are slow builders yes, but we are working to a standard and it is ours, not one set by Building Control. We've done the small roundhouse and the sunspace so only 115 square metres to go..

Murphy's Law of Self Building - Part 3

We need the digger to mix the 35 or so cubes of concrete we need for the floors. We need a tractor to fix the pan mixer to and turn the drum. We have neither - a major break down with the digger - actually a new part has failed and we have no idea when we can get the repair done - and the farm needs the tractor because their spare parts were late arriving for getting the topping done. It has rained again for the last three days and heavily enough to stop us in our tracks.
Very demoralising but the guy on Grand Designs Australia last week was a total inspiration so we will just keep going.
We have a Plan B (unlike the government) but have been knocked back another fortnight.

Alfie

I've just heard that Paul Hines, Jayne and I's  old form teacher in 1H and  2H, and my Geology teacher, has just died.

It was a Grammar school and a different era - very much chalk and talk - but he was a brilliant Geology teacher and I got my lifelong love of the subject from him. That is what good teachers do. He got very good results and worked us very hard for the A - level but when I studied Geology at Uni the level was way below what he had been teaching us. In the early 70s plate tectonics was in its infancy but Alfie was bang up to date with all the new theories. We did lots of practicals - the school had a very fine rock and mineral collection - down to him - and he was meticulous in how he taught us to observe and record. Again lifelong skills learnt. It was the only A level course  I really enjoyed.

I went off with Jaffa on the back of his Ariel Arrow (?) and scouted waste tips in the Preselis for bits of galena and sphalerite, hunted in quarries for crinoidal limestones and jasper and on Skomer for flow banded rhyolites.  Pembrokeshire is a geologists paradise - so we were very, very lucky. 

Paul was nicknamed 'Alfie' as Alfie Hinds was a famous criminal of the time, and I wrote thousands of lines for him "I must behave" and "I must be quiet" being memorable. The chime was "Hines means lines". He was pretty tough discipline wise in registration but considerably fairer than many of the bullies who taught us.

He caught us playing table tennis in geology prac. one time  - he had been called out to some meeting or other for half an hour - and didn't punish us - but he did shame us which was different in the era of the big stick approach. Shortly after we left at 18 he moved to Haverfordwest to teach as Head of  Geography and had a successful career there, retiring to France. 

Murphy's law of Self Building - Part 2

We filled the large roundhouse area of 113 sqm to a depth of about .75m after a horrendously busy weekend. That's 80 cubic metres plus. We aligned and fitted all the drainage but needed two 32mm elbows. This meant an early morning trip to Campbeltown. As soon as I returned we started backfilling this void. Murphy intervened and half an hour later a hydraulic hose blew.

Another trip to Campbeltown required 38 miles down the road in double quick time and we managed to get the material dumped in the roundhouse that evening.

We had to work quick as we needed Andy’s 3.5 tonne digger to distribute and level the space and he was needed elsewhere the next day.

At the same time we were waiting on parts for our wacker plate. This meant we had the roumndhouse floor area levelled by eye and it was 5cm too high so we had to screef off an area of about 50 sq m by hand that had been compacted by the digger. The weather was very hot and it took us several days and considerable fluid intake.

So we have weathered all sorts of setbacks – Murphy is a frequent visitor to Ardailly. Even the gremlins who serve the great god Google (what would Orwell made of this publishing phenomenon?) screwed up the original posting of this blog hence this edited reissue.

Spot the Corncrake

We've heard corncrakes here at Kinnererach and frequently down on the plot this summer. Fiona even saw one on the Outer Hebrides a few weeks ago. They are shy and retiring and it is this bit of habitat between the plot and the sea where we most often hear them. See if you can see one. (MacArthur's Head is in the background.)

Isle of Gigha Raft Race 2011

We stopped work at 2p.m. Saturday when we really should have kept grafting to go to the island raft race.

