A Place in the Sun

Having guests is good. Happy guests are even better. Guests sitting out, mug of coffee in hand, faces turned up to the sun, eyes closed, listening to bird song. That's a wonderful thing. I love to do the same, and my heart swells just a little when I see others pausing a while to do it too. But who wants to share that special holiday moment with the owner sat next to them? I certainly wouldn't. Being that owner means I go somewhere else for my own moment of reflection. Sometimes I sit in the field, my back against the veg plot fence, my bottom on damp grass. I've been known to lie on my back amongst the sheep, staring up at the sky. On a sunny morning, if a cottage is unoccupied, I might be found on the patio, still dressed in pyjamas, fluffy socks and dressing gown, sipping tea, counting under my breath timing the visits of the house martins to their nests. At the end of the day, once chores are done, I drag a deck chair from the wood shed and set it up between the compost bins at the back of the house, where the setting sun warms a patch of grass before dipping below the towering row of beech and horse chestnut trees.

I know I'm lucky to have those moments, and those places to sit, and the fluffy socks (once my favourite purchase from Ethical Superstore but now no longer sold - sob), but it's not enough. Besides, most of the veg plot fence has rotted away, the compost bins make poor company, and owner or not, stealing a chance to sit in a cottage garden feels a little like sneaking into a neighbour's garden, never quite at ease for fear of being spotted.

After creating the cottage gardens, we ran out of steam for our own, and the rear of the house has remained the most neglected patch of land ever since. Every year, for the past six years, when spring turns to summer that fades into autumn, I have declared the coming winter to be the time for things to happen, that there will there no more summers without my own place to sit. Somehow there has always been a more pressing project, fencing to erect, willows to plant, a tree house to be built, a fire pit to dig, a different itch to scratch. This winter there was a tractor shed to build. Building the shed meant building up a flat solid base, which meant having earth moving equipment on site. Watching the big orange caterpillar in action gave me an idea.

After the big orange caterpillar left, I surveyed the sea of mud with its flotsam and jetsam of rocks and miscellaneous unidentifiable metal pieces and plastic tatters that had once been an earth bank, and wondered if perhaps my idea had been more bad than good. Be careful what you wish for. A winter of staring at my mud sea through the landing window, trundling past it on a daily basis with a wheelbarrow of wood for the boiler, and I still couldn't see my end game. "Tell me what you want and I'll build it", Dave promised bravely. The vision wouldn't come. The internet is awash with inspirational outdoor creations, but I couldn't conjure up an image of any one of them atop my sea of mud. "Just build me a sun deck. With a pergola. And a swing seat to hang from the pergola." So he built me a sun deck. Without a pergola. And an imaginary swing seat.

Don't think I'm not grateful. For a man with a bad back, helped by a mother with a bad back, a father with a dodgy leg, and a wife with an attitude, building a deck from scratch in two days without ever losing his temper is no mean feat. And let's not forget Alfred, who saved the day by being the only man I know who would just happen to bring his circular saw with him on holiday.

I have my place in the sun. I have a lonely deckchair. If I ever get bored, I also have a venue for impromptu theatrical performances, a stage upon which to strut and fret. Now all I have to do is create a path across the mud to get to my deck and a garden around it to soften its edges, all before the brambles reclaim their territory. I think it's time for a cup of tea and a sit down in that deckchair.

Building a home

Trinny was aged and heading towards decrepitude when we got her. Seven years of exposure to the elements has hastened progress, to the point where I fear bits of her may start to drop off. Loyal to the end, David is in no hurry to replace her and, with one eye on the bank account, neither am I. The illogical step would be to spend a sum many times in excess of her worth to build a home that provides year round shelter and prolongs her life. So that's what we decided to do. Having made the decision to build, it made sense to add in space for my expanding beekeeping paraphernalia and for lambing indoors, protecting both hive parts and ewes from the increasing range of our resident barn owl's impressive and ever improving talent for projectile toileting.

And lo, the wood shed extension has been slowly taking shape.....

It looks considerably larger out there in the real world than it did when sketched on graph paper sitting on our dining table. I don't recall anyone telling me that I would be expected to hoist timber aloft while standing on tip toes at the top of a step ladder set up on the back of the truck. And I'm not exactly small in stature either. Perhaps David had Trinny confused with a bigger, more monstrous tractor, or perhaps he's planning ahead. Note to self, don't let him near any tractor magazines or agricultural auctions.

