Just a quick post to let you see a picture of the latest arrival on site.

It's been a busy week of progress and setbacks. There was the steel beam thing, the escaping sheep thing, the poly-tunnel thing the planting thing, the paddy's day thing and the ongoing imminent arrival of our baby thing.

The steel beam thing:

It arrived on Tuesday, 500Kg of unforgiving I R.S.J. of course this was perfect. Tuesday was the day when the lads with the power tools were meant to be here to move and install it. Only problem was that although the steel was here the lads were not. So it was going to sit there outside the back door tripping me up for a week and this would be OK but it would stall the erection of the scaffolding (because the scaffolding had to go right outside the back door too), so it had to move. Opinions were sought as they usually are and then roundly ignored as they usually are and I decided that rather than get ten burley lads and pay them half a days wages each I would move the bugger myself. Amazing what you can do with a 2 tonne jack, a few logs and a big lever.

And here's the turn:

Full credit to Dave who arrived just in time to help me get it up onto the slab.

Some mounts ago D and I spent some quality time in the garden planting bulbs. I seem destined not to do well with flowers and I think I should just give it up as a bad job because no sooner had the bulbs begun to pop their heads out of the soil than the sheep escaped and eat them. Don't know why this bugs me so much. I think it's more to do with the fact that they were this whole father daughter co-operative exercise that has now been reduced to sheep poop. At least I get to eat the perpetrators.

The poly-tunnel thing is very exciting, I was knocking it up bit by bit than Dave arrived and finished the basic from in an afternoon. having handy friends is very handy. There's still lots to do but we can now see just how big it's going to be. Big is how big it's going to be...cool.

F has been a trooper, not content with incubating the baby she has been propagating seeds. March is here, spring is upon us and here we go again. Father in law Pat has been here with his spade. Now I can't dig cause of the boketty knee (coming along nicely thanks for asking but still very painful), but that's OK cause Pat is doing it all for me. I do hope he's enjoying himself because he's basically dug the entire vegetable plot in a week (usually takes me a month). Derek our architect arrived the day of the steel beam move to find me taking a rest and Pat in the garden working away like a machine. "that's the way to garden" he quipped to me.

the paddy's day thing, well what can you say, I got ropped into holding a banner for the local playschool but it was great fun, D had a ball with her cousins. F had a rest for the afternoon but by the time D and I got home we were both exhausted and when F and I had got her to bed I collapsed in my own bed and slept for 3 hours. 'Twas a bit of craik though. Parade was OK though it definitely had a tunnel of goats feel to it.

D has just woken up gotta go, baby is arriving in the next 2 weeks or so.......AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In ancient times priests would gut an animal and fiddle with its insides in some vain attempt to divine future events. I've sometimes wondered what on earth they thought they were at. What desperate turn of events or tortuous course of history could drive an intelligent rational mind to think that fondling a sheep's stinky bits could help tell the future? Of course those lads were building pyramids. I'm merly building an extension and I must confess I've been eying the spare rooster with a degree of mystic curiosity. See the thing is this. It's not just building an extension. The extension itself is simple. walls here, insulation there, a roof and some windows would be nice. but the thing is..........timing.

We have a baby coming soon, I'm really looking forward to his / her arrival. I't's not like first time around where you don't know what the hell you're getting into. We both know exactly what hell we're getting into, insomnia hell and strange smells hell. but it's a baby and that's a beautiful, wonderful, squirmy, noisy, smelly thing. but the timing, the timing is like when you're playing football and running for the ball, there's an open net, you sense a defender closing in on the right and you just don't know for sure but it might, just might be possible that you'll get to that ball before he does and if you keep your cool and don't fuck it up the goal is yours for the taking. And everything is slowed down and you can't know, won't know until you reach that ball if you're going to succeed. that's how I feel right now. If the weather keeps right, if steel arrives on time, is materials and labor show up when they are supposed to, if I don't pull any more ligaments, if help arrives when I need it and a baby doesn't come early then I just might get the worst of this build finished before baby arrives, and that would be great. on the other hand If things don't work out we could be introducing the child to the world through the vehicle of a house with no walls, filled with masonry dust and ringing with the screech of some very nasty power tools.