Tarbert on their way to the start line

Ready Steady GO

Andy demonstrates the sea water hose to the winners 

Superb afternoon with the usual suspects. Tarbert guys always strip off to the waist and daub themselves with some weird colour. Gardens raft always top heavy. Karate kids won again. Yet another Gigha occasion and a good time had by all with much imbibing. Another fine BBQ by the Boathouse who organise and sponsor this event. Lindsay cooked on Saturday afternoon but we had an even better do at his new house on Sunday evening with fantastic barbecued lobster and langoustine in garlic butter...It was one of those weeks where we went out more often than not and hot, hot, hot ....

Murphy's Law of Self Building

If it can go wrong it will is the fundamental principle of Murphy's Law. If you are a self builder it will go wrong at the worst possible time - so the tractor got rolled just an hour from finishing the footings, and the JCB has a fuel leak from the lift pump filter and I still can't get the gasket to seal. The JCB also needs new seals on the dipper ram and I didn't get it sorted when I had the chance. Today's problem -  that wasted four hours is the pull start on the wacker plate. We need this going full time at present to compact the backfill on the big roundhouse which is currently being dropped in by JCB and spread by Andy in his mini-digger in 150mm sandwiches. All was going well and then the spring pinged on the pull start - not easy to get back in, and then the fixing screw was unthreaded and so it is kaput anyway. Friday afternoon means no spares till Monday - thankfully we managed to borrow another wacker plate but not till 5:30 this afternoon. The good news is that we ran out of aggregate and backfill but I am digging out a fantastic borrow pit of sand and gravel (36 cubic metres) which has much better material than the stuff we were paying for....and at least the weather is good. Tomorrow is the island raft race so an afternoon off.

playing catch up

Well here we are in mid July and still not got to the kit up stage. May was disastrous weather wise and early June no better.  A week on the fish farm doing grading (46hrs in 4 days) and a week ill and that was June gone. We managed to lay one small area of floor in mid June only and are getting the others prepared for a massive bout of concreting later this month Today was sublime but too hot. Anyway we did do the porch area. Took 2 hrs mixing only for 10 sq metres - only 190 to go.

We are very happy with the finished floor level as we can see the sea horizon below Jura

DPC and insulation in

Insulated tray prior to the pour

Dragonfly

Just after we had finished the blockwork and were preparing the porch for concreting this fantastic creature landed. We take it as a good omen.

Four Spot Chaser at rest

razor sharp

We have had the new leaves on both our wild cherry and the wingnut burnt off by the salt in Monday's storm.  Not sure if it is fatal or they can recover. Salt burn has scorched lots of trees, and the emerging bracken has been hit too - though that is no bad thing.
A couple was airlifted off the big ketch in Ardminish Bay - the skipper had a broken arm. The helicopter pilot recorded gusts of 80 knots plus - well into hurricane force wind speeds -  and took four attempts before landing on the golf course to pick up other medical emergencies. Hope they are all okay. I don't know how this hurricane blast fits May weather patterns. We've had one Atlantic Low after another for four weeks now. It is very cold too and we have had to refix the roof membrane on our big shed (it is a temporary until we can turf it) which was steadily loosening itself.  Tried to make a start backfilling the small roundhouse and porch areas this morning but was sidetracked by having to check all the warps on our cat as another gale is due. Then a huge shower drove us indoors, soaking. I hate wet socks.
We have totally lost our momentum. It is difficult to plan work and even more difficult to keep up progress between showers and gales. The ground is very wet - more so than in late March and I think we will be held up again for the kit. As Jayne said yesterday, the incredible power of the storm does make you feel very alive - it is visceral. That is why we are here living on the edge - but our daily lives are limited by the weather as well as enriched by it.

does a gale have teeth ?

