Is it done? Erm, nope.

So, we have a completion date of the 20th of February 2015!!

We've had a nice Christmas break and although I've tried my best not to think about it, at the back of my mind has been the vague notion that it's all going to go horribly wrong at the last minute. The church will have had a better offer and is going to back out. The solicitors will go bust taking the money with them. The Land Registry will be privatised and we'll have to start again. The gods will look down on us and wash the building into the sea just to teach us not to get ideas above our station. One of us will fall ill. We'll lose our jobs and a myriad of other thoughts which fly around waiting for validation.

Seven months since we had our offer accepted, this is starting to feel like a board game where no one can throw a six to get things started!

Regardless, the money transfer has been lined up, our solicitor is like a coiled spring ready to get me off their hands as my constant phone calls must be close to harassment at this point and we start the new year with a bit of hope, letting ourselves get excited again.

Are we nearly there yet?

So, the 20th of February, our completion date has come and gone with no news and so, we manage to get some information from our Solicitors on the 24th and it turns out whoever agreed to the completion date hasn't actually completed any paperwork yet.

I seem to be spending a lot of my time muttering 'oh for f***s sake' to myself lately, and today is no exception. I have no real idea of what is involved in conveyance but by the time you feel good enough to do it for a living, I would have thought starting paperwork before you declare a completion date would be something of a no-brainer really, but apparently not. I know we're committed but at this very moment in time, I just can't see any version of events where we will ever actually end up with the keys. It's all very disheartening given the eight months of calls and emails I've been making and for the first time since we started, I sit down, totally despondent with Rachel and discuss backing out.

I know we'd regret it and Rachel is super-frustrated too but if anything, thinks we should re-negotiate the price instead of backing out but we agree to sleep on it.

I'm still none the wiser as to who has dropped the ball here, I just know it isn't me and so, the following day I get onto our solicitor, partly in need of a sounding board and partly to vent about the lack of communication and progress.

After a pretty terse conversation, I agree to wait.

It takes until Friday the 28th of February before all of the contracts are (allegedly) signed up and money gets transferred to the solicitors but apparently, we still don't actually own anything, which is all a bit weird and more than a bit worrying

Where has our money gone then?

Aaaaand.....you're done....nearly

Another new completion date of the 6th of March gets fronted up but comes and goes. As does the 13th of March with more contracts needing signing apparently and at this point, we can't help but feel like we're being strung along by solicitors, probably feasting on the cash we've already transferred until all of a sudden, the 20th of March comes along, ten months since we had our offer accepted and we get word that contracts have been exchanged and we now own Temperance Hall!! I have no idea what the delay was all about but it doesn't take long for the frustration to be replaced with excitement again.

That said, if someone had told me at the start of this it could take 10 months to buy something someone actively wanted to sell, I would quite possibly have laughed in their face (I wouldn't really, I'm too polite) but now, I definitely know better!

Corporations change hands in less time. Astronauts make round trips to the moon in less time. Humans are grown in less time!

'I'm sure the next one will be quicker' I say to Rachel.

I've lost hair and sleep, but it seems my sense of humour is already returning.

All above board.

It's the middle of April and we've received all of the official documentation from the solicitors now so after nearly a year since we had our offer accepted we finally own it and have the paperwork to prove it. We are logged as the owners and have started the detail drawings for the Planning application. We've also had the chance to give the place a little clear out, so it's starting to look a lot cleaner now. Just need to get a handle on the next steps and then get stuck in.

When we started to realise we could be in for the long-haul to buy it, we decided not to put off the family events we had in mind and instead of saving up, we made memories with the kids in the hope of one day being able to make a start on the hall. Now we find ourselves in a position to do something, we find we can't afford to. Not quite yet anyway.

We start to put some more feelers out with local builders and a picture starts to appear, a very frightening and expensive picture, but a picture nonetheless.

Hall Checks

Now we have the keys and the paperwork all shows us as the owners, we don't need much incentive to get in the car and head up the hall to do some exploring and planning.

The kids are encouraged to run and jump over every inch of the place and by this point I'm pretty sure there isn't any part of the building (under three feet high at least) which they haven't touched, picked at or taken a run at. One thing which we feel the need to do though is try and keep it clean and tidy enough to have a clear starting point. The daylight coming in through the roof and damaged ceiling isn't much of a worry but the water which it lets through is. The damage to the floor is most likely something which we're going to need to address soon but for now at least, the whole building feels pretty solid.

As for the exploration part though, we've just heard about a scarecrow festival in a local village called Wray which we're going to have a look at. It's not the sort of thing you'd expect to see in our home town and the walk around the village then over the river (possibly Wenning..I'll check!) and over to the large field for the fete makes for a lovely day out. It's a really nice area and given a day of great weather it's a great introduction to village life here in North Yorkshire. The whole community seems to have come together to put this on and everyone, not just the kids, seems to have a smile on their faces. Rachel's parents Margaret and Gary have come along and Adam and Emily are pretty excited to make sure they don't miss any of the scarecrows.

Cumbria Grand Hotel

We've had a really busy few months and I think it's fair to say, we've not made a massive amount of time for each other lately with the kids, work and the ongoing issues with getting the hall purchase sorted, we haven't had (or made) much time for ourselves as a couple. As usual, Rach has another good idea though and this time, we're off to the Grand Cumbria Hotel for a day of fresh air and walking, followed by a night of good food, fancy drinks and a touch of luxury. The area it's in is lovely and even just following the public footpaths we soon find ourselves wandering across wide open spaces with the sun beating down on us. Rachel is notorious for deleting photos of herself from the camera but I manage to get one or two for safe-keeping which I hope will make it past the censor!

Sooty

One of the things you forget with a building this old is just how many people will have, at some point, used the fireplace and sat around it trying to keep warm during one of its many and varied uses. Apparently at some point it was a schoolhouse before it was used a church hall and although it's not clear when the fireplace was last used in anger, what is clear is it's in need of a good sweep. Adam's little face shouting "echo" into the chimney for the fiftieth time was enough for him to come out looking like a Victorian street urchin, filthy but thoroughly pleased with himself.

Exploring

One great thing about driving around an area which you have no idea about is you sometimes find hidden gems. On this occasion, we were heading home after a day of walking, playing in the stream, cleaning and playing around at the hall when we decided to turn right instead of straight on towards the motorway. We had heard of Crook 'o Lune but neither of us could remember why and so, just before we got to Caton we found ourselves in Halton, specifically the Centre@Halton play area.

Boasting it's very own Spiderman netting, massive swing and a fort-slide and cafe, it's one we'll have to put on the list for visiting again.

Karl's Stag Doo

It's a lovely day for the races as we gather in Haydock for Karl's stag doo. Pre-beers are downed prior to going through the turnstiles and we're off to find the slowest horses in the county and throw money at them. None of us really has any idea about horses but there are one or two small wins and pretty much everyone is content to have a flutter. The old saying 'A gambler never makes the same mistake twice, it’s usually three or four more times.' seems pretty true for me as I back horses presumably spared from the glue-factory by some kind of lucky dip. It's a good excuse to get drunk in the sunshine though and the meal and drinks which follow are enough to wipe us all out for the next few days. We all slowly start to accept that we're just not built for this anymore!

