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.