Spring.

Well it's all beautiful here in the Dales. It's been fantastic weather and we've been working hard in the garden.

It's pretty overgrown at the moment but really nice. The river is very low at the moment, but very busy.

We have several duckling famillies which are really rather sweet. Just hoping that Blackie (cat) doesn't show too much interest. He has caught a couple of baby rats (or they've died in the house in suspicious circumstances) and there was the mystery smell (obv blamed on Moleskin - that cat shits all over the house etc etc) that turned out to be a very dead mouse under the sofa. And talking of shitting all over the house Blackie spends most of his days outside asleep by the compost bin? Only comes in to use the litter tray. behaviour which Neil says is TOTALLY UNNACEPTABLE. And talking again of awful toileting behaviour Dennis... had a night away in a pub so Neil could go and see Man City beat West Ham. I did my wifely duty by driving him to and from the football ground and backing the car into a bollard, (fairly large dent). But Dennis, oh dear, nice weather, people eating outside, lets just say 7 bags, 2 bottles of water, some moved diners and very thorough hand washing later.

So we have some vegetable patches.

Have planted about half of the second one, nothing yet just flocks of smug looking birds flying off everytime I go and check things out.  But my propogators well that's a different matter.

Have a very efficient plan so I know whats where but think Neil's moved them all around "for a laugh". So maybe this summer we'll get some vegetables else birds dropping out of the sky due to obesity.

And Den is very excited about the new neighbours.

He really doesn't know what to do - just woof's in a stupid fashion. Blackie is quite friendly with them (there's 3) and touches noses etc, but Moleskin, lets face it who knows what goes on in her furry little head anyway.

Now to inside. Oh the horror of the kitchen. We put up the partition so the residents can get to the dining room without seeing us. None of that open kitchen shit here. And I've been plasterboarding, Neil's been dry lining and look at it.

Nice new cooker by the way. But...

Now that does look like a Mr Trebus Life of Grime / serial killer's kitchen, in fact it does, it looks like the pictures of Bin laden's "luxury" hideaway faithfully reproduced with great excitment in the Sun. You can see noone respects my rule about no power tools on the work surfaces, and as for trying to teach Neil to "clean up as he goes" when he's cooking, how?  I mean I do clean it up every night before cooking tea but still.

And power tools, look at that

Now that's a mans screwdriver for you, looks like a cross between Thunderbird 5 and the Liberator, it's magnetic, has a light on it and goes faster than the speed of sound. But curiously only weighs about 100g, unlike the shonky old piece of shite I get.

Weighs about 4kg and has the wrong battery which falls out on your feet all the time - v. painful.

Starting to get there (and Dennis).

Oh Joy sanding floors. Such fun. So what you get...

There's the gang - nasty big one, cross between lawnmower, hoover and flesh harvester. Sounds like a jumbo jet and weighs a ton. Has a nice paper bag on to collect the dust (doen't really) and which has a tendency to burst if you forget to empty it or don't put it on properly and that is fun - a sawdust bomb! So you have to push the monster up and down slowly whilst it rips the floor (and anything else it encounters dogs, cats, electric leads etc) to shreds with sandpaper. Best bit is when your husband doesn't put it together properly so you're left like a twat holding the handle whilst the scaring bit trundles of wreaking havoc on its own. And when you start to get somewhere you have to "change the belt" grappling with a bit of sandpaper thats about as easy to bend as a lump of tarmac but rougher and fixing it to the drum etc etc.

And then there's the corners of the room to do of course the big fucker is far to unweildly to go within 12' of an angle. So you get this smaller one that looks like a cooker ring, weighs about 25kg and spins around like a bastard. You have to scuttle round with this thing bouncing of wallls and skirting boards and trying not too flay yourself with all the men on site helpfully popping in and telling you what a horrible job sanding floors is and how the cooker ring thing really does your back. Oh really.

But now the floors are done we can get decorating. So this is room 2 pretty much done, en suite through the doorway, velux window going in today.

That's the far reaches of room 1 - it's massive, the new stove is in the foreground and thats the doorway to the "luxury" shower room. Nice floor too.

We've now moved upstairs to the top floor.

Before

And after. The middle two floors are definately coming on. The ground floor is in the process of being trashed and the cellar just lies beneath the house. The dust continues, Henry the hoover is giving up the ghost, can always tell a hoover on a building site as it weighs it ton cause it's full of plaster and a pile of rubble falls out of the hose when you turn it of.