Acorn Farm

Rachel has decided to take the kids out for a day trip to Acorn Farm and Emily gets stuck into learning more about horses. She looks the part in her little saddle but given the work we've still got to do on the hall, I'm really hoping she doesn't ask for one when she gets home!

With her proud big brother Adam looking on, she's off to a gentle trot, albeit one surrounded by assistants on all sides!

Kids Blackpool Trip

Rachel, the kids and the in-laws Gary and Margaret have gone for a mini-break in Lytham St-Annes and have a packed few days ahead, including a trip to Blackpool. It's not very often the kids go anywhere on the bus or the train so when they get on a TRAM, they're really excited before they've even gone anywhere.

Spending the day in and out of the arcades is something I recall doing loads as a kid so I'm really happy they're off building memories. No doubt the 2p shufflers have had a good hammering! It looks like they've got a dry but windy day at the seaside and judging from the pics, everyone is going to sleep tonight!

Building Adam's Play Loft

So, we have the keys for the hall and have started to make plans for the next steps but that doesn't mean things all come to a full stop at home. Adam's room has been needing some tlc for some time now and given the loft hatch is directly above his bed, we decided to get a little bit creative.

The space is a little restricted so we figured out a way to incorporate some storage whilst at the same time building in some ladders to the loft space and then as ever...we went a little further!

The loft isn't that big and was already boarded when we bought it so we insulated the rafters, filled the gaps and painted it ready for putting down a roll-end of carpet. Adam tried it out and although it looks a little steep to grownups, it adds just the right amount of danger and excitement a young boy could need. Now, I should probably get back to the proper project.

That said, I've been trying to get work to support me towards obtaining my degree and after 10 years of asking, they have finally agreed. So, I now have a hall to renovate, two kids to raise, full time job and a degree course. Rachel will no doubt come to the rescue on this front as my time-management gets tested to its limits but we'll see how we get on.

Great Plans & Anxiety

We've put in our fair share of planning applications before now for some minor alterations to our homes over the years but that said, having spent so long trying to buy the hall, I should probably have known better than to think the planning application would be straightforward.

I wanted to get a proper handle on the do's and dont's for a building like this, so I decided to book the morning off work and have a 90 minute drive to Skipton for a chat with the duty planning officer. This is a drop-in service, so it wasn't possible to make an appointment but luckily I scrape into the building just as things are opening and find the duty officer for a chat.

Let's just say...it didn't go well!

With the keys in hand we've had plenty of time to think about the technical challenges and what we want to do with the place. Overall, I think we have a fairly good grip on the how-to's but after finding out Adam has a dust allergy (..and learning cleaners aren't provided on the NHS), we've realised we need to make sure the build is to a slightly higher spec than we originally had in mind. The rustic bolt-hole in the country side needs to be something we can clean properly and given our daughter Emily is now 3 (and is into everything), it needs to be safe.

I hadn't anticipated having to include health issues into the design so depending upon what the planners have to say, we might need to go back to the drawing board. Given almost everything I suggest for the building seems to get a frosty response, it feels like the stakes and the pressure has just gone up a notch.

However, having used up my hour, I come away with some knowledge, a (very) long list of issues and a dark, foreboding feeling in the pit of my stomach! I knew this was going to take a bit of thinking about but even I'm surprised by the number of ideas which simply get shot down because of the area it's in or the lack of land. We are in the Forrest of Bowland AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) so have to get approval of the local AONB planner, the parish council who sold us the property need to approve the conversion idea, the highways agency needs to approve the build in case it impacts on the local roads, the environment agency needs to approve it as it is in a projected flood zone, we need to check for the presence of protected species nesting, the closest neighbours are 100m away but still need to approve of it, the planning officer needs to back it, the local councillors need to back it and it needs to be to a specification which doesn't fall into the residential status.

..but apart from that!

We did argue with the land registry that there is an existing cobble pathway stretching to the road at the front of the building so at some point, it was part of the building but it doesn't get us anywhere and the building was registered without it . Undeterred, we rework the draft planning application and submit it (Craven DC Ref 18/2015/16278) with a view to creating a Camping Barn, albeit to a slightly higher spec than you might otherwise see.

The payment is taken and all we can do now is wait.

Ask the audience

A few weeks in and the Highways Agency respond with no concerns regarding traffic but question the parking arrangements. The Planning Officer seems to be on board with the idea and has offered a few suggestions but the Flood Risk Assessment provided to us by the Environment Agency is being questioned ..by the Environment Agency?!

The document which we received from them a few months earlier showed a 1 in 1000 chance of flooding (very low risk) but it appears they have revised their computer model and we are now in a Very High Risk category. There isn't any evidence of the building flooding in the past and only anecdotal evidence of the road having flooded but nonetheless, it feels like we've had a hammer blow to proceedings.

One thing I take as consolation is the public consultation is coming to an end and the Parish council has responded very positively. They have a few concerns about colours and appearance but seem keen for the building to be brought back into use. The AONB planning officer has been really helpful and is keen to see us use sustainable technologies to power the building and understands the concessions we're making with having no land.

It's one of the last things I see on the online portal, but it appears we have had an objection to the conversion on safety grounds. The Highways Agency haven't raised any concerns but is transpires there have been a few serious cycling accidents since the 80s where people have come over Reebys Bridge too fast and come off. The argument is renovating the hall will increase the risk of accidents but I'm not sure if I properly understand that, as we're set back from the road by quite a bit really. On our last visit, I only saw 5 cars pass by all day and about a dozen cyclists (all travelling faster than the cars) but none seemed like they couldn't stop in a hurry. I suggest putting up a sign to let them know we're there might remove the risk altogether, but we don't really have any other option but to leave it with the planners until the public consultation ends.

It's not a great start but I'm sure we can overcome their worries with the application of tea, cake and an honest chat. Hopefully once they realise we're not bad people (..I would say that though!) we should be good to go.

Some good news though, I got the results back of my first University coursework and have got an 'Outstanding' 75% for Advanced Database Development so you know, every cloud!

This isn't going to plan!

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to allay the worries or overcome the objection over tea and cake and the whole thing seems to rest upon their objection and the Environment Agency lifting their opposition to their revised Flood Risk Assessment. We have included a clause in the planning detailing how to get to higher ground in the event of a flood (walk out and then walk left, if you get wet feet, walk right instead) but we aren't sure if that will be enough.

It's now that I'm starting to wonder if a higher power is looking out for us. I'm not a superstitious person but it is an old church hall after all and just as we need proof the flood risk might be lower than the Environment Agencies projections infer, the area is subjected to a 1 in 100yrs storm. News comes in of bridges being washed away, roads flooding, houses ruined and lives interrupted. A few days later Rachel and her dad Gary are up at the hall to inspect the damage, take photos and potentially provide some evidence for the insurance people.