 

Ask (suggest) and it shall be done (sometimes)

There's neither rhyme nor reason as to why an idea to do something pops into the head on any given day. There's no logic as to why that something has taken six years to pop into the head when it is something that could just have easily been done six years ago as last week. For example, Hen Ffermdy cottage has had bare stone walls for six years, nothing has changed in that period, and as of last weekend it still had the same bare stone walls. At any time I could have looked at those walls and said to myself, "that looks a little bare, I wonder if there's a plant that could be trained to grow up that wall". But I didn't. Until last week. Perhaps the idea has always been there, but buried at the bottom of my useful thoughts pile, lost until now in the jumble of less than useful thoughts, distractions and general nonsense which swirl around my head on a daily basis. Grasping the thought whilst it was still bobbing along the surface of that swirl, I went out and bought a clematis and a very big pot.

I returned home feeling pleased with myself. "That's going to need a trellis", said David. "Did you buy one?" Faced with a return trip to the garden centre and making another purchase, I felt less pleased with myself. "Can't you make one?", I replied after a short pause. Feeling pleased with myself once again, I trotted off to potter in the polytunnel. I knew the seed had been planted, not in raised beds, but in David's mind, and all I had to do was wait for it to germinate. As plant germination rates vary, so do project germination rates, except project rates can be anything from days through to months and occasionally years, though in that case it is usually safe to conclude that the seed rotted away for lack of t.l.c. and the project will never see the light of day. The seed for the trellis project was one of those extremely rare instantaneous germinations. Within the hour David was scouting the land for suitable tree whips. A short time later, still in the polytunnel, I could hear tap, tap, tap, woof, woof, whine. Tap, tap, tap, woof, woof, whine. Yes, David was hammering, Teri was helping.

Strolling back to the house with an armful of rhubarb for tea, I spied David by the woodshed. I went to investigate. "I've done it!", he declared. Sure enough, he had. Pleased as punch, he held his creation aloft. A trellis. Not just a trellis, a fan trellis. A rustic fan trellis made of ash whips. More befitting of Banceithin than anything I could have bought for silly money from B&Q.

Odd Job, Bodge Job

Dry days have been hard to come by of late, so when Mother Nature deigns to hold off on the wet stuff for a succession of days, it's foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity to tick a few outdoor jobs off the list. Not every job can be a big job, but completing a selection of little jobs in and amongst some general pottering can be just as satisfying.

David's odd jobs tend to involve hammers, nails, a drill and assorted cuts of wood.

First, he built a chicken shelter. Having moved the chicken house away from rattus rattus and having increased the flock from four to eight, there was no longer sufficient space under the house to accommodate all the girls on rainy, sleety, haily, windy days. When free ranging they have access to a myriad of shelters; picnic benches, bushes, vehicles, trailer, wood shed, boiler room (if SOMEONE leaves the door open), but options are limited when they are confined to their run. If you've seen David's pig ark and sheep shed constructions, you'll instantly recognise the inspiration behind the chicken shelter design. David works to a very flexible design, easily scaled up or, in this case, down, depending on your sheltering needs. I'm calling the new chicken shelter the Bunker. Being low to the ground it calls to mind entrances to underground hurricane and air raid shelters.

The Bunker has inspired me to name the last of our new flock yet to be named. Dorothy. Hurricane, twister, over the rainbow, you see where I'm going .....

Back to David's handiwork. Some further rummagings in his wood stocks later, and the rotten boards of the raised veg beds were fixed. More hammering and drilling and the new compost bins rose up from the ground as if by magic. Give him tools and a pile of pallets and he's an odd job genius!

My odd jobs tend to involve paint brushes and procrastination. Whilst David hammered and constructed, all I managed to do was think about getting up a ladder to re-paint the top floor window surround (it was stripped of its expensive face lift by a particularly aggressive, perfectly angled hail storm), decide it was too cold to go that high up, and instead paint the pallets of the de-constructed and re-constructed chessboard ....

Oh yes, and I also painted the outline of some utensils. As you do. Don't ask. Just another crazy idea born of too much time trawling the internet on rainy days.

However, not every job that day was successful. Nest box checking and moving proved surprising tricky for the simplest job on the list.

  

The robin box just would not budge from its nailed in position too high up the tree. Hammer failed, screwdriver failed. Just one more pull was a pull too far. As I watched David fall backwards off the ladder, hammer still in hand, the world slowed down, giving me sufficient time to register the fact that he was falling, consider the outcome should he hit the ground, wonder if I should intervene to try to break his fall, and ultimately do nothing but watch gravity do what it does. Fortunately, things were moving faster in David's world, and so was his brain. As his feet left the ladder he had the good sense to inject a little impetus and so turn his fall into a leap, landing unsteadily but safely, hammer still in hand. We decided that was sufficient drama for one day and went inside for tea and cake.  The robin box remains in its position too high up the tree.

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Working with wood

To whittle. To trim, carve, slice off pieces from wood with a knife. The dictionary definition ends there. It doesn't go on to say "to create ...". Accordingly, there doesn't have to be a defined end product for the act of whittling to have taken place. Therefore, it is safe for me to say that David has been whittling.

