Blogs from Perthshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 12

Nearly ready to shut the house up for the mid-winter celebrations. Before that, a challenge for the creatively inclined. We have an irregular four-sided gap in the east and west bedroom wall adjacent to the double height sun-space, that's formed where the big roof beams and the vertical and diagonal posts meet. There's a photo in with this entry.. We could just fill the space with plasterboard. We can't just leave a gap, as Building Control is not fond of features which allow small children to fall from great heights. We are thinking of windows possibly with a stained glass inset - ( as we can't afford to do both as full stained glass). What else is feasible? I'm home for a long weekend to see if my back recovers. I think I knackered it fitting ... read more

We haven't had a Winnie the Pooh story for quite some time. Winnie the Pooh arrived at his house on Monday morning and the ground was white - he also noticed a slow puncture in one of his tyres, but that's not very relevant. His friend Thumper liked the snow and spent all day catching snowflakes, ending up with white whiskers like an arctic explorer. At lunchtime, when all the sensible people had gone home for lunch and he was all alone in the house, Winnie the Pooh decided to do some work. He climbed carefully up the stepladder and stretched, but he couldn't quite reach. So he climbed right to the top of the stepladder and reached again. Suddenly he woke up sitting on the ground with a very sore head. Winnie the Pooh had ... read more

So today is the last night in Scotland for 11 months...how scary is that? The flight leaves Edinbutgh at 1 pm tomorrow lunchtime and I touch down at 7 pm (Canadian time, actually about 3 am). Then i've got two days in Vancouver before heading to Lake Louise on a mamoth 15 hours bus journey through the Rockies, stand by for pictures of this epic. Due to start work on Saturday, working for the ski company as a ski technician. At the moment there isn't much snow but it changes everyday and there should be enough to open the hill on the 8th of November, fingers crossed. Look forward to letting you all know about my big adventure in the big bad world, Aly x... read more

Returned early Sunday afternoon to continue search for elusive electricity supply the hole got slowly bigger as we found first the telephone cables then the field drain and water supply then the end of the duct where the electricity will eventually run. Wendy eventually found the cable but we were still unsure as to where it terminated. Eventually gave in for the day feeling a bit hot and bothered, so had a quiet meal in the house then headed up to the farmhouse for an early night. Monday continued digging out cable. Douglas, the electrician returned and on checking ascertained that the intention was to break into the cable (which runs down to the eventual site for the big shed). All we had to do was leave it exposed so they could get access. Happy we ... read more

Having made the most of our weeekend off catching up on sleep etc. We returned to Tombreck on Tuesday. Continued stuffing roof and completed both west and central sections (now 5/6ths done) but ran out of mesh. Then to Manse for birthday bash for Bryn - the usual enjoyable if chaotic melee of music and mayhem. Also farewell to Tasha and Marcus who were departing the following day for London and Sweden respectively. On Wednesday, Wendy started stuffing and trimming the straw walls on the ground floor (with scissors) and this continued on Thursday - between meetings with Douglas to talk about electrics and John Rennie to discuss floor insulation . meantime Willy kept Hamie company as he drilled holes for posts for balcony and woodshed/veranda Went to Lawers Hotel for dinner only to meet Ian ... read more