When they pass through Long Preston on the way, fields are flooded as far as the eye can see and fields which would normally be green are a shimmering blue, reflecting the sky above with animals crowding around the few dry edges. As they arrive at the hall, it's clear there has been a lot of rain and the stream has a line of settled debris where the water level came to but the water level is back to its normal height. The road looks dry and once inside, you can see the hall had some water coming in, but it's all from the gaping hole in the roof, not from flooding. It looks like the field behind has soaked up whatever was being thrown at it. I can hear the relief in their voices when they ring me with the news.

It's another week on but we hear that the application hasn't been approved or rejected instead, it's now being put forward to a panel of local councillors and planning officers in Skipton to discuss the pros and cons.

I'm going to need to put something together for this and make sure I can get the time off work. I can imagine not turning up is a sure-fire way to make sure your application ends up in the 'reject' box, so I'll need to make sure I'm prepared.

In totally unrelated news, it looks like the degree has got off to a pretty good start as I've just got another 'Outstanding' grade of 76% for my second bit of coursework. For the casual observer, I might look like I've got this under control but I can't recall a time outside of a delivery room when I've been more worried!

We've only gone and got APPROVAL!!

With Christmas and New Year, I haven't had chance to write anything down here but I think it's worth describing (albeit belatedly) what to expect if you find yourself in a planning committee meeting. So strap in, this takes a bit of following!

If you've never been in a planning meeting before, it's a bit like waiting for your exam results. You know you've done everything you can, but in truth, you have absolutely no idea if it was enough! After sitting through two hours' worth of other people's applications and appeals, the majority of which were getting rejected, it feels like a bad start. My mood is pretty low and, thanks to the overzealous air conditioning, my throat and eyeballs are completely dry too. Gary, my father-in-law has come along for moral support and has brought his famously short temper, tutting and muttering 'oh for gods' sake' and 'get on with it' to himself as appellants and objectors detail the pro's and con's. As one more application is shredded in front of the baying mob, a disheartening cheer breaks out from the crowd of pensioners behind us. An application to create six touring pitches alongside their static caravans fails to get through and as the reality that you can't even get planning permission to put a caravan next to a slightly bigger caravan dawns on me, I realise I have my work cut out.

My objector goes first and details his concerns for the full five minutes, with evidence of the buildings history and the nearby traffic accidents on the adjoining road.

As my turn to speak arrived and the cold sweat dripped down my back, nothing came out!

Struggling with what was now a moisture free voice box, I struggled and half-shouted our plans like a mid-pubescent teenager (..think Kevin and Perry) my voice breaking and crackling for what felt like an eternity. I outlined our intentions and flicked through power-point slides before handing out a replica roof slate (..I have absolutely no idea why I did this?!) to the nearest councillor. Before sitting back down to await the verdict.

The next ten minutes belong to the committee who go back and forth. Among the first to speak was a councillor who had coincidentally 'been to a do' at our hall some years earlier when it was still being used for church events. He loved the idea. That's one. Another agreed as it's something of a local landmark it was the best option to future-proof the building. That's two. The irony of a Lancashire lad coming into Yorkshire to restore a piece of its history was briefly mentioned (given the historic rivalry) and although not unanimous (5 for, 0 against, 3 abstaining), the vote carried and after months of uncertainty, paper chasing and worry, in January of 2016, we reclassified our money pit as a camping barn.

I recalled the financial risks we'd taken on, the promises I've made to my wife Rachel, that this is just a 'tick-box exercise' and the time I've lost with the kids just to get this far and I gave myself permission to smile and breathe.

Official Paperwork arrives from Craven CDC Planning Department and the Temperance Hall is now officially a Camping Barn.

Not Satisfactory!

With approval in hand, we need to figure out a plan to get things moving however, time is in short supply, money for refurbishment even shorter so we've decided to put a few things into place to help us get organised.

I have a full time job, have been volunteering as a school governor and STEM Ambassador so whatever we do will need to work around that. Rachel works part time but also sorts the kids out before and after school, plus is usually on hand to ferry them to whatever activities they are involved in that week and the list just keeps growing.

In order to make the most of the time we have, we make a conscious decision to give me a little breathing room so I can concentrate on getting to grips with my degree course as the latest coursework grade reflected the amount of attention I had given it coming in at a paltry 48% (..Satisfactory) in Network Management & Security. Where I found the time and energy to getting the planning approval in amongst everything else isn't entirely clear so we've realised something needs to give.

Given the school governor role has been seriously mis-sold and the three evenings a year has already turned into three meetings, four 3 hour training courses and more home-study than you can shake a stick at, I have decided to stand down and let someone with more time on their hands have a go. Knowing you're half-arsing almost everything in your life is not a good feeling, so even as I press send on the resignation email I can already feel a boulder of stress falling off my shoulders.

So, given we don't have the money we need and the weather is awful, we have decided to put the hall roof on a back burner and look at saving everything we can towards getting things started when the weather improves.

Head Down

It may have taken me a while to accept, but I've realised I'm spread a little too thin at the moment. So, although I'm still reeling from my 48%, I have decided to concentrate on getting my degree back on track. And, as a result, no hall news this month I'm afraid.

Feel free to talk amongst yourselves.

Expensive Month

April is always an expensive month. My own, our Son Adam's and our Daughter Emily's birthdays are just days apart and so, it feels like we get over the Christmas over indulgence just in time to start it again with the kids.

A 6 and a 4yr old are pretty predictable to buy for but I can't even pretend to have been involved in the decision process as Rachel has been in full-on super-mum mode throughout the last few months. I have been busy cracking on with hall stuff, degree stuff, work stuff and maintaining my default setting of general awesomeness (..joking!) while she covers off all of the little jobs like keeping us all fed, watered, happy and alive! I really need to pull my finger out and sort a date night out soon but I can't seem to fit anything else into my brain at the moment, so I'll have to make it up to her somehow.

Anyway, on a side note, it looks like my decision to drop the School Governor role is paying dividends already as I've smashed the latest Degree assignment on Network Management & Security with a whopping 70% (Outstanding). Hopefully I haven't screwed my changes of a decent grade at the end of all this but I'm too relieved to even think about that right now!

Another month gone!

Our nearest neighbour has recommended we speak with Donald Campbell, a local builder who he appears to know well but one who I hadn't found in my local searches. After a few more emails and text messages pass between us I manage to arrange a meeting with Donald to discuss our plans, to ask for suggestions and hopefully find an affordable way forward.

As it turns out, they've done us a massive favour, as it becomes clear very early on that we're on the same wavelength. Donald has been restoring or repairing buildings like ours all over the local area for most of his professional life and is really keen to reclaim and re-use whatever materials we can. He also has an extensive network of reclamation yards, farmers and private collectors throughout the area should we need to source like-for-like replacements. He's not convinced our plans make the best use of the space we have or make the most of the original features (..some which he then points out to me) and helpfully explains their original use.

Slightly more worryingly, he thinks the roof is past repair and the timber structure needs to be replaced, which sounds very expensive, even stood with my feet firmly on the ground!

The discussion is really helpful though and after we're both satisfied we've covered everything, he agrees to provide us with a quote and a rough idea of a timeframe. As I've explained I want to be involved in as much of the build as possible, he agrees to try and accommodate this in his quote and heads off.