A coward would call a halt right now and say, we'll keep our walls intact and stop the build for another 6 mounts. A fool would plough ahead recklessly and with wild abandon. I find myself torn between two mentors. I plan ahead, I chase down suppliers, I refine quotes and seek diagrammatic explanations. I also find myself looking up at the sky, sniffing the air and wondering if it's going to rain. I scene I should plough ahead, at least a little bit, I sense that it will all be great, not just OK but great, but I can't be sure and the consequences of failure are pretty bad and I can't know any more than I know now, can't plan any more than I've planned so I just have to run for the ball and see what happens. And it's the not knowing and not being able to know that drives you crazy so in desperation, in desperation you start to think well what way can I resolve this situation, what way can I get to a point where I have some sign some indication of how this will pan out, and it's at that point where you reach the limit of the rational when you begin to wonder well, maybe if I cut open a chicken?

Well, it's been two weeks of "progress" on the build but to be honest it doesn't quite feel that way.

We've succeeded in pouring the slab and turning the lawn into a miniature of the great lakes. Michael is laying blocks as we speak so finally walls are going up. I strained ligaments and probably tore some cartilage in my knee while playing football last week so although I am off the crutches I'm still quite the gimp (nothing new there I hear you say). My injury has brought quite a few inconveniences but on the plus side I have now finished watching all 5 series of the wire (as if I wasn't depresses and cynical enough).

Weather has been the big enemy, I mentioned the lawn, it really has been torn to bits and the fact that the trenches are permanently filled with water is testament to just how much rain we have been getting. But today is a beautiful day. Work is progressing and hopefully by the end of the week we will be up to the first floor.

The BIG DIG

We've started. At last we have committed to building the extension and actually cut a sod. White a few sod's in fact cause we had a mighty big digger doing the cutting. Here was me expecting one of those mini digger yokes but Gerry (the dude doing the digging) turned up with a machine fit to gauge out the sues. Made light work of it though. we started last Tuesday. A perfect day, bright and dry, measured up, dug the trenches and marked the levels for the pour. see how I'm all down with the technical terms now. height and pour and the like. That's cause I'm a builder now......well at least an apprentice laborer / project manager. the rest of the country has given up construction as a bad game but as usual I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

Wednesday we poured the concrete, that was easy, the two lads (Gerry and Mikey), did the work and I erm....supervised and nodded approvingly from time to time. It was all over by lunch time and the concrete set by evening which meant that on Friday another Michael could arrive and start laying blocks and I could keep him supplied with blocks, cement and offers of tea.

So week one ended with the foundations poured and the sub-floor block work completed. We aren't quite out of the ground yet. I still need to fill the cavity in the block work with cement and sand then we can go on to complete the floor slab but fortunately we have had the worst weather over the past few days so I've achieved nothing. today is supposed to be a better day but I would point out that it is 4:58 am and I am writing this because the wind is howling so loudly outside that it is keeping me awake. we can only wait and see what the morning brings.

Hay saved and Tipp are in the final

Great summer

It’s October isn’t it? We can be forgiven for a bit of confusion here. For a start it isn’t raining and more than that up until last week we had bright sunny days that felt like a good July. We’ve had hay in the barn since June (I think) and our neighbour TJ even took a cut of haylage off our field (keeps the place looking tidy and his Donkey will eat it). Harvesting is in it’s final throws. The greenhouse is littered with ripe pumpkin and the kitchen is littered with untidy piles of Borlotti beans and the last of the tomatoes. Tomatoes were the big success this year, a wee bit of glass and copious amounts of horse manure makes all the difference. We’ve had so many tomatoes that to be honest there’s a massive bowl of them sitting in the kitchen and we’ve no idea what to do with them. Chutney I suppose. We’ve definitely done better this year than last. For a stat we actually got some spuds (the ones I planted the year before finally showed up), The onions were great, we had so much cabbage that to be honest the slugs and caterpillars ate more of it than we did and the sweet corn! The sweet corn was gorgeous; we finished off the last ears last week and resolved to plant twice as much next year. It needs a good summer but when it’s good it’s so sweet and so good.

