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.