It's an exciting meeting and as I look over the building again, markings on the old oak beams suddenly start to make more sense. Given its location and humble origins the roof structure is likely made up of salvaged oak beams broken up from trading ships in Lancaster. I make a mental note to try and photograph these once I'm up in the eaves and try to retain as much of the character of the building as possible.

Besides this, things haven't really moved on with the savings this month so I've been trying my best to get my head back into the Uni stuff with my latest assignment covering 'Advanced' Web Development. Got to say, the guidance from the lecturer has been pretty vague really so I've spent more time trying to figure out how far to take this one and not a lot on the hall this month. This is probably going to come back to bite me in the bum when we really want to get stuck into the build. Time will tell.

Hilary's Bunk Barn

Ever eager to get away for some family time, Rachel has found us a break in the Lake District through Independent Hostels. It's a bunk barn called Dacre's Stable Camping Barn, home to Hilary, Hadrian and Nonye and after we pass through the first farm gates it's clear to see this is no ordinary getaway and the location is really unique. As we arrive at the barn, Hilary is there to meet us and I think it's fair to say, they only made one of Hilary!

As we get the tour of the place the kids are excited about their bunk beds and the barn opposite is a treasure trove of toys, games and curiosities which Hilary is happy for them to explore and play in. It isn't long before they single out the snooker table, space hoppers, pump organ and hula hoops and are having a go at everything.

Personally, I've got art-studio envy as we look around the art supplies and easels in the lower part of the barn which the anti-swallow netting isn't doing a great job of protecting. It is the sort of place you'd expect to find a lost master being used to prop up a table or a Ming Dynasty vase holding a selection of dirty paint brushes. It's wonderfully eclectic and a reflection of Hilary's interests and imagination.

This is the first time we've really stayed in a 'proper' stone bunk-barn so we try to absorb everything there is to see inside and out. The barn-doors, the horse-shoe features, simple storage options and how to use adjustable barriers as partitions for the downstairs room. The Scandinavian log burner has a fold-out clothes dryer above which is really handy and the high shelving has lots of books and games and the lighting is soft giving the place a cosy feel. Coming straight from a centrally heated house, we just need to figure out how to keep the log burner going!

The kids take a while to settle on the first night so once we managed to pull ourselves away from the wine and fire-pit we decided to spend the night half-upstairs and half-downstairs. The following morning though, the horses were quick to make friends and the kids are encouraged to help with the feeding and grooming up-close which they thoroughly enjoyed. It's a lovely spot and a great place to use as a base for exploring the wider area which we do, with a trip to Bowness and a bucket-load of other places of interest in the area.

South Lakes Zoo

As we're in the Lake District, Rachel has suggested we take the kids to South Lakes Zoo and the weather lends itself to a lovely day out. The big cats are there and after a bit of nervousness subsides, we manage to get Adam close enough to the glass screen to get a great photo.

For Emily, it's the cuter animals and the monkeys which get her attention the most. It's a really great location for a family day out and assuming you get the weather (as it's almost all outdoors) we can wholeheartedly recommend it.

It might not be everyone's idea of a relaxing family break but as we say our goodbyes, we let Hilary know we'll be booking again soon.

Was it worth it?

So, with a final result of 60% (Very Good) I can't help feel losing a month on hall progress wasn't really worth it. I've made a note to speak to the lecturer about reviewing the requirements in this section as no one seems to know what's being asked for and if I have to guess my way through the rest of this course, it's going to start feeling like a massive ball-ache. I had initially thought we'd be using the hall by now and every time I wake up and look at my to-do list it seems to look further away.

Not feeling all that positive this month so I'll leave it there before I go off on a woe-is-me tangent!

You're welcome!

Ain't no mountain high enough!

Our kids are awesome and have made a lot of friends at school, so when Adam and Emily were invited to join a charity walk on behalf of the Rose Blossom trust walking up Snowden, we jumped at the chance. Emily's legs aren't quite up to the challenge yet but Adam is 6 and I'm 38 so between us our average leg length should be enough to get up what is essentially a really, really big hill.

You can't go doing this sort of Herculean thing without a support team though and given we don't live in the shadow of Snowden, we decide on a family road-trip and took the opportunity to go camping. Rachel and Emily will be at the bottom cheering us on whilst me and Adam make our way up and up and up towards the summit. Several of Adam's friends from school are making the trip too so we all we set off in high spirits for what turns out to be a really great day.

A few hours in, we stop at the half-way cafe for a short break and a bit of lunch to take in the view and have a chat with our fellow walkers before heading off again into the foggy summit.

It's roughly six hours from start to finish but the time with Adam is the real goal here and watching him power up and over some huge boulders and ,sliding downhill along the railways shingle pathway we get back just in time to be clapped back in and enjoy hot dogs and ice cream with Rachel and Emily. I imagine we'll probably give it a week before we try this again as the aches and pains are already starting to creep in even before the long drive home but it was really worthwhile.

To round off what has turned into a pretty good July, we've got family camping tickets for the Underneath The Stars festival in Barnsley which we were super excited about. Alongside the festival tents, performers and artistes, there were a few extra events taking place including the bongo-drum class and the Jedi Academy which Adam thoroughly enjoyed, so we'll have to see if we can make the next one or if we'll be able to stay at the hall by that point.

Side note, this degree lark isn't going to plan and I get a slightly disappointing 54% (Good) result through for Advanced Website Development but I can only imagine the next one will be better!

Fun-In-The-Sun

So, the kids half-term holidays are going well. Rachel has been busy being a full-on super-mum, keeping the kids entertained, fed watered and active over the last few weeks. Alongside her friend Susanne, they have organised a girlie glamping trip with the kids leaving us men-folk behind to fend for ourselves. This basically means I get up, eat, go to work, come home to a pretty disappointing meal in front of the tv until I get the call detailing all of the adventures I've missed. They have had a great time and the super-basic accommodation was more than compensated for with the great kids activities on-site which meant the kids got a great few night's sleep and the ladies got to spend some quality time putting the world to rights over a few glasses of well-deserved wine.

We're pretty lucky in our family and friends as we've been invited to Rob and Joanne's garden party, which is becoming something of a calendar highlight. They are great hosts and are always make sure people are having a great time, especially the kids. The grownups are already dreading the 'what's in the box' challenge in equal measure and the 'chubby bunny' challenge gives the kids the only excuse they might need to fill their faces with marshmallows. It's a great opportunity to just sit back and watch the kids play. Working full time, doing the degree and planning for the hall I don't really get to enjoy this very much recently so it's lovely to see. Especially when the suns out, everyone is smiling and the beer is chilled.

We're starting to feel spoiled now as another invitation, this time for a grown-up meal comes through from Natalie and Karl and given the food, drinks and company are always something to look forward to, we lap up 'Mexican theme' night under the stars, leaving only when we're suitably stuffed, chilled and feeling thoroughly spoiled.

Rare night out

Got to mention this as it's a rarity but I managed to sneak away for a full day-session with the lads in Liverpool. It's amazing how few and far between these seem to be these days. Long gone are the days when I could expect to be out around town from Thursday til Sunday and still be up in time for work throughout. We've definitely matured (if not grown up) but it's a great excuse to spend some time with these lads.