Its Monday afternoon and XC Weather is showing 35-57 knots SW gusting at Macrihanish which is slightly more sheltered than Gigha. Over the weekend we had torrential rain all day Saturday and some pretty blowy weather but nothing like today's gale - Malin was forecast Violent Storm Force 11 this morning at 5:30 - and that was the inshore forecast for Mull of Kintyre to Ardnamurchan.  Jayne and I were brought up in Pembrokeshire which is much more exposed than Gigha so we're used to it. But now we want to get our floors levelled and laid but can't - the weather in May - our Hebridean Spring - has pretty much brought us to a standstill this last week. 
Our two piles of 100mm insulation board in the yard ready for loading both blew over at 12:45 - a 2.4m x 1.2m board is pretty aerodynamic in a 50 knot gust. We've restacked now though in the lulls. Minimal damage as we caught them just in time. Mark is watching the shed roof lifting just down the road at Tarbert but Andy was still cutting grass - last we heard.
At least the power is back on.

cabin fever

It's Monday evening and has rained all day so no work done on site. However, I  did fit the new starter motor on the JCB which obligingly then fired first time. As usual one of the three fixing nuts was almost impossible to reach. Such is motor vehicle design through the ages.
Feel a bit like Zen and the Art of Self Building - have come over all existentialist.

How long can you gaze at the sea without getting bored ?

weather or not

It's a Scottish Spring on Gigha. Unlike the last three years when we had a very long dry spell  including almost all of May - it is showers every day - and some powershower raindrops. The forecast surface pressure map shows fronts coming across every 12 hours for the next four or five days. This means we will lose a good few days work as the site is very greasy and not great for JCB work and definitely no concreting floors. Kit put back till early July already and we can't afford too much more slippage but are totally weather dependent now.
Haven't heard our corncrake for a week or so so he must have gone elsewhere to seek a mate. Swallows abound and we have thrushes nesting under the eaves of the big shed. Bluebells have gone mad this year. On the ferry Thursday and everyone was feeling very weary - we think its the weather. It has been cold enough the last couple of days for us to have lit a fire in the evening too.
But its Spring and a wonderful time of year...

sod's law

The first law of machinery is that when you need it most it breaks down and that is what happened today. To be true it's been a long standing problem that has got worse. The JCB is crucial just now as we are backfilling the foundations and blockwork ready to lay floors. It won't start. This is because it is middle aged and like all of us things start going wrong in middle age, wear out or just break completely  and don't function as they should. It's the solenoid. I've bashed it with a hammer and it did start this morning but then it wouldn't go this afternoon so I stripped it off the JCB and showed it to Mark. Mark is a whizz with anything mechanical. I had some advice last night from Graham after we finished  playing at the ceilidh along the same lines. Graham  is also a whizz with anything mechanical - he scratch built a wind turbine before they became trendy and rebuilt the engine on 'Jamie Boy'. Graham is like Vie, a genuine role model. He is in his early 80s now and was the ferry skipper for very many years. Anyway I have stripped and cleaned the solenoid with advice from MArk and Graham and I'll put it back on tomorrow. If it doesn't work then we'll have to get another one. Luckily there is plenty of other work to be done so it won't really hold us up this next week.

if you ask a stupid question

The UK wide AV referendum has been pretty decisively turned down and the ineptitude of the LibDems in insisting on this piss poor alternative to FPTP as their referendum choice during the power sharing negotiations after the UK election merely amplifies their horrendous judgement. They've blown the chance for PR for the indefinite future. Tories and the Labour right will see to that ... and anyway you're back to two party politics south of the border anyway. Two dominant centre right parties - oh my... what a choice you have. Here in Scotland we are now a one party state. It's official. Labour deliberately designed our semi PR voting system to keep the SNP from ever getting an overall majority with the top up regional list as well as FPTP and it has failed. Just as Labour have failed. Their manifesto was SNP lite anyway.  We now have an SNP majority. We owe nothing to Westminster and we want Salmond to fight for our NHS, students, public services and for full youth employment while the Tories flush England plc down the pan for short term gains for their corporate chums. Scotland is naturally left of centre and has a strong social conscience - it is more Scandinavian in outlook than Anglo Saxon. It is communitarian and we already have a big society - we don't need English platitudes on that score. 
Unfortunately, the downside is that if England catches a cold or - more likely develops severe economic malnutrition we might get pneumonia or even something nastier - though at least we'll have free prescriptions.  
The independence referendum will be won or lost by the Westminster government and how much we think it is following Thatcherite dogma - or worse, and not by the SNP. We will vote against Westminster when the time comes because after 8 or 9 years of SNP in power we will know for sure whether or not we have the quality in the Scottish political class to provide good government. Not Labour, not LibDem, not Tory but a Scottish agenda for Scotland. True, the SNP do need to do a good managerial job. Too many poorly handled crises will be fatal to independence. If Labour had had the wit to be a real left Scottish party, and the LibDems had any wit, (wake up Danny Alexander) then we would have a coalition or minority government now. I hope we succeed. The arrogance of the English political class has long fed the Scottish cringe. It's about time Scots got the confidence to create another Enlightenment 200 years or so after the last one. TINA ? Let's see about that. Both Keir Hardie and Adam Smith were Scots. There's some great thinkers and some great doers here.