And Dennis. Poor Dennis has pulled a muscle in his shoulder on the dodgy leg. So is on 3 legs quite a bit and has to be carried downstairs which he doen't appreciate. Always makes the same face

the dog that is makes the face. Top bicep shot Neil. And very tired dog too. Went to Bedale Point to Point on Sunday which was great but too much for a hop a long lurch.

And last week spring arrived. It's been beautiful, all daffodils, bluebells and lambs everywhere. They really are gorgeous. The amount of crashes we've nearly had looking at lambs in fields. We've had lunch in the garden most days and the streets are filling up with caravans and motorbikes.

Dennis hopes that when his leg is better he might be able to play with some lambs. He's working on disguises.

The Cellar.

                                                             

It's been cleaned out a bit down there. Obviously not by me - you don't want to look up too much down there. But its now pretty good and almost the cleanest part of the building. So you go down those stairs to ..

That room - lots of wheels etc that rotate. The water wheel is directly behind that lot through the big door on the right. Think there might be a dog sneaking into view.

Close up. Not sure what we're going to do with this room yet but will put up big glass screens in front of the workings. Can be quite dangerous when they get going.

This room is behind the other one, and as you can see by the bike is going to be the "gym" once all cleaned up and the running machine etc installed.

                                                                                    

                                   

So thats the blocked up staircase and the entrance to the "secret" passage. Just really goes around the old kiln below the garage (so I've been told - haven't risked it yet).

The old water pump. So its pretty good down there.

Back above ground the mess continues. Not helped by the facts the cat's moulting. Large clump of Moleskin tumbleweeding about looks EXACTLY like a very big spider hooning across the floor and freaks the life out of me. Furballs everywhere too. Neil left the one on the backstairs as he thought it was a ?!leaf. What the hell kind of trees has leaves like furry cat turds.

Outside not too tidy either. Had a delivery driver come to the door the other day, caught him just leaving and he said sorry was just going, didn't think anyone actually lived here. Oh yes I said brightly ignoring the look of horror on his face then realised how I was dressed. Too short work jeans (Neil won't walk round the village near me as I look like I'm on day release), about 6 tatty tops one half of one zipped into the other half of another one and covered in dust. The place does look a bit like the place the murderer obviously lives from a tv dectective drama. Though not by a canal like they always seem to be.

Has Neil finally got his wicked way with moleskin?

No cause she's sitting on the frigging keyboard as normal.

The Mess.

Its happened. We've lost control. The mess has overtaken us. It is no longer possible to pretend we live in a normal house.

THE KITCHEN.

"We're" knocking out the old range (apparently came from 2 houses down on the green). It's going into the Residents's sitting room.

Looks cosy and welcoming doesn't it. So the kitchen is swathed in dust sheets with a thick layer of grit and soot covering the dust sheets, work surface, dog, cats and anything else left uncovered. The floor crunches as you walk across it and as for eating anything dropped on the kitchen floor it would have less texture if you rolled it around in the cat tray first. The whole house is gritty, you can't creep around, sounds like walking on a gravel drive as you go from room to room.

AND we've got friends comimg to dinner on Tuesday night (oh yes Mark and Ann - just what is that crispy coating on your tea!!!).

THE REST.

                                     

Downstairs toilet - to be honest I've never been brave enough to venture in there since I've lived here but certainly won't be "paying a visit" in the near future. That is the last remaining relic of avocado sanitaryware in the house which is one sign of progress I guess.

This is what is fancifully known as the library. Was the gym in a previous incarnation, the running machine is still in there somewhere, dampens your enthusiasm when you have to uncover your sports equipment before use, and of course it sounds like running on a nice pebble beach. Bit of light relief provided by Moleskin who was stupid enough to be sitting on the running machine when Neil went past (he hates that cat). Of course he turned it on, tho only on slow at least, she actually went along with it for a bit till I guess she realised she was giving Neil some pleasure and the ran of (and hopefully took a shit in his tile grout or something).

We have now moved up to 2 completed rooms in the loft, very smart bathroom and bedroom, (obv need tidying so no photo's this time) but a bit like living in a film set, you open the door from semi luxury to view of chaos and grit.

And the big room / room 1 is getting there.