David has often threatened to whittle, but up until now he has, to my knowledge, never actually whittled. Unless of course he has some secret whittling past of which I know nothing. But on present evidence I think we can assume he is new to whittling. For behold, here is his first spoon!

Not a bad first effort, don't you think? I'm sure you'll be even more impressed when I tell you that the first few stages of the spoon's creation were done without the aid of specialist whittling tools. It used to look like this.

I asked for a spoon with which to scoop bath salts. I got a spoon. What more could I ask for.

For his second whittling project, David has elected to create a set of salad servers to use with his new pottery bowl. He has "gone large" for this one. So far all I can share with you is the work in progress of one half of the set.

 

It has an interesting curve. In fact it has two interesting curves in two different directions. Apparently, David "lets the wood dictate the shape". You can't argue with a craftsman.

There has been a lull in whittling of late. I feared that mild ridicule from some quarters might have dampened the initial whittling enthusiasm. David says not. Apparently, whittling is a winter evening activity. Again, you can't argue with a craftsman. 

I'm expecting all Christmas presents from David this year to be whittled. Better be careful what you put on the wish list.

A whittling he will go!

If I had a pound for every occasion when Dave has offered to whittle, carve or otherwise knock up something for me, I wouldn't be sitting here writing this, I'd be taking a trip in my private helicopter for a week in the sun on my private island. If I had a pound for every item Dave has actually whittled, carved or otherwise knocked up, I could probably scrap together enough to buy a bag of pick 'n' mix. There are signs, however, that I may yet be able to swap sweets for sunshine.

It began with Valentine's Day. I wanted gifts for our Valentine's weekend guests. I'd seen various bric-a-brac, shabby chic, crafty type shops selling slate hearts bearing assorted printed words of love, but wasn't convinced that the workmanship matched the price tag. Ever hopeful, but with little expectation of success, I showed a picture to Dave and enquired as to the likelihood of him knocking up something similar. Well blow me down, if before I could say "don't worry, I was only asking, I can always buy some from that shop in Lampeter", he'd whipped out his Rotozip and was off rummaging amongst his scrap yard off cuts. OK, so the prototype was a slightly wonky, strangely misshapen heart, but armed with a cardboard template there were soon not one but two slate hearts flying off the woodshed workbench production line. I let the side down with some dubious handiwork with brush and paint (which in Dave's opinion did not do justice to the quality of his own workmanship), but all in all I think that between us we did a rather good job for the princely sum of 45 pence for a strip of ribbon.

He didn't stop there. Next up, the tree lamp. We'd been following the fortunes of our friend Sarah on the BBC's Great Interior Design Challenge (which she won by the way, so if vintage, quirky unique interiors are your thing, I recommend you take a peak at her website before she's a rich and famous designer to the stars!). Anyway, shameless plug over, on one episode of Great Interior Design Challenge Sarah created a lamp from a silver birch tree (not the whole tree, obviously). This idea lodged someone deep within Dave's brain, where after a few days of mental whittling, it blossomed into a new project. A redesign of the dining room in Cwt Mochyn cottage has been in the cards for some time, with a new lamp having been on the "to buy" list for months but with no junk shop find or eBay listing having taken my fancy. Dave was now on the case. Dead tree identified, chopped and lopped, stripped and whittled. Handy tree surgeon log cast off re-located to the woodshed, stripped and whittled. Of course, our version of Sarah's tree lamp would have to be "eco". The retro filament bulbs she used look very cool but are about as eco as a hot tub is, so Dave sourced an alternative and needless to say our eco but cool bulbs came at eco but cool prices. It's still neither easy nor cheap to be green.

 

Right now I'm sourcing the wildlife for Dave's tree. I have a felt robin ready to nest in its branches, and one of Sarah's very own blanket birds should be flying this way very soon (well they are made from Welsh blankets so it seems appropriate that one should come home to roost). You'll have to wait for the birds to arrive for the "after" picture and the grand unveiling of the finished article.

As if those two masterpieces weren't enough, before the varnish on his tree lamp was dry, he was plucking willow whips from the grassland, then back in the woodshed, whittling knife at the ready, knocking up a couple of willow hurdles. 

Is there no end to this man's talents? I intend to find out! I will be shamelessly exploiting this sudden burst of creativity. I've already put in my order for reclaimed wood shelving for Cwt Mochyn cottage. Dave may now be the whittling king, but I am the queen of lists, so I'm pretty sure that his enthusiasm will be on the wane long before my "to make" list will be complete.