Rogues Gallery

Buying an empty run-down empty building out in the countryside has so far brought its share of problems, mostly paperwork related and prompted a certain amount of financial head-scratching and so, I could frankly do without this.

It turns out the area the hall is in has its very own 'terror squad' (..as written on the wall!) who have decided that a good end to their half-term holidays might be to conduct a little breaking and entering. The rear door which currently leads out from the pantry onto the rear field wasn't in great shape even before it was kicked through and the dead bolt on the inner door which now lies on the floor is looking pretty useless.

The walls inside the hall have been decorated with the pink and blue coloured chalks we left behind to highlight the potential room divides and a selection of fairly unimpressive phallus' are daubed half-way up the wall as if to help the viewer work out the mental age of the artist. Not that it was really needed considering the visitors have written their names, the date of entry and their addresses on the walls. So I can at least breathe a sigh of relief that I'm not dealing with a master-criminal gang here. Either way, it's a break in, damage has been done but more importantly, these pre-pubescent idiots have been wandering about completely unaware that a fair chunk of the roof is actually being held up with just one or two rotten timbers.

Speaking to the police later that day, I tried to impress upon them I wasn't that bothered about pressing charges, this was most likely the act of kids messing around in what they probably thought was a derelict building. More than anything, I just don't want a repeat visit as even at this late stage, mopping up squashed teenagers would pretty much put an end to our dream of a romantic countryside idyll!

Luckily, nothing was taken, the damage was very minor and even the chalk was left where they found it so I can only take that as a positive.

Phew what a view!

Being a glutton for punishment, when one of my colleagues, John, left a copy of the companies 'charity challenge' poster on my desk, I (almost) immediately signed up for the opportunity to spend a full day climbing mountains. Having also recruited our Team Leader Phil, myself and John met at the crack of dawn in Horton-In-Ribblesdale, registered and set off, taking our complimentary map and kit-kats. It was all going really well until we spotted the air-ambulance landing next to us on Pen-y-gent and we all started to spend a little bit more time concentrating on our footing!

Phil is clearly the fittest in the group with me and John bringing up the rear but given we've not done this before, we seem to be having a good stab at it and the chatting helps to help us forget about how far we still have to go. After the first checkpoint, we seem to have gone a bit off-map though and somehow end up in a marsh crossing scrubland somewhere near Simon Fell and end up aiming towards a series of heads, bobbing up and down behind a stone wall, to find the path again!

Just before we got back to the start line (and the pub next door) we realise we've just been overtaken by the team who have speed-walked up and over all three peaks!

I'm actually quite pleased with myself but we clearly need to put some work in before the next one!

Anyway, in case I didn't have enough to worry about, I've just got a combined 50% on my Distributed Application Development assignments which although rated as 'Good' is not going to help me get that coveted 1:1 on my degree course, so I'll need to double-down for next month.

Family Time

The kids are still just the right kind of age to enjoy Gulliver's World near Warrington and ever vigilant for a bargain, Rachel has found a Groupon offer which means we can get in at a fraction of the normal price. Adam isn't that fussed about rollercoasters, even these relatively small ones but I manage to convince Emily to come on them with me, because without a child, I won't be allowed on! What a star!

Worden Park

Getting chance to see my sister Stephanie and my niece Lauren seems to be something of a novelty lately so we agree to meet at Worden Park in Leyland for a catch up and to laugh at her new Smart Car which only just fits them and their tiny dog inside. The kids really enjoy seeing their 'big' cousin and Emily is especially besotted clinging to her like glue. Adam is more excited by the prospect of getting something from the cafe and riding the miniature steam railway but she still gets a big hug when we leave, so he's not that hard after all!

Check out these bad boys!

As you can see, I managed to rustle up a lovely pair of pumpkins this year. A local farm in Wigan puts this on every year apparently but we've only just heard about it and so, Rachel has come up trumps again and got us in. The kids are sent off to wonder around the pumpkin patches and find the best looking specimens, to take home and carve out. I think they did really well.

It's research ..honest

We rarely need an excuse to go away for the night and Rachel is an expert at finding last minute deals for a spontaneous getaway, which is how we find ourselves in a glamping pod at the Royal Umpire campsite near Croston. I can't help myself, making notes of everything there which seems just enough to keep a family fed and watered. Yes, they already have electricity, mains water and a shower block but aside from that, the basic accommodation really does deliver everything you might need, for a comfortable short stay. We're going to have loads more space than this at the hall, maybe too much space? We do have a lovely location though and this is starting to get me excited to start working on the hall plans again. We both agree the savings aren't building up quite fast enough and we're going to need to borrow some money to get things started but at this stage, we can only think it's worth it to have this sort of accommodation on tap whenever we want it.

Ingleton Waterfalls

We don't really need any excuse to head up to the hall but getting the chance to trek through the waterfalls in Ingleton once we got a break in the weather was too good an opportunity to pass up. Adam is the expert in long walks now since his trip up and down Snowden so there's no stopping him powering up and down the hills and steps. Emily's little legs need the occasional bit of help but given this is probably the longest walk she's ever done, she's proving to be a great little trekker. After nearly 6 miles across country, Rach has got a camera full of crisp winter pics before we have a little wander around Ingleton village.

We have a ride over to the hall and check it over, let the kids have a play in the beck and have a long chat about the plans so far. I imagine the new year will get a lot busier so it's nice just to have a bit of downtime at the moment.

I've managed to get my head back into the Uni work now so fingers crossed it will start to show in my grades next year when the next assignment goes in. Loads to do before then though so although I've got my head out of my proverbial which feels great, I've got my work cut out.

It's Behind You!

We have started to try and establish a few family traditions at home since the kids were born and one of those is to try and get to either a panto or Christmas play. This year, Rachel has managed to get us all tickets to see Show White and the Seven Dwarves at the Liverpool Empire theatre on opening night.

Not only that, but we're booked into Ask Italian for a slap-up meal beforehand and will be meeting up with a good friend and colleague Louis and his family, prior to the show starting. All in all, it was a great day out up to that point and getting the kids on a train sets the excitement off from the very start. However, once we parted company and found our seats it soon went downhill when one of theatre crew running around the place shot a pump action water pistol directly into Emily's eye, meaning we missed the arse-end of the play as she was so upset!

Our first trip to the Liverpool Empire had been to watch Annie a few months ago and it was amazing, the kids loved it, we loved it, the audience loved it and it was a really great day out but this time around it just wasn't meant to be. Third times a charm though, so we'll probably keep our eyes open for a proper show in the future.

Knackered

Just as I was starting to think I might be running on empty, Rachel managed to capture a photo of me falling asleep mid-conversation on the couch at home. I don't remember doing this but Adam thought this was hilarious, so here you go.

Christmas Concert

My in-laws Gary and Margaret have recently moved house and in characteristic fashion, Rachel has invited us around to their place over Christmas to save them the trouble of asking! Gary's new-found Ukulele skills get a debut audience and Emily is right in there to have a go and give him some tips.

Also on the list of family traditions is our visit to Dunham Massey to see the reindeer and have a good old wander about in the grounds. It seems every time we come here it's absolutely freezing and this one is no exception. Seeing the animals wandering around, some up close, some in the distance is a lovely way to round out the year though.

