Big House Adventure: Post-Apocalyptic Life in our House: January 2014

So, on the traditional day of retrospective and prospective thought (despite coping with lack of sleep and too much Prosecco), I'm here to wish you a cheery Happy New Year! And think a little about what we've achieved, and what is yet to come......

The good news is that we have eighteen, eight metre deep, steel loo rolls in the ground, which look extremely unremarkable for the amount of money they cost. These are the piles (cue unsavoury joke), and the boys are coming back next week to create the ring beam that connects them up. Together, these constitute our 'foundations'. Then our builder can lay the “block and beam” floor, and we will have officially come out of the ground. Phase I complete!

The Piles are the white tubes on the left

My utility room

Secondly the Senior Planner we spoke to regarding our first Planning Application – and our unhappiness at some of the decisions forced on us – has given us a nod that the original planning decision was over zealous. We have an email to say that if we apply again, they would support a double storey bay window at the front of the house, and angled full height windows in the children's bedrooms. So the kids get bedrooms they can look out of! And the double bay means that we open up the landing upstairs to allow for a small 'hang out' space. The only irritant is that we have to reapply for Full Planning, which means another eight weeks of consultation and review. We had to drop a staircase atrium, but to be honest that was dreamt up by the architect. It was a useful bargaining chip, but we did not really value the proposal, or the extra cost associated with it.

It turns out that trying to create an 'L' shaped property using an existing structure is a complex beast. A meeting with our new Structural Engineer sent flickers of fear through us both. The amount of steel work alone sends the budget sky high! For the first time I had an unbidden and unwanted thought – what if we can't do this? So I went and watched a couple of building programmes and reassured myself that every project like this encounters financial challenges. So I pulled my socks up, dug my heels in, and found other metaphors for just getting on with it.

We decided to spend Christmas here in Eric. I was worried it would be a bit depressing, but Father Christmas managed to find us so the kids were happy. We spent Christmas Day at Mum's in the comfort of a real home, which was fabulous, and we entertained on Boxing Day. Eric stood up well to cooking turkey pie for nine and bounced around pleasingly during charades. Suffice to say, we will look back on this Christmas with fondness.

Eric continues to provide us with surreal moments. His layout is such that the kitchen section is next to the shower and toilet room. It's been known for me to be cooking tea with a child sitting 'doing their business' and chatting away to me not a metre away.

It's Mould 1 – Mel 0 presently. I am struggling to keep on top of the mould patches popping up everywhere. I have a daily de-moulding routine that would border on OCD. For all its good points, Eric is clearly not designed for winter living – perhaps it is too well insulated, meaning that the condensation we generate has nowhere to go. In order to keep the air circulating I have to move all the beds and sofa cushions out – anything that touches the floor or walls gets damp. So an intricate routine exists involving a weak bleach solution to tackle the aggressive black lumps. Yuck.

The weather has also upped its ante. Recent storms have battered us and caused sleepless nights (well, for the adults). Gusts have rocked us so hard that dishes have fallen off the draining board. We've had our first major frost – and the pipes didn't freeze up. I'm bracing myself for a hideous January and February. If we can get through them then I'm hoping it'll be downhill from there. I'm stoutly ignoring all the predictions from the Met Office of a cold winter.

Father Christmas brought a great present in the form of a Night Vision Camera. We've heard comments from neighbours about foxes and deer – and you know we have poo evidence of both – but we wanted to see it with our own eyes. As we are living in the front garden we're not seeing the orchard end of the garden where any wildlife would come. So with great hope we have set the camera up for the last four nights – with my warning to the kids we might not get anything. To our huge excitement the first night yielded a brilliant clip of a muntjac deer eating the last of the windfall, and since then we have also seen Fantastic Mr Fox. Future plans include baiting the area and configuring longer movie clips to watch their habits. I'd love to see a badger but I've no evidence of a sett nearby.

The best I can seem to do is download photo grabs of the video. The fox is on the left screen grab on the right hand side of the screen; head to the ground.

Not one to sit in Eric watching the builders work I'm proud to say (with a little help from my friends) I've dug, planted and mulched a 50m native hedge and a 15m willow fedge (willow rods woven into a lattice design – the term 'fedge' coming from living fence/hedge). These are alongside our neighbour's new open slatted fence and gives us a little more privacy.

Lastly, but not leastly, a certain person has dropped hints about not being mentioned in this blog. So to rectify this I'd just like to say that my husband, Jules, is a superstar. This kind of project can't be undertaken with anything less than full commitment – and I know that we are both 100% committed to making this work together. He's going to work from a caravan full of roaring children and coming back to mud, roaring children, and a daily rant from me. And then working hard at weekends on the project. It can't be easy, but he does it without complaint.

So, a toast. I'm raising a mug of tea to you all! Happy New Year!

Footnote: I don't want to bore you with all my snaps but as an aide memoire for me, here are a few from recent events.