Bees

Another harvest was the honey. Now I didn’t do great this year, I messed up and my bees swarmed and then they were too few in number to get the July honey and let’s face it July wasn’t a great month but all these things aside I did get some honey this year, probably enough to do us all year and maybe give some away also. I’ve gone from 3 hives to 6 and then back to 3 again and now I have to nurse those 3 through what is predicted to be a hard winter. Hopefully they will all live and next year I’ll do better. Clonmel is a bit of an epicentre for beekeeping and this year as I am now a proper bee keeper we went along to the honey show to have a nosey. I’d been before and remembered a rather dull affair populated by men all of whom were the wrong side of 60. I was delighted to see what a change a few years can make. The place was buzzing, (literally due to the big hive of bees on exhibition). It had been transformed into a bit of a family day out. Lots of kids, lots of people chatting away and not just about how the honey yield was up this year. I met one of my classmates Malcolm. Malcolm if from some rural idol in England, Shropshire or Summerset or sommit, talks like the lead singer of the Wurzils (remember “buy me a bran new combine haaaarvister an I’ll giv yu de key”). Anyway when I met him, Malcolm wasn’t that happy.

“heard you passed dat bee exam John, congratulations”

“Thanks Malcolm”

“howed you do dat den? Cause no-one else bloomin passed it. I tell you now, I’m not bloomin happy, I thought I’d got about 90% in that exam and they tell me I’d got only 42%!”

“They were funny questions Malcolm I think you just had to be lucky”

“Right, right......you get any honey this year then?”

“ahh not much, just a few jars really.”

“That’s too bad John I did bloomin’ well I did, got 75 Lbs out of one hive, 65 out of another but I suppose you just have to be lucky”

Malcolm was smiling.

The joy of electric skateboarding

When I was a little boy I wanted a skateboard. My mother was having none of it as they were (she rightly pointed out), incredibly dangerous. Of course being the only little boy at school who didn’t have a skateboard made me incredibly un cool (a condition which has I’m afraid persisted throughout my life). Obviously I was deeply upset by this at the time and this minor childhood trauma must have lodged somewhere in the recesses of my subconscious where it has festered for years on end. Then about a month ago on a trip up to Armagh while taking a stole around the local car boot sale I stumbled upon a bargain. One slightly mouldy and water damaged electric skateboard £10. In truth the guy selling it had about 10 of them and wanted to flog the lot of them for £60 but I resisted the temptation. It took a little persuasion to get it to work mind but I’m still handy with a screwdriver and a multimeter. When that didn’t work however I shook my soldering iron at it menacingly and that seemed to do the trick. Now despite the fact that the skateboard is designed to carry a max load of 75 Kg (I’m closer to 100), and that it’s only supposed to run on smooth surfaces (our driveway is grittier than an arab’s underpants) I have learned to use the thing. Finally I can skateboard, a childhood ambition fulfilled at last, festering subconscious purged. Unfortunately due to the fact that I am now nearly 40, wobbling around on a skateboard I look less cool now than I ever have before but I’m happy so I couldn’t give a sh*t.

Cider

It’s been a phenomenal year for apples. People who know these things keep telling me. Given such a bountiful harvest it would seem a shame to let them all go to waste so naturally I was egger to turn them into some form of alcohol. A local farmer we know (let’s just call him big Mickey), has an old old orchard that hasn’t been tended in years, he used to supple Bulmer’s, this year he supplied us. Friends and family got together and half a trailer load of big Mickey’s finest were gathered up. You can do worse than spend half a day picking apples in an orchard. Anyway we got a pulper and press from the local apple farm (thanks Con) and set about juicing and filling industrial food grade plastic containers. Weeks passed, cider fermented. Now its “maturing” but soon I’m going to stick it in a keg and it could be a very merry Christmas. I’ll tell you how we get on.....if I can still see the keyboard.

Heat

Finally we entered the 20^th century and got central heating. I don’t quite know myself. I’m sitting here in my boxers basking in glorious kerosene fuelled comfort. Maybe next year we’ll move into the 21^st century and get some solar water heaters.

Hay saved and Tipp are in the final

As some of you may have noticed there was a bit of excitement down here. Something to do with an all Ireland hurling final? Now more than a month later the flags are finally beginning to come down and the euphoria is subsiding a little but throughout late summer there was a gentle joy about the place. People were smiling. There was a tingle of excitement. Neighbours stopped and had a chat

“how’s it goin Tommy?

“ahh sure grand Jimmy, grand, tis a fine spell of weather we’re havin’”

“Ahh sure Tommy you couldn’t beat it and it’s been a great oul summer”

“Aw stop! The hay is saved and Tipp are in the final”

Oh, I passed mt bee science exam. 70% pass mark, only one in my class to do it, am feeling very clever