'Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness', oh! and asbestos.....

I've been told several times that I haven't actually covered our plans for No. 65 in this blog.

To be honest the plans have hit a brick wall in the form of an over official 'objectionable' (Architect's words not mine) Case Officer in the Planning Department, We've all heard horror stories about the hideousness that is local Planning Department but I truly entered this thinking that the reputation was urban myth. My naïvety is laughable!

We wanted to add a large extension which makes the house L-shaped with the aim of maximising the sunlight, and end up with a 5 bedroom modern house with views over the garden. Design features included a double storey atrium at the front door, french doors in the Music Room and Master Bedroom and normal windows for the smaller bedrooms. All this is currently stripped out by Planners claiming, subjectively, that it doesn't fit with the existing house style.  Details should be published soon of the diluted drawings that we have submitted on the South Cambridgeshire District Council website.

So our lovely plans for updating this ugly squat 1960s chalet style house are dashed slightly, for now! But we have a plan up our sleeve so watch this space. The house has been empty for three years now – it's a two storey house with no period or redeeming features, except one. The garden. It is set within an acre of raw land just prime for a little bit of love. A long front garden – now full with weeds and thorns – gives some depth from the road and then the garden opens up into an overgrown field and orchard ripe with possibilities. There is a row of five mature Poplars; majestic in their looks and their beautiful rustle in even the lightest wind. The icing on the cake for the kids are Blue and Floss; our neighbour's Ponies.

We have had great fun exploring and getting used to the garden. We've more plums and apples than we can possibly eat – apple crumble, frozen plums and plum squash (try it in Prosecco - yum!). Blackberries, sloe berries, pears, more apples are all coming. A first trial for Sloe Gin is on its way.

Listening to the gentle thud of the apples falling to the ground I was hoping for Newton-like enlightenment of some sort. The reality was more mundane; when one of the children disturbed my daydream with a request to identify poo. We'd been told of foxes and muntjac deer – particularly a Fantastic Mr Fox who has been seen nonchalantly wandering round the garden as if he owned it. Despite trying we've not seen anything ourselves. However several google image searches later (have you tried to search 'poo'???) we can confidently confirm the presence of deer and foxes. Sightings hopefully to come.

On a less romantic note(!) we had three large 7ft piles of rubbish in the garden. One was ash and burnt scrap metal. The second was grass cuttings and brambles; the third is of uncertain heritage. Some say it was a pond filled in; others say it was an old chicken shed allowed to rot in situ. All we know is that it is ugly and potentially hazardous.

The weekend's job was to attack Pile Three. There was no pond, but there was several decades of asbestos tiles, bricks, plastic, roofing materials, metal, chicken wire, and more rotting wood than came up from the Mary Rose! Who could just dump all that in their garden? It's beyond me. It filled a 16ft skip. And I'm left having sleepless nights worrying about our asbestos exposure.

Despite temperatures cooling, Eric and Ernie are proving to be snug and warm; although Abi informed me that she irons her already-ironed uniform 'to warm it up' in the mornings – ingenious or madness?

Sewerage, Electricity and some Divine Intervention

So, Eric and Ernie had been positioned – albeit after creating a traffic jam during morning rush hour in Over (!) – and secured. It was hook up time.
 

Finding electricity was always going to be easy; simply attach to the mains – and completed on Day One. Sewerage and Water proved more difficult.

Sewerage was tackled first. Unfortunately a smaller member of our family had already utilised the facilities in the main house quite robustly that morning. By 'facilities' I mean a toilet that was 'secured' in place by a couple of pieces of wedged ceramic tile underneath the pan. It is liable to rock dangerously at inopportune moments and still leaks from the back somewhere, which is unnerving.

The Virgin Media Man asked to use the loo. I took him in and explained that the toilet rocked if he needed to sit down. He looked at me, deadpan (no pun intended), in the eye and said 'Don't worry I won't be needing to sit down.' Too much information.

So Day Two of Operation Hook Up, the sewer pipes were being rodded from near the house in order to clear them. In our excitement we were all standing over the open drain watching years of backlog being pushed through. A cheer and a chorus of  'There it is!!' went up as the aforementioned morning deposits happily rolled their way into the sewer system.

 

Rather than choosing a photo of the derelict toilet I've chosen a shot from the orchard back up to the house.  Thought you'd prefer it.

 

 

 

Onto water. The next day we arrived to find the builders had already dug two deep holes to find the water pipe; but to no avail. With all avenues exhausted, Head Builder (HB), in desperation and derision from his team, decided to fashion a steel wire coat-hanger into divining rods.

Bets were placed on the likelihood of finding water, and unasked for advice given as if we were all experts. A passing workman drove up and shouted, 'It does work, mate, but those copper coat hangers are better' and drove off. Off HB went across the mud; a hunched figure gazing intently at two bits of wire. And then the rods undeniable moved inwards. Breaths were held as a 2m deep hole dug..... and to our amazement we struck gold! A thick black water pipe!

A couple of days and glasses of wine later we tried to recreate the Divination in Eric over the kitchen sink. Did it really work? Begrudgingly, I have to say it did.

 

 

 

Eric and Ernie or Ant and Dec?

My name choices for our two static caravans we'd bought didn't go down well with the children.  'Who?'  they chorused.  The generation gap widened when they suggested  'Ant and Dec', then 'Dick and Dom' but I couldn't see myself announcing 'I'm just going into Dick to get a blanket'.  Cue titters all round.

It's taken me hours to work out this blog template; now I've got to populate it with anecdotes from the past week.  And what a week it's been.  We've moved out of a lovely 1930s period property that we'd lovingly renovated over the last 10 years and into two statics - the aforementioned Eric and Ernie - overlooking a squat 1960s chalet style house in an acre of natural garden.

We've watched too much 'Grand Designs', 'Homes under the Hammer' and 'Renovation Man' for our own good.  Added to a desire not to pay a penny more for Stamp Duty we'd decided to buy a 'project'.

Eric is a couple of years old; in fine fettle with central heating and double glazing capable of heating a three bedroom house I'm told.  He's modern, sleek and will be the static we live in.  Ernie is a teenager with 1990s styling but comfortable enough to give us a place to hide from each other.   

The walls are paper thin; I get an adrenalin hit whenever one of the children turns over in bed and hits the wall.  In the quiet of night it sounds just like someone trying to get in.  I'm disconcerted that Eric seems to have a shudder to him.  If anyone moves at all the whole structure gives a subtle shake all over I can only liken to one a fridge gives on occasion.  Perhaps he's horrified at the new tenants.

So, rarely for me (cue snorting from those who know me!), I put my foot down and 'Eric and Ernie' it is.  Comforting, trusted, amusing names that will hopefully warm us during the cold winter days to come.