Vie Tulloch

We arrived back at Tayinloan for the ferry back to Gigha on Tuesday afternoon, some 600 miles after Kris and Tara's lovely wedding on the weekend, to the news that Vie had died that lunchtime. Vie was the oldest person on Gigha at 90. She was an amazing dancer, sculptor, poet, artist and naturalist. A lover of life - she was also one of the most charismatic and wonderful people that we knew. Jayne and I think she is a fantastic role model. Her presence is very strong and will always be with us here on Gigha. As Joe piped the lament and her coffin was lowered the sun was shining and the breeze blew up the white horses over the Sound of Gigha above Kilchattan where she lies. 

let the circle be unbroken

Finished blockwork for both roundhouses, sunspace and corridor today. Haven't counted  but it must be about 800 blocks. This is a major milestone for us.
Yesterday Mavis Staples was on Radio Scotland and they played this song. I was bopping around the plot to the Staples Singers, finishing off the corridor. We saw her at Celtic Connections and she was amazing. We know we have made mistakes - I made one yesterday with a 5m run not levelled properly and 3mm variation in height between middle and ends. At least we know where they are and can let our kit manufacturer know. A week off now as we have a very very important wedding - on Saturday not Friday.

Stepped founds and 150º corners

let the circle be unbroken

top block centre just below where our front door will be

Concentration

Sunspace with DPC in position and corners done ready for infilling on main roundhouse

we like the simple geometry

time and tide

Today we completed the final four corners for the blockwork. Just the 200 odd blocks to infill now.  All the 24 150º corners on the top course of blockwork have now been placed and levelled and are within 2mm according to the laser level which means we have laid blocks over 25m apart and almost exactly level. We are not happy with two inaccuracies - the sunspace level is 460mm below the final house level instead of 450mm but that can be sorted out fairly easily by shimming the sole plate. Also the distance between the two roundhouses for the entrance lobby is 5070-75mm instead of 5080mm. This means the SIPS panels for the lobby may need trimming down which is more of a pain than infilling. The 12 sides of the small roundhouse are all +2mm maximum and the large roundhouse are all +4mm maximum. Both these are within our required tolerances. No radius from a centre is more than 10mm out. We are pretty pleased with our final levels of accuracy though the 10mm out for the lobby rankles a bit. We are two amateurs though and not professional bricklayers doing groundworks.  I should finish the blockwork before Easter weekend if the weather holds. Meanwhile it is a high Spring tide tomorrow and we  scrubbed off the bottom of the two hulls of the catamaran this morning ready for antifouling tomorrow early morning as the tide ebbs. We have very low tides here - 1.2m on Springs but with the High pressure we will a lower ebb and about 5-6 hours for the antifouling to dry off before the tide comes in.  We also have a three hour tidal rise and fall and then a standing tide for two hours which makes the job easier. We are almost certainly going to get less than a week sailing this year but even so these jobs have to be done.
We are now three weeks behind our hoped for timetable but most of the lost time has been due to wet weather earlier in the month and during March.

what keeps you awake at night ?

