One skip, two new windows and some plans…
September started with the fitting of two new windows at the back of the house. For some reason we have UPVC at the front of the house but wooden ones at the back and the wooden ones are all rotten. To be honest, the UPVC ones are definitely past their best too, but at least we can open those without fear of the whole window coming out. Thats a job for the future though. In the meantime we have replaced the bathroom window and the window in what will eventually be our bedroom. It's incredible the difference this small job has made to the rooms themselves, things look slightly less decrepit, if you just focus on the window…
In the garden we have seeded the wildflower bed at the bottom of the garden so we hope next spring to see that flourish. There’s been lots of farming activity happening around us, which has been interesting to watch and we struggled out of bed at 5:30 one morning to see the sunrise and get some lovely photos of the recently baled hay.

We also now have an owl box at the very bottom of the garden. There was a 'comedy moment' when it arrived and Ian realised how big it actually was (for someone who did a LOT of research into owl boxes, he may have forgotten to look at the measurements). In the end we had to hire a commercial ladder and cobble together a rope-over-a-branch pulley system to get the thing high enough up in the tree, so I hope the local tawny owl appreciates it!

As predicted we had to get yet another skip to deal with all the rubbish we discovered under the cut back conifers - I am hopeful that we have now done with skips for the previous occupant’s crap but who knows. Amongst other things, this time we discovered half an old kitchen, a broken water butt, a roll of chicken wire, and plenty of brick rubble and lumps of concrete.
The big news this month though is that we finally have plans and are about to start the building work!
The first photo is the new plan (the dots signify the existing footprint), the second is the existing footprint of the ground floor.
A portaloo has appeared in the front garden this week, along with a(nother) skip and by Friday the conservatory should be at least partly demolished, if not completely, ready to start the ground works next week.
It all feels very real now, and we're facing up to the fact that we will potentially be without a kitchen for at least six weeks at some point (over Christmas!) but, if the worst comes to the worst, there's a Premier Inn just down the road...
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