We are floored!

From a large hole in the ground to a concrete beam and block floor

There has been so much groundworks activity during the month of October that at last Rod and I can start to believe that we will have a new home sometime soon.  Other than a few days, the weather has been glorious and this has undoubtedly assisted progress.

We may well have blocked out some of the difficult times when we built the house abutting the Water Tower over twenty years ago, but our joint recollection is that everything was far far less complicated then.

The following series of photos provides a good flavour of what has been happening.

The next stage will be to complete the floor and build the sub-structure brick work to receive the oak frame.

Cat’s Corner

Yes, here we are again. Moses, Layla and Freddie are back by (very!) popular request.  SWhoMBO did not want us to post any more contributions  – she is probably jealous of our considerable journalistic success – but even she has had to acknowledge that most of our blog readers are far far more interested in what we have to say rather than follow her tedious paragraphs regarding progress of the new build.

We three all nodded our heads sagely in agreement when we heard the staff discussing this month’s blog title (surely they said it was to be “We are flawed”?) so we are more than a little chastened to discover we got this ever so slightly wrong.

We have been completely overwhelmed by fan mail from every corner of the globe, so ‘thanks very much’ to all those concerned and please keep up the good work. Each day we are most anxious to check the red flag on the postbox, knowing that the upright position could well herald the arrival of yet another package for us. Mind you, the senders (John and Kerrie) of the newspaper cutting below must have been seduced by all those cute little faces and completely forgotten we are highly trained assassins – as if we would ever create a home from home for rodents, other than to lure them to become a cat snackerel (we do like this word and for that we are greatly indebted to Cec!)

A ‘rogue’ feline friend sent us (via our special friend Sarah Richards) this fascinating photo of himself and a ‘detainee’ who had just happened to stroll into his embassy/house. We thought it was particularly topical in a dark humour sort of way.  

At the beginning of October we discovered a couple of new signs at the end of the driveway.  In the red one, we judged the first syllable of the second word ‘Con’ to be spot on. Surely Mr Rod realised there was absolutely no ‘building’ work happening in the early part of the month. As far as we were concerned, the various teams were in competitive combat only to determine who could make the biggest mess of our garden.

However, we did not ‘see red’ with the second sign proclaiming the house name as it is such a vast improvement on the previous one.

We consider it is our duty to carry out a daily inspection of the building site to check that all is proceeding to plan. If anyone had bothered to ask us, we would have advised that those pro-forma shutters would be no use at all for our foundation work!

Surely we cannot be the only ones who had noticed that the same mountains of earth were being moved around over and over again? We overheard the main man Steve laughing about this phenomenon and claiming it was known in the trade as ‘dizzy dirt’.

Seemingly, Thursday 18 October was a very important day for the project because concrete was to be poured into the foundations. Mr Rod and SWhoMBO were actually smiling (for once!) and you could almost taste the excitement in the air. Of course, we have a far more laid-back approach to such events. It amused us greatly to pretend to be completely disinterested in the process and we were even more entertained when our lengthy snooze in the bedroom provoked outraged human observation and comment.

However, as soon as everyone had departed that day, we were out there to inspect the site and ‘test’ the new surface. Unfortunately, we delayed our investigations a little too long and so were unable to leave an imprint of our paws. Even more unfortunately, we were caught in the act…………………

Judging by the number of such publications that cross this threshold on an ever-increasing basis, we have concluded that our fortunes would be assured if we were to invest in interior design magazines. The ‘house file’ grows bigger by the day with the addition of yet more cuttings and articles containing the most wacky of ideas. Consequently, we are now fearful that we will be forced to gaze upon boring mood boards and (even worse) subjected to interminable discussions about kitchen layouts and the like during the long winter evenings.  The only planning considerations required are the optimum siting (and easy opening) of cat food store cupboards plus the identification of sufficient, safe and soft places in which to recline after a hard night’s hunting or a busy day’s cat-napping?

There is only a small shower room in Hazels Barn so we were somewhat surprised to hear how exercised Mr Rod and SWhoMBO have been in their ‘exchange of views’ about the various shower/bathrooms in the new Hazels House.  Whilst there is agreement that the bath be large enough for both of them (far too much information) and positioned in the window looking towards the north field, they are still in negotiation about the style, colour and material.

Never let it be said that we are insensitive to human ablution requirements. We have selflessly investigated the matter thoroughly and there is no need to search any further because on one of our daily site inspections we identified the ideal bathing solution.

We believe Mr Rod and SWhoMBO will be absolutely delighted with the shape, size and colour of their new bath. There is even plenty of space for candles and champagne glasses……………

 

Next month

November is the time for final groundworks preparation before the oak frame is delivered at the start of December.