New Year New Adventures

Given a crisp morning with nothing much else to do, we ( ..OK, Rachel) has decided we should have a drive out to get some fresh air and something to eat and so, we find ourselves at the Airport Bar around the outskirts of Manchester Airport. The whole place has had a top-down refurbishment and long gone is the runway-edge pub in its place is a top-end gastro-pub which looks like it's been pulled straight from a design brochure. The outside area where you can watch the huge planes coming in is a firm favourite with the kids as is the new climbing frame.

Rachel has planned a short family break at Ribby Hall for us, my mum and step-father James to spend some quality time together however, it hasn't quite gone to plan. Towards the back end of Christmas both me and Rachel have started off with a shocking bout of flu and are feeling pretty sorry for ourselves. We look and sound terrible and our faces seem to be constantly leaking! Rachel is slightly worse than me and for the first four days she remains at home mostly in bed whilst I take the kids to meet up with my mum and we set up for the week. My sister has recently moved closer to work in Freckleton and my niece Lauren occasionally meets up with her friends at the Ribby Hall Starbucks for a natter and we manage to catch up for a day together with the kids.

Rachel manages to join us for the last few days but neither of us are quite fit to be there and so, it's a bit of a weird but lovely start to the year.

With little happening with the hall and work returning to normal, keeping the kids entertained becomes a bit more of a challenge. So on the last few days before school, pizza-night turns into a self-service pizza-night with the kids making their own micro-pizzas. And very tasty they were too!

At the end of the month Me and Adam make our way to the Manchester MEN for the Marvel Universe Live stage show and spend two hours at the edge our seats. Almost every character Adam has seen on TV and Cinema is there including a giant green hulk, motorbikes, dune-buggy chases, extreme BMX stunts and more pyrotechnics than you can shake a stick at. Whilst as a grown up, my focus is largely on where the pulleys and mechanisms are coming from, Adam spends the whole time buzzing with excitement right up until (spoiler alert) the good guys save the day.

In lesser news, I've just made a start on 'Understanding Mobile Technology' and have received 90% (Outstanding) on my Distributed Applications assignment which, considering I've been hoping to secure a 1:1 since I started, makes me feel like I'm back in the game.

Hall Checks & New Faces

We've still not quite got the funds together to get started yet and so one thing I can do is to start getting rid of the plasterboard ceiling which seems to do nothing besides retain moisture from the leaky roof. Each time we visit there seems to be more of it on the floor so taking it down in one go seems like a fairly sensible idea. That said, I don't think I was quite prepared for just how much weight and mess could be hidden in a ceiling. My loft at home is a bit dusty but it seems the plasterboard ceiling at the hall is somehow playing host to a good two to three inches of damp rubble and random pieces of timber strewn across it and it doesn't take long before I'm totally out of rubble sacks and the whole place looks like a bomb has gone off.

Also, with a better view of the roof and how badly damaged it really is, I find I've not got the bottle to start bashing away at some of the plasterboard directly beneath the worst bits for fear of dislodging the huge slates above my head and so, I'm left with half of the ceiling still in place, at least fifty bags of rubble and plasterboard to get rid of.

I'm not entirely convinced that this can be called progress but I feel better for having done it!

On a more practical note though, Donald has put me onto a local building control surveyor Russell Jackson who has agreed to provide us with a quote to cover the building regulations inspections once we're ready to make a start.

If nothing else, this gives us something to natter about on Date Night which we spend at the Old Courts in Wigan, a building which has been sympathetically and beautifully done up by a friend of Rachel's she knows through the kids school. They have big plans for the place and it's nice to have somewhere local that does live music really well.

Once home, we seem to get a pretty good dusting of snow but not quite enough to make anything impressive. Maybe next year kids!

Brainy Events & Good Deeds

Ever vigilant for things to keep the kids occupied, Rachel has heard about a STEM event at the Wigan Heritage centre where Adam will get to have a go at coding for Minecraft using a Raspberry Pi Computer. Build a circuit which lights up, learn about 3D printing and a raft of other STEM related crafts put on by the Wigan STEAM group. Frankly, I'm in my element here and have to bite my tongue to stop me asking how I can volunteer given everything else I have on. That said, I suppose I don't need to sleep for a FULL 8 hours every night, surely there's some wriggle room there?

On the other side of volunteering Rachel has gone several up on me by putting herself forward for the annual Wigan Street-Sleep event to raise funds for The Brick, a local homelessness charity. She did this last year with her colleagues but this year, it seems the weather is not their friend as rain lashes the centre of town where the organisers have set up a temporary camp. Everyone is soaking, cold and wondering if this year maybe is should have been called off but, given this is the reality for a lot of rough sleepers out there, this seems like an insensitive option. People aren't just homeless in summer so it proves a brutal example of why they're there.

It's the early hours of the morning when a bleary eyed Rachel makes her way home, pretty convinced she's done her bit for charity.

On a training note, I seem to be developing a bit of a pattern here. On starting a module, I seem to lose points for pretty much everything and have to double down on the 2nd half to pick them up again. Mobile Technology Development is hopefully another one where I can do this as assignment 1 comes in at a paltry 50%.

Amendments

We finally got our planning approval through in January 2016 and up until recently we were fairly happy with it but Donald has given us so many ideas and options to consider it's left our heads spinning, so a few months back we decided to put in an amendment.

The property doesn't have any land but nearly half of the field behind the hall is in a class 3 flood zone so it's unlikely to ever be built upon and so, we decide to take on half of Donald's idea to open up the rear, but not the inside wall to the elements. Doing this will (hopefully) turn the pantry into an open air seating area which we can use to site a long bench or some patio furniture and somewhere to place a BBQ or a little gas stove.

It isn't long before we hear back from the planners but again, it looks like we have some more hoops to jump through. We are planning to partly wall up the door to make walking into the field more difficult but it seems we might be in for another long drawn out process as it again goes away for consideration with the planners.

Although we didn't really consider this in the original application, like most people putting in planning, we really don't see how the plans will work without it now. So once again, it's a case of fingers crossed.

Wray Scarecrow Festival

North Yorkshire is a stunning place to visit and some of its little villages and towns can almost take you back in time. Not always in an architectural sense but into a feeling of what England could look like if we all just took a massive chill-pill and calmed the chuff down.

It's in this vein that we host the Traynor's at the hall giving them an overview of the job we've taken on (they sound almost as excited as we do!), chilled with them by the stream opposite and paid a visit to the Wray Scarecrow Festival which, like the year before has been made over this time under a fairy-tale character theme. The breadth of designs and the amount of time the locals must have spent on them is incredible and is a real credit to the villages sense of community spirit. The big field is full of tents hosting crafty wares and kids activities, it makes us feel pretty lucky to have this kind of thing (almost) on our doorstep.

