Another rainy day here, so time for a further update!
Cobbing has been interrupted by the rain quite frequently but this has not stopped my ‘boys’ from making good progress elsewhere. As we realised Alex wouldn’t have the same passion for our property as us we thought we would give him his own little project – a chicken shed! Using off-cuts from Steve’s wood projects, a saw, hammer and nails he ‘happily’ set to work, committed to our mantra of reuse and recycle. Even though he had brought his bike across from England, he admitted that he really doesn’t enjoy cycling so took to bringing his car – this was fine most of the time, up until we had so much rain that the temporary driveway became too slippery for it!! Parking on the roadside is not ideal as we do get occasional tractors, which meant Alex had to run to move it out of the way – fortunately this only happened once! The added benefit of him coming by car was that he worked longer and wasn’t quite as knackered!! I think we should start using him as a poster boy of what happens when you visit the Monaghan Health Farm (or perhaps that should be Torture Chamber).
As Steve is having a few problems with his chainsaw (I think he has overused it and it needs a good service!), he decided that instead of making new planks for the extension roof, we would see if we could reuse the original first floor planks as they needed to be removed anyway because the leaking roof had caused a number of them to have become less than trustworthy underfoot – we knew this as he had broken through a few wandering aimlessly around the first floor. So, armed with his crowbar and hammer he set to work removing them. We then decided that we could sort out a conveyor belt of sorts. Funnily enough I got the dirty job again! (I assume it is because I do not like the technical jobs!!) While Steve was sitting on the roof, I cleaned off the planks, Steve measured what he wanted, Alex then cut the planks to Steve’s measurements (more often than not!) and then Steve would nail it in place. Nails were much easier to use than making 4000 wooden pegs! This little routine worked very well, however, due to some of the boards not being fit for reuse we are about five boards short.
Having carefully checked the roof alignment, with his fancy laser level, from the garage building it came as a bit of a surprise to discover that when viewed from the side it looked perfect, but standing in the garden and looking at the property it looked decidedly wrong! Guess what, absolutely nothing on this place is square – and you certainly don’t need to use your laser level to figure that out, Stevie!! No worries, just a little tinker to make it look right.
Rather than stand around watching the two of them measuring and cutting, once I had finished the cleaning and unable (or should I say, unwilling) to start cobbing late in the day, I decided it was time to start removing ivy from the trees. Someone told me that I just need to cut a six inch gap in the ivy near the base and then the ivy will die off but that isn’t much fun, so I started cutting and pulling it off as high as I could reach. Sod’s Law meaning that the one and only time I nearly fell over whilst pulling Steve had to be watching!! At least it was only nearly!!
Even though it has been quite wet I have managed to do a large percentage of the cob repairs to the roadside garage wall. As we are no longer putting in long ‘sausages’ and I am just repairing cracks and holes we have cut down from our expected 5 batches to sometimes just one. It seems that it takes for ever to use a batch to fill holes which originally look quite small but due to the thickness of the wall are in fact quite large! The routine for this is that once the cob is made, I grab a man to carry the cob round for me on the tarpaulin and I take handfuls and play!
Now that the main house is open to the roof we have decided that we have another dilemma. We both really like the look of the roof and started to think that perhaps we wouldn’t replace all the floorboards, leaving one half full height and creating a mezzanine for our bedroom, and then Steve had a brainwave! The original plan was to have the kitchen in the garage end, bedroom upstairs, bathroom downstairs below the bedroom and the lounge in the remaining ground floor space with a circular staircase. His crazy idea now is to have the bedroom and bathroom in the garage end, put the kitchen into the main house with the lounge making this double height and leave the extension as breakfast/dining area. The added advantage to this is the sewer pipe work would only have about ten foot to travel so maybe it would work! This is obviously well away in terms of actioning but definitely something to think about whilst we are continuing with the rather more important roof and walls, making the shell of the building weatherproof!!
As previously said, we are in the process of selling Shearmyste. Arrangements were made by the purchasers to have the boat lifted out at Cras Nautique at Saint Quay Portrieux. We had doubts whether they could really accommodate us in the hoist as, to us, it didn’t look as though there was enough room to get the hoist over the centre line of the boat with the masts in place. However, the yard gave assurances to the buyers that they had checked and it would fit. So, one day, in less than ideal conditions but with a favourable wind direction (there is a boat ramp right next to the lift-out bay with no waiting pontoon), the three of us donned our sailing gear for the mighty voyage. The marina kindly offered to escort us in their rib (which would work as a giant, powered fender if required!!). Leaving the berth was a piece of cake but once outside the breakwater it was a tad lumpy – I made sure that I was sitting down! On arrival at the old harbour we had to wait ten minutes or so for them to change the lifting strops. Because the wind was from behind, she sat happily in tickover in reverse not moving – perfect. Steve once again proved that he can manoeuvre a boat and we gracefully approached the hoist – but it soon became apparent that we wouldn’t fit! Much French shrugging and cordial greetings ensued and we reversed out. This was at a far greater speed than our entry as the wind had decided to turn easterly but thanks to J-F in the marina rib all went well and we proceeded back to the marina where, with marina Trevor waiting on the pontoon to take my rope I managed to throw it straight into the water! This now means a trip to Le Legue, Saint Brieuc for attempt number 3! They have a huge great hoist and can certainly lift us successfully!
Alex has now left us (ferry from Roscoff yesterday) to take off on his own little adventure. He has been keen, ever since participating in his first Fastnet Race back in 2011, to race big yachts. Tall Ships Youth Trust has given him the opportunity to be a Watch Leader on what we consider a mad quest, racing across the Atlantic in the ARC 2019. This will be the third time that Alex has sailed with TSYT and by sheer coincidence it will be the third time on Oona, Challenger 1, which from our perspective is very comforting as she looked after him very well during his two Fastnet Races!! As he is now time-rich, he offered to support the vessel from Plymouth to Portsmouth this week, then from Portsmouth to Las Palmas, Gran Canaria and then the actual ARC to Saint Lucia and then on to Antigua. While this is happening we will be decorating his flat – who got the best deal there then?! At least I will finally fly for more than 1 ½ hours as we will definitely be going to Las Palmas to see him start the race and maybe even getting to Saint Lucia or Antigua for the end of the race and our first ever Caribbean Christmas! I will finally be able to keep track of where he is, and know why he doesn’t respond to texts or phone calls as TSYT has a Fleet Tracker on their website!!
I have now added more photos to the Photo Gallery Page – check them out!!
Fate Or Folly 