The programme questionnaire interview for "My Flat Pack Home" includes the question above. As this is such an occasion then the obvious answer is arthritis. When we planned this build arthritis was not an issue but since then both my hips and knees have been diagnosed as arthritic. Thankfully we do not live in England where the NHS seems to be in the process of conversion to the American profit model.  Patients merely seen as a market - an opportunity to make money. I would undoubtedly fail every criterion for hip and knee operations until I had been screaming in pain for many years as sufferers are in parts of SW England. Such are performance targets.  Scotland has more civilised and slightly more people centred healthcare even though we would all still be much better off for a very considerable increase in bean counter unemployment rates. The furore about free prescriptions south of the border ignores the obvious fact that drug treatments are for patients and represent free treatment at the point of delivery - one of the founding principles of the Health Service with the emphasis on "Service".  It is supposed to be there for people who need it when they need it. We already pay for it through taxation. If people object to millionaires getting free prescriptions then bang up the marginal income tax rates so they are truly progressive. Too young for hip and knee replacements for at least another five years and probably ten, the slow deterioration of my joints is well in progress and becoming increasingly painful. I take strong painkillers every six hours. On bad days I am counting the time till the next dose. My Mum had arthritis - fairly mild I think and my Dad had bad knees and I have both. My sister has had rheumatoid arthritis, thankfully in remission. The genes are just not playing ball. Much mountaineering, fell walking and sailing as well as working on farms has not helped, though many years pushing paper around for a living will have helped. The physical demands of building are definitely taking their toll. I shall be glad when we finish the blockwork in a week or so. Wet trades are not really my thing - I really enjoy working with wood, wiring and pipework. Jayne will be even more pleased when we have the 120 square meters of 6 inch concrete floors laid as those two jobs are possibly the most phyisical we are doing. Maybe finishing the turf roof will run them close.
We've finished blocking the sunspace and have got all the levels right and distances within a few mm. We're on the final course for the small roundhouse and have one full course plus a bit for the big roundhouse. Here the 80/20 rule comes into play.
Oh and the other things that keep me awake are the list of project management tasks that needed to be done last week. Orders, plant hire, blah blah....
And when we finish the house I am going to build a wood fired sauna with a sea view to ease the arthritis...

where we're at

Been so busy the last few weeks there's been very little time for blogging. We even blocked through a westerly gale, though it was a bit parky. We dodged raindrops in the showers - well sat in the shed and drank coffee.

This is the view from the house so you can imagine how dramatic it will be when we're living there and its stormy.

There is only ten miles of clear water between us and Islay and Jura, though the westerlies do funnel straight out of the Sound of Islay and build up the white horses. The Islay ferry actually ran on this day. We are sheltered from most wind directions from the plot being in a hollow, but we do get the full blast from points west to north west.

Jayne millimetre is hawkeyed about dimensions. Here she is checking the corners. We put these in first, check for accuracy then fill in each section. Usually we do five or six corners in a session and place out templates over each join to make sure the sole plate for the kit will fit. Then we fill the gaps. There is nothing to get a clear run at as there is a corner every 7 blocks.

Throughout March we have lost about six days to weather and a flu bug. You are only ever ill on fine days when you are self building. We are now within two courses of finishing the blockwork for the house and sunspace. That's about 180 blocks. All corners are accurate and tolerances within margins of error.

Not everything has gone to plan. I rolled the tractor we'd hired in to work the pan mixer. It slid gently into the trench exactly where Jayne is working - though at the time she was the other side of the site and did not even see it. Two broken cab windows were the main damage but it did not shift any of our blockwork. Last time I rolled a tractor was in the 1970s. Strangely enough it was also a Ford 6610. We had to do 75 hand mixes as a penance for this to complete the footings for the sunspace. That was a hard day's work though I mixed and did not particularly ache the next day, whereas blockworking always leaves my knees suffering and cutting blocks for corners really sets off my left hip. Self building is much easier for the under 50s.