The Man Van Man

I'm not entirely sure who came up with this idea but given I want to do as much of the building work myself, or at least be involved with the bits out of my area of expertise, we have decided to trade in my trusty Totota Yaris in exchange for a little white van from Just Vans in Wigan. I've never owned a van before and only ever driven transit-sized versions from hire companies so I wasn't exactly sure what I should have been looking for. Panels relatively undented - Check, Lights and windows uncracked - Check, Tyres and Brakes feel solid - Check. The engine noise was a shocker given my 1L Yaris purrs away all day without a murmur but that, I could only guess was the trade off with a Diesel. It wasn't until I (well, more accurately Rachel) asked if I could lie down in the back that the salesman raised his eyebrows. This was going to be my home-from-home during the roof rebuilding phase so at the very least, I needed to be able to fit lengthways with space for a portaloo and a cool bag. Dimensions confirmed, the deal was struck and I'm now the proud(ish) owner of my own white van, a 1.3L Fiat Skudo!

I'll give it about an hour before someone asks me to move some furniture for them!

Batteries Fully Recharged

Like a lot of families in the UK we spend a lot of time throughout the year working hard to save up our money and annual leave for a family holiday somewhere (hopefully) warmer where our pasty skin can get a full dose of vitamin D. This year, we've been to Lanzarote for 10 days and despite only arriving at the hotel by late afternoon, our first job was to get the kids in the pool.

They are both confident swimmers but as it felt a little cool, I jumped in first to try it out, and immediately regretted it! I've fallen in warmer rivers! It turns out that Lanzarote's island position leaves itself fairly exposed to Atlantic winds and most of the outdoor pools unless they are vigorously heated tend to be a bit chilly. But, I'm a dad and as we all know, few things are funnier than tricking our children and so having styled it out, I encourage them to jump straight in only for them to climb straight out again!

The following day things seem to perk up a little and the warm poolside air makes the whole experience a lot more pleasant so, with no trickery, we're all back in the pool before we spend the day getting our bearings and finding a nice spot to try out the beach.

Busy Cruisin'

Rachel, being the most thoughtful, organised and forward thinking person I may have ever met has been in touch with a local yachtsman who provides private cruises on his own boat to whatever level of expertise you like and, seeing none of us are any use on a boat, we opt for a gentle cruise out from the harbour into open sea but still within sight of the shore and it's a great day especially seeing the kids proud little faces light up when they get a turn on the helm.

It's just the sort of break we've all been needing and coming home doesn't feel like the traumatic return you sometimes get when you have to leave the sunshine, we're just that nice level of relaxed.

We'll definitely be back.

Another Expensive Week

First to occur is Emily's Birthday which this year she's sharing with our friends youngest Matthew at a local church hall. The entertainer does a great job of getting everyone up on the dancefloor at the appropriate time to keep the kids moving and enthralled. Once they've all run themselves ragged it's time for food and cake then more games and loading the car up with more and more presents!

My 39th passes with as little fanfare as I'm used to but breakfast in bed and a good book are all the reward I tend to covet these days anyway, so I'm pretty happy.

Adam's Birthday is a bit more of a challenge. He's at a difficult age to gauge what he'll find fun or too childish. Luckily, wedging a bouncy castle into the back garden goes down a treat when a selection of his friends descend for a birthday tea. Bumps and scrapes which just last year would probably have had half of them crying off are all brushed off and reciprocated with a front-flip or a pile-on. All said, they leave having worked off some energy and filled their faces with enough sweets and cakes to keep them up for the rest of the week!

Job Done!

Cock-Up No.1

We're all set, roofing materials have arrived and been stacked internally, money is (mostly) in the bank and the builder is primed to start on the 6th however, it seems I've dropped a massive proverbial!

In my haste to get us started, I forgot check the paperwork from the company performing the building regulations checks and apparently, payment BEFORE not AFTER is the standard practice so, I get a very urgent call from Donald who's checked with Russell the inspector about the check dates and it looks like we're going to lose several weeks to this pretty epic balls-up.

After speaking to the company directly, it turns out I need to send additional drawings, contract forms etc.. so I start off by firing emails left right and centre, chasing and amending drawings faster than I've ever managed in my 20+ years in Engineering. Donald has managed to find work to keep him going for the week but really needs to start the following Monday or he'll need to bin us off and bring his other jobs forward, meaning we go to the back of the queue and potentially months behind schedule. By the end of the first lost day, it looks like we're in a decent place but I'm on the phone pretty much constantly for four days until the drawings are approved, payment goes through and we receive a contract allowing us to proceed.

Donald also gets the scaffolding organised to the front aspect and puts his lads onto removing the stone slate roof and stacking it in a specific way so we can sort and re-instate them in the right order.

Sleeping in the van on the Sunday night before we make a start is something of an eye-opener. It turns out there are a few things which I hadn't considered about my man-in-the-van plan. It's may, so I'm comfortably warm but parking beside a stream means there are midges everywhere and I must look like a walking buffet. As night draws in, it transpires I have never REALLY been alone in the dark because the total lack of street lighting surprises me way more than I ever thought possible and even waving my hand in-front of my face, I can't see a thing. The last thing which strikes me is the ball-bearings which seem to be getting fired onto the roof keeping me awake all night. This, it turns out the following morning were leaves from the trees I've parked underneath! Everything which touched the steel skin throughout the night reverberated like a sub-woofer and made me jump from my sleeping bag every time!

(Actual) Start Day!

Anyway, it's Monday and you know what that means!? START DAY!!

I'm a bit concerned as the early start we had pencilled in seems to have slipped already as there's no sign of Donald. I manage to get hold of him though and it turns out he's busy trying to retrieve a few horses who have decided to jump the fences and head off for a walkabout. I have to laugh and add this to the list of challenges being in the countryside brings and it's something I would never have heard if we hadn't started this project!

We're only delayed for about an hour so once he arrives, we get stuck straight into clearing the roof. There are a few oak rafters which are stubbornly clinging to the beams which need removing and this requires me to step out of the scaffolding with a claw hammer and start convincing them to come off, which they do without much fuss. Then, we need to clean up and treat the beams to kill off any woodworm or critters which might be residing in the timbers. It's pretty strong stuff, so it's PPE time.

With that drying, we get started on cutting the timbers for the ridge plate and put on some 4" x 2" timbers onto the 12' oak purlins to both level up and provide a softer material to secure the rafters to. That said, these are all C24 timbers (a hardwood) but compared the salt-hardened oak purlins, they are far easier to drive a nail through. The purlins will give for maybe the first half-inch but then the huge hardened nails we're using to secure the 4x2s just stop dead and end up being bent over, they simply won't go in any further!

We then get on with levelling up the wall ready to accept the 4"x4" wall plate which is like a long piece of level timber running the length of the building. The wall is more than the length it came in, so it needs joining so they sit together neatly. It's this which the new rafters will sit on and helps secure everything. It isn't fixed in place yet as we'll need to measure and check it against the ridge beam which we get stuck into next.

The original chimney stack on the southern gable-end has collapsed some years ago with most of the stone currently either sitting in the field beside it or inside the chimney stack itself. This will need to be lined before we can reinstate a log burner but that will need to wait until we have a solid roof.

