Creeping like snail

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A mark to anyone who recognised the Shakespeare quotation in the title: another mark to anyone who knows which play it's from.

I've mis-used it a bit - the actual phrase is "And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, and shining morning face, creeping like snail unwillingly to school".

Progress on the house is creeping like snail. Most of the tasks that are left are fairly small and don't make that big a difference. I touched up some damaged paintwork on a window frame and although it did look better, it's not like the big "Wow" that we got when we achieved something like getting all the windows in in the first place.

Progress continues though - Ewan's been busy while Willy had a week off to recover from his birthday and to try out his new bus pass.

We now have a meter cupboard and curvy skirting in most of the upstairs rooms against the bale walls.

When we arrived on Friday, we fitted velux blinds in the bedrooms - should have got black-out blinds as the ones we have don't really filter out much daylight.

Willy spent most of the weekend sanding and oiling the meter cupboard, while I filled some holes in the gables with more straw and plastered over them with lime plaster, using my bare hands because access was so awkward. This is not to be recommended and I have little holes in several fingers now.

We also planted plants that we've been given over the last few weeks in our holding plot, so that at least they'll get watered and won't get squished by the digger when it comes back to landscape the garden in July . All three sweet peas have survived, a dozen blackcurrants, all the leeks, a eucalyptus, a honeysuckle, an aspen and a horse chestnut.

Sounds like we didn't do much, but we were busy the whole weekend - I didn't even have time to measure the humidity levels in the straw bales.

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Photos

Meter cupboard
Ewan made this during the week and Willy sanded it over the weekend.

Window opener
Made from some of the hazel grown on Tombreck that we coppiced for stakes. This is a stake that didn't get used in the straw walls

Balcony with rails
The balcony is now alomost complete - it just needs some flashing to persuade driving rain not to run down the cladding and creep in under the door

Wardrobe door
Don't think you've seen this before - it's amazing wood

Velux blind
This is the dark brown one - it is more effective at keeping out the light than the neutral colured one in the other bedroom

Bathroom tiles
Can't decide what colur to paint the wall above it - have tried red, crimson, pale blue and pale green and decided against silver.

Loo with a view