We have ordered the roof lights, a fair bit of drainage and otherwise kept up with the project management side. After the appalling people who run AnyAppliance.co.uk with their cynical trading methods, balanced precariously on the edge of legality, my faith in web based companies has been somewhat restored this week by a couple of firms. Building material prices are accelerating far faster than normal inflation. A bag of cement has gone from £3.25 to £3.95 in just a few months. Still a few logistic problems to solve and a TV crew to keep happy as we are signed up via Tim our kit manufacturer for a UKTV cable programme called 'My Flat Pack Home'. Hopefully less pretentious than Grand Designs which seems to be all architects' own homes these days - and a hell of a lot of themed white cubes with glass fronts- boxes that seem to owe their inspiration to the Bauhaus or Le Corbusier. So much for post modernism. We're much more Bronze Age in our inspiration - with a touch of Neolithic thrown into the mix; a soupçon of Frank Lloyd Wright, Greene and Greene and of course a bucketful of Tim Stead. My Flat Pack Home is a half hour show. Andy has done a wee screen test interview for us so we'll see how it goes.

Rain again

Today was our first full day not blockworking for can't remember how long. We are both exhausted and need to recharge batteries. The forecast was poor so I went to Campbeltown in the truck and sorted out a timber order, bought some more blocks, though we could have done with another 32 to fill the load and managed to get 5 x 6m lengths of 110mm pipe for underground foul drainage for under the floor slab. Not what was intended as I forgot my bankers card and would have bought 100m of wavy curly pipe for more land drainage but we don't have a trade account at that dealership. Also picked up DPM and 5l of tanking paint for sunspace back wall.

All in all a relatively relaxing day and unstressful, but not as fruitful as hoped. Need to try to relax and recover from the strains of blockworking on arthritic knees and hips. We have about 200 blocks to finish but a huge amount of checking and tweaking the levelling so it'll take more than the 3 or 4 days we'd expect even with the corners.

Dreamed about laying the floors and just could not work out the logistics of getting so much concrete into place ... but then it came to me today while I was driving to Tarbert to do my Ecoday contribution on thermal imaging and insulation - we'll hire a powered barrow which takes half a cube at a time...we'll lay strips of concrete at finished floor level across each pod to tamp up to and then tip the pan mixer into the barrow power it to where we want it and off we go...

let there be light

At last we have mains electricity on site. Finally connected up this afternoon.

Wired in the two circuits and flicked the switch.

Now got kettle and hot coffee instead of flasks every day.

Anyappliance.co.uk

After threatening legal action, reporting to HMRC as they're trading with two VAT registrations, reporting to VISA and on the 30th day WE GOT OUR MONEY BACK !

Under no circumstances can we recommend doing any business with this company.

If anyone is having problems with them make a comment and we'll post their home address and dates of birth...

blockheads

The weather is improving and we can work till six p.m. now.

Both Jayne and I are huge fans of Ian Dury ....hence the title. We have now finished all the 150º corners on both roundhouses and levelled up where the founds are stepped on both south and north sides of the building.

A moment's frustration on Monday was that panel twelve appeared to be 12mm too small on setting out. Now our kit is being made with +4mm as the tolerance so -12mm is just not good enough. Next day we reset and remeasured and we were actually on +2mm so all was well. Each panel needs to be within 4mm and it shall be so. We have now finished all but the corners for the sunspace and the founds for that are set out ready for concreting. The weather is very good for blockwork so we are making good progress - about 20% blocked up but with the hard bits done - the 150º corners and stepped sections are all within a few mm. I like each block to be within 1-2mm but as Ian our friend says, you're building a wall not just laying one block and we are well within all the levels of accuracy we need. Bit obsessive maybe but we want it to be accurate and right - for our own pride as well as ease of the kit going up. This has now been ordered and paid for and we need to finish the blockwork by the end of March at the latest giving us 7 weeks for 62 cubic metres of concrete for the floors. We reckon we can do 60-70 blocks a day including setting out corners now the hard bits are done so that is ten days work - though the day jobs are pretty time demanding and have to be done too.

We have 150 blocks to do this week to keep up with our timetable.

Stepped foundations and 150º corners !

The house is emerging from the ground, slowly but surely and it is very excting to see the geometry. We decided on this form from Newgrange in Ireland and were also inspired by Bronze Age roundhouses so it has been great to see Neil Oliver's series on the Prehistory of Britain.

We are firmly in the New Stone Age and real blockheads - at least until we are at finished floor level anyway.