A few changes...

You may have noticed my website not behaving itself recently - pages not loading, pixelation... apologies for this. I am in the process of sorting it out, and part of that is relocating my whole site to a different server. I'm also installing some brand new proofing (online gallery) software, and getting a sparkly new blog too! So over the next few days lots of things will be changing, and my site may not be available here and there. Hopefully it won't take too long. For those people who are waiting for online galleries I should have you all sorted in a few days time.

I was going to finish off this post with a photograph of the new barn conversion from the outside, but its raining... and I might get wet.. Plus the interior isn't too glamourous yet since we still have to paint it and carpet it. Next time! The main thing is I am typing at a real desk, with all my things! And a solid floor, and walls that don't rustle in the wind. Woohoo!

Our swanky London flat

I've had requests to blog some images of our barn conversion. Apologies for the delay.. Part of me wanted to wait until we were in - which since Christmas I've constantly thought was going to be in about 3 or 4 days time! We're converting the barn as somewhere to live until we build the house. Anyway, we decided to do things properly, so we are essentially building a proper flat within the barn, and that means everything takes longer. Steven has done the whole conversion himself - I thought I was a perfectionist! When I help I can almost feel him worrying that I won't continue the STRAIGHT LINE.

Even though I say this every week and no one is going to believe me anymore - we will actually be moving in next Sunday. WOOHOO! There's only a few hundred more little things to do in the meantime. Sometimes I find myself daydreaming that its all magically finished and we can move in tonight. Here are my most popular daydreams at the moment:

1) We win the lottery, and pay a team of the fastest tradesmen around to finish the barn for us. Then we holiday in Hawaii for a bit.
2) We actually do the work ourselves, although I have a magical remote control that fastforwards to me sitting in the barn watching a good film with a large slab of chocolate thinking "I'm glad THATS all over".
3) We are nominated to be on one of those television programmes where Very Good People get rewarded for their good deeds by having their house built for them. Overnight. Only I'm not sure donating to charity by direct debit every month would qualify us.

Here are the photos!

Space for a double door and an upstairs window at the front:



Our new gravel driveway!





The upstairs is a mezzanine area, typical of a £300,000 flat in London! Only this is costing us a little less..



Weather boarding the outside:



This day Steven was doing the outside walls and I was doing the insulation on the inside:





A self portrait:



And a demonstration of how you insert the pink batts insulation into the walls:







That last one is Donna of course looking after her chicks. Its so cute watching them copy what she does. We only have 4 chicks now since Nana killed one (Nana the dog that is). She has a dark side to her that one. The only problem is she looks so cute and mournful on the naughty chain.

Barn buildin'

Two really good things have happened in the last week. The first is that we finished building the exterior of our barn, and the second is that we bought a fridge freezer. That stores ice-cream! If someone had told me before I got here that the highlight of my first 3 months in New Zealand would be eating ice-cream in my tent infront of some trashy TV I may have been a little dismayed. Luckily I got this far and I think its great! It helps that New Zealand produces some really good ice-cream, and that my expectations have been beaten down by hammering THREE THOUSAND nails into unyeilding, reflective tin in the last week. Okay, when I say 'I' I really mean 'Steven' but I have also been hammering nails until my arm has cramped up, just at a much, much slower pace. In a mini heatwave! We've had some amazing weather, but it has meant working in the hot sun with temperatures in the mid 30s.

This week we are going to convert the right hand bay into a little flat to live in whilst we build the house.

Here is the finished product - isn't it a thing of beauty??



My nails, look how straight they are!



The process: poles, roof perlings(sp?), and tin.







Casting a shadow on the land..



Steven drove next door's tractor to finally fill in the trench that has been left open for about 8 weeks when the phone man came to bring us a landline, the internet and civilisation!





Steven on the phone, in a field!



I tend to take more photographs on sunny days just because I'm hanging outside a bit more, but this particular day a couple of weeks ago I wanted to document our water tanks arriving. The man bringing them on a huge trailer got stuck turning into a bridge just half a kilometre down our road. So Steven drove the tractor to collect them and it only took about 2 hours(!!) altogether to dislodge the trailer, deliver the tanks and position them on the land. In the mist... It looks a bit grim doesn't it?



Tank tipping!



I'll finish off with some nice, happy animal photos. Here is Hussein looking sinister:



Spending some man-time roaming about the recently cut hay field without his two ladies:



And this is Brandy the horse from next door having a gallop, woohoo!



Upcoming blog posts will include my first hay-bale collecting (which I've only ever witnessed on TV before!!) and 2 new additions to the farm (very exciting). I'm calling it a farm now because we have 3 chickens. Oh, and Mavis MAY be sitting on 6 eggs! She comes down from the nest now and again to fuss about with the other two so I'm not sure if they'll get cold or not.

The Barn, and a Cheese Thief

Here are the barn posts, all ready to be made into a barn - how exciting!!



And for scale, here is a little miniature me sitting in the middle of it...



No, thats a joke actually! Although it is BIG. Are you allowed to show off about how big your barn is and not come across as a very annoying person? I mean in the same way that its not cool to say to people "I have a very large house"? Lets presume its okay, in which case, we will soon have a HUGE barn. Woohoo! It'll be bigger than the house, and we also can store lots of useless junk in there.





What's Steven doing here? Well, he is preparing a... box thing.. to hook up our electricity!! Isn't that great news?!!! Tonight we will plug in for the first time!! Its SO exciting! Today I bought a hairdryer to celebrate, and tomorrow, I'm going to blowdry my hair! With the new hairdryer!! We're even thinking about buying a kettle! And a fridge! You can tell how excited I am.

It is good though, becuase soon we will be in the barn, and I will be able to work from home. Things are happening a lot slower than I thought, but what it does mean is that when we are all set up (soon!) then we will be extra grateful.

The barn building should be happening this weekend, and then next weekend we can get the steel cladding on. I will photograph the process as much as I can. Thats if it doesn't rain.

Chicken news:

Yesterday Hussein stole a large chunk of cheese from inside the tent. He ate some and then gave it to Mavis. How can I punish this behaviour? I can't even catch a chicken let alone explain the basics of theft to it. Anyway, Hussein is such a gent I can't bring myself to tell him off. When we get the barn up we are going to try and hatch some eggs. Either by letting Mavis sit on them or by buying an incubator. I can't wait to have little fluffy yellow chicks!