Ticking Boxes

The Project List. The dreaded Project List. I’m longing to strike something off the list. It’s been so long since we ticked a “project completed” box that in order to make myself feel better I’ve joined the ranks of Mohr, Richter and Beaufort and created the “Pickworth Scale of Completeness”, which goes something like this:

1 – still just an item on a list on a whiteboard / in a note book

2 – constructive (occasionally heated) discussions have begun on how to progress

3 – materials purchased but someone’s waiting for someone else to do something

4 – some tinkering has occurred

5 – actively in progress

6 – Lord above, it’s a miracle, project completed

At least this means I can put a tick in box 6 for “re-write Project List according to Pickworth Scale of Completeness” and use the rest of the Project List to create a pretty pattern of ticks across boxes 1 to 5, weighted heavily towards 1 to 3 with a smattering of 4s and a sprinkling of 5s.

A recent spate of dry sunny days has brought with it the promise of spring, a reminder that the Easter season is just a few weeks away, and consequentially a flurry of Project List related activity. Most notable amongst these activities has been the drive to push the tree-house project from a pleasing 5 to a glorious 6 on the Pickworth Scale of Completeness. Having languished for far too long at the 2 and below level, the project burst into life again last autumn when we drafted in outside help in the form of Martin, a friend of a friend from down Cardigan way who knows a thing or two about building stuff from wood that won’t fall over at the first puff of Welsh wind. In just a few days, the project rocketed up the Pickworth Scale of Completeness. Wood was ordered, brambles cleared, trees cut back…

 

….. a platform raised aloft, ……

 

decking constructed, …….

 

I watched in awe as a hideaway in the trees emerged from amongst the sawing, hammering, and drilling.

Over the winter, with the project firmly fixed at position 5 on the Pickworth Scale of Completeness, Martin was tasked with coming up with rustic hand rails and ladder for the tree-house. He certainly came up with the goods, splitting and stripping ash trees from his own woodland. Nobbly, unique and not a straight line in sight! Perfect!

It was left to Dave to take the role of lead carpenter and complete the project by fixing the rails and ladder in place. Obviously he was ably assisted in this task by his trusty assistants – me (to hold the wood and pass the tools) and Teri (to steal the wood and bark at the tools). I felt sure that Teri’s skills could be put to better use. With minimum effort we appear to have trained her to understand and respond to “where’s the ball” and “where’s the stick”. As proud as I am of Teri’s mad collie levels of intellect, I suspect that the subtle difference between “ball” and “stick” barely registers in her mind, and that “where’s the” are the trigger words. With this in mind, a period of intense, treat driven training could surely extend her repertoire to “where’s the hammer” and “where’s the spanner”, perhaps even getting as far as “where’s the big drill bit” or “where’s the 17mm socket attachment for the ratchet”. This would save a lot of to-ing and fro-ing to the utility room and up-ing and down-ing on the ladder when Dave forgets to put the right tool in the tool bucket!

  

All that remains to be done is to lash the trees with rope for the hammock hooks and add the aesthetically pleasing but sympathetic to the surroundings soft furnishings (the natural coloured, allegedly waterproof, dirt resistant eco-poofs are on order) and decorative touches (the box of scallop shells and driftwood waits in the shed while I wait for a creative moment to arrive).

Would it be cheating if I put a tick in box 6 for the tree-house project?

Dave’s secret hideaway

So the barn owls have fledged which means we can now start to tidy up the wood shed. I have become a bit of a hoarder in the last couple of years. After all the building work I had accumulated a plethora of left over bits of wood, funny shaped bolts, bits of piping etc, but was loathe to throw them away, especially when I had a shiny big shed to chuck them all in. I must admit I have found all kinds of uses for these bits and bobs, but I now had a plan to turn a load of old wood, a barn door and some kitchen work surface into the centre piece of any self respecting DIY enthusiast's hideaway……..a work bench with vice!

To the casual observer it may not look like much, but she’s a sturdy girl, and I was pleased with my lower shelf addition. Not only did it provide additional valuable storage space, it also acted as a stabiliser for the three fence post legs. Next is to continue the tidying, bring some power to the shed, and I could use the chiminea in the winter to toast my toes when I get the urge to ‘make’ something during the colder months.

The Clay Oven –Part 3

I had a two day window of glorious weather to progress with the clay sculpture. I continued to dig clay from the stream bed, and the next stage was to mix this with wood shavings to apply a second coat of clay to the dome which will act as the insulation layer. At this point Philippa surprisingly went 'AWOL'. I don’t think her hands fully recovered from assisting me with the first layer. I also built the brick front with chimney which I was particularly proud of. Even though I was only using clay, amazingly the archway stayed up!

The last job is to dry it out and apply a final coat of a clay/sand mix, which should be just as autumn is descending so the window of opportunity for using the oven will be getting very tiny indeed!