The bath being winched in, too frigging big to get up the stairs or anything normal. Guess who was on the end of the winch and guess who was "directing operations".

(oh well got 2 of those and don't know how to delete it)

And there it is in position. So things are slowly taking shape..............

The Boiler.

Hooray at last the new boiler is in, look at that beauty!

Now thats more like it, bit better than the old one.

So that monster took someone nearly a day to cut up with a welding rig cause it was so bloody heavy no one could move the bugger.

It all took about a week (with no heating) to get the new one in. The main difficulty being working out how to get 300kg's worth of boiler down the deep, dark, steep and slippery cellar steps to the grim hole that is it's new home without killing anyone or busting the boiler. Ended up using an old chain and pulley formerly used for raising flour sacks (we suppose, it is a mill after all) with me hanging on to it to slowly lower the thing down some planks on the stairs onto Neil and Mark (electrician) without squashing them flat. Which we achieved. And then Andy (plumber) did the rest.

The cellar flooded 2 days after we finally installed it, due to torrential rain (5 people airlifted of the Aysgarth road to great local excitment) but luckily only a distant part of it. That boiler won't be coming out again in a hurry.

So we now have unlimited hot water!!!

This is our smashing bathroom at present. The diasability chair is suprisingly useful for putting magazines etc on. The old hot water tank was about the size of a hot water bottle and not very efficient so you ended up with about an inch of tepid water. You have to feel for poor Dr Cole the previous (elderley) resident. That bathroom's bloody freezing at the best of times but imagine sitting on that chair being slowly raised up (those mobility aids never operate quickly) to be dunked into a chilly bath and then getting even colder as he was slowly elevated up to the pleasures of a damp towel (no towel rad in the bathroom).

Interestingly (or not) those floor tiles were originally used for the floor in one of the 2 kilns in the mill, the corn etc was put on top of them to dry. So there you go.

But soon we will be moving to the new bathroom upstairs.

Not bad. Previously had the same sort of sanitary ware our present bathroom has without the free seat. Great fun painting between the beams, can now barely stand upright and have a permanent list.

So Christmas came and went up here.

We had Christmas dinner in the "residents sitting room". It was really very cold. Have to up our game on the table laying front before the guests come. Just spotted the roll of poo bags. Can never find them when you want them and there they are where the side plate should be.

And to finish a nice picture of Dennis, the coldest dog in the world for you to enjoy.

Snow.

If you don't want to see pictures of snow then don't bother.

So this is the view of the village across the green as you turn left from our drive. This is where Dennis goes for his early morning run. He is enjoying the snow but wearing 2 coats and still cold.

Very proud of that coat after the Hammers 4-0 thrashing of Man U in the cup quarter finals last night (only the carling Cup sadly but hell, beggars can't be etc).

So unsurprisingly its bloody freezing up here. Nice when out walking and appropriately dressed but not so much fun in the house. Whilst we have heating its on pretty low and most of the radiators are off as not many of the rooms are being used. The place is also all pretty open at present and has a river running through the basement. Drafty windows, large unheated rooms, what more could you want. Fight to stand in front of the dishwasher when its just finished. Nice hot cutlery to warm your hands on. Still at least there is a dishwasher.

And that the kitchen for you. We haven't tried that monster of a range yet tho the chimney has been swept in preparation (for what?). Nice river view from the window and a handy serving hatch through to what was fancifully called the snug on the estate agents details.

Can't think why, its actually really fucking grim at present. It is SO cold in here, have more clothes on than when I walk the dog and still freezing - this bit is right over the river, nice paintwork anyway. That stone thing is an old kiln for drying grain. The original one is in the basement and is the origin of the creepy secret passage.

And lets have some more snow pictures as it is reaaly beautiful up here now.

That's the view if you turn right out of the drive, across the green towards the pub.

That's the garden and ......

the river (now partaially frozen).

We have a nice open fire in the sitting room, fuelled by my heroic efforts in the woodshed.

So that's our sitting room at present which is very nice, this will eventually be the residents dining room if all goes to plan and we will move up to the top floor to our new room.

Where the work continues, all been insuslated between the beams, oh yes by me - and check out that plasterboarding. It's actually not too cold when you are working, just when you're sitting at a sodding computer keyboard. So i'm going to lift something heavy towarm myself up or saw something.