More Barn Progress

Things are moving now, and hopefully we will be soon. We think we have satisfied all the conditions to reapply for further planning permission, so hopefully we will get confirmation soon, then we will be moving in! It’s a slightly terrifying thought, and will be very different to the life we currently know – we won’t have running hot water, electric or a phone line for a bit (no netflix!). I’m hoping it will be a fun experience and make us and the girls more appreciative of all the little luxuries we come to expect in this century. Like lights in every room. We have our lovely 3 ring gas burner in the kitchen now, and I’ve been practising making bread on the hob rather than the oven. It’s not the same as a baked loaf, but it’s bread none the less.

We’ve also acquired a rather large, old wood burning stove with back boiler. It’s ridiculously heavy. Hopefully it will be ready to commission by winter and will provide us with both heat and hot water so we don’t actually freeze.

We have a new shiny window, as required in the living room. The wall is nearly 2ft thick at the bottom of it, so it’s got a nice wide ledge. The outside doesn’t look too neat, but the concrete render has to come off at some point and be replaced with lime, so it’ll be tidied up then. It required a chunk of the cob wall removing, and they found an old horseshoe mixed in it. I’m taking that as a good sign. It’s sitting in the kitchen window now.

Our garden is growing, literally. We are a bit behind but beans & peas are springing up, the squash is making a break for freedom, and the courgette (why does autocorrect want to make that corvette? Are they more popular than a easy-to-grow vegetable?) have tiny courgettes appearing. The cucumbers are slow, but starting to grow a bit finally, and mum gave us loads of tomato plants so we have a whole bed of them now. H’s little bed has some carrots starting to spring up, her own tomato plant, and a host of raspberry plants going a bit wild too.