I wasn't aware of this but at the end of the day it appears I've been on some sort of assessment day. Me and Donald have never worked together before and he's been watching how I handle myself on site, what I'm comfortable doing and how fast I can do it to try and figure out if we're going to stay on schedule or if he's going to need to bring in some help. Fortunately, his appraisal ends with, "you'll be alright" and he leaves me to carry on cutting birds mouths into the 6" x 3" rafters ready for the morning. Given how awful last night's sleep in the van was, I'm not in any hurry to clock off, so just keep going until it gets too dark to keep going safely and manage to get all of the 28 rafters cut ready to go.

All in all, I'm really happy with how much we've managed to get done today. Considering this is the first roof I've ever worked on I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself too.

Day 2

Donald seems surprised that I've managed to get all of the rafters prepared and ready to go but as I explain more about my sleeping arrangements, I think it's clear the van isn't quite the luxurious glamping experience I was aiming for!

I've managed to get a few hours' sleep though and after a quick breakfast and a hot brew, it's time for us to get started and it doesn't take long before we're cooking with gas. Lifting the rafters from the ground is giving my arms something of a workout but I'm surprised at how fast the structure of the roof is coming together. Seeing I was happy climbing out onto the acro-propped ceiling joists on day one, I get the job of securing the rafters to the ridge beam. It's a bit bouncy and stretching up at a funny angle isn't the most comfortable way of spending your day, but the suns out and it comes along really quickly.

The rafters are pretty-much all in position and secured by 10am when Gary, Rachel's dad arrives to give us a hand.

Gary seems really impressed at how far it's come along since his last visit especially as it's only day two. He's ready to work though and gets up onto the scaffolding to help with the beam-fill. This is the process of securing not just the wall-plate but between the rafters to keep the distance between them fixed even when the building moves and settles. I start out by putting in too much mortar and not enough 'fillings' between the beams so, after being gently re-educated, the rest go a lot more smoothly and it isn't long before the wall is ready to take the first layer of slate and damp proof membrane by lunchtime.

Interest locally seems to be picking up and we get a lot of visitors throughout the day asking how it's going, what our plans are and at times mentioning names of neighbours we haven't yet met which, considering I'm so bad with names is going to be a struggle to remember them all. That's the sort of detail Rachel would absorb like a sponge, she's so much better with humans than me!

Luckily, Donald has had the forethought to leave the largest of the slates on the scaffolding so they can be more easily manhandled onto the roof and from there, it's like trying to put together a patchwork quilt of stone. It's heavy work as some of these slates are nearly two feet wide, three feet long and two to three inches thick, far heavier than your average roof slate.

By the end of day two, we've got a great start and everyone is happy with the progress so far.

I've decided to do two days on site before driving home for a shower, change and a hot meal, returning first thing the following morning to do the same again so heading home, knackered, stinking and looking forward to seeing Rachel and the kids, I'm absolutely buzzing.

Road Trip

On arrival at the hall after a great night's sleep, everything looks pretty much as I left it and we've got another great day for messing around on a roof. Donald is keen to crack on but there are a few slates which just aren't fit to go back on where they need to. It's here where I get a glimpse of Donald's extensive network as we head to a weigh station at Settle Coal and then a farm in Pen-y-gent, where someone he knows has pulled a barn down recently. We manage to reverse his van onto the fields and go through the slates with a tape measure selecting the best fits before heading back down to the weigh station. It's another eye opener of how things work in the countryside and paying for things by weight.

We've lost a chunk of the day but we get back onto the roof and get that little bit further up the roof before Donald knocks off for the day.

Given I've got another 5-6 hours before I'm likely to get some sleep and the render at the front of the building needs removing, I decide to get stuck in and start peeling it from the building. Before I know it, it's bedtime, my arms and wrists are buzzing from the SDS drill and the whole of the floor in front of the hall is covered with remnants of a 50's peddle-dash render.

Tractor-Envy

The next day Donald arrives and has arranged for a local lad Reece to come along with his tractor to help lift some of the slate up and onto the scaffolding. Tom, Donald's son sticks around for a while to help get it lifted and sorted. With the heaviest slates now up either on the roof or up on the scaffolding, we have to be that little bit more careful on the scaffolding but it feels really solid.

Walking these slates up the roof is hard going especially in the sunshine but it seems like my ankles are getting used to spending the whole day at 45 degrees! We start to take turns measuring and ferrying tiles up onto the roof and before long we've got a bit of a system going on. Looking at the roof from the ground, it seems like we're building a fluffy stone quilt and I'm really glad we opted to reuse everything we can. As good as reproduction slate looks, this roof is going to be completely unique.

It seems like the higher we go the slower the progress but this is another learning curve for putting in a diminishing course slate roof. As you go higher, the slates are smaller so there are more to fit on each row. Even when you factor this in though, it seems like we're rattling along at quite a pace.

Most importantly of all, Rachel pops up to check on progress and is made-up with how things are looking.

Towards the end of the week, we've got to the ridge line but we don't put the ridge tiles back on until the rear roof has also been repaired and put on, so these get stored inside for safe-keeping, beneath the newly repaired front roof. If we have to start replacing these, I imagine things are going to get expensive. From there, we need to arrange to get the scaffolding lowered from the front and moved around the back ready for phase two.

Rear Roofing

With the scaffolding down and all of the rubble moved, the original stonework to the front of the building seems to just pop out.

Looking at it now, it's hard to understand the thinking behind applying the rice-pudding render to the front of the building. The rest of the building was in its original stone so presumably, it made the building look slightly more modern from the front. The lack of electricity, mains water and drainage was what really held it back from having a future as a church building but I for one am glad to see it go.

The original features and lintels are much more visible now including the stoned-up slopping-out areas which have large stone lintels above them. The main door has an old oak beam with some unusual markings on it which I'm careful to clean around. Hopefully it isn't just Victorian graffiti and has some historical merit as it looks pretty good. I'll have to check that at some point.

Going around the back of the building, more slopping-out lintels are visible now on all walls and with the scaffolding up at the rear now, Donald and his team have managed to lower and sort the slates to the ground, leaving only a handful of frankly huge slates on the roof where they are. I have no idea how humans could have moved these into position when this building was originally built and I'm already not looking forward to having to manhandle these off the roof and onto the scaffolding once we're ready to install the new rafters. It might explain why people used to be a lot shorter than they are today though. Just one of these on your back for any length of time could mess you up for life!

Climbing out onto the scaffolding with the sun beaming down onto the oak frame, you can see the colours and get the feel for how the original oak trusses are going to look once the skylights go in. It needs a bit more cleaning up than the front though and we need to install the concrete lintels above the rear fireplace and the old pantry area for when we eventually open it up as a seating area. Trying to do it retrospectively would be a massive job so getting these in now just makes more sense.

Now the old rafters are removed, it's clear to Donald that two of the old oak purlins to the right hand side will need to be replaced. They are just as hard as the others but he isn't happy with the thickness some parts of the beams taper down to in the middle and one of the ends which enters the stonework. Again, this isn't my area of expertise so we start to look for replacements in the local area including a trip to a local farmer Donald has been in touch with who has some beams in a rear field. Unfortunately, these aren't in quite the condition and length we need but it's another glimpse into Donald's network. The hunt is back on.

We can make a start though as it'll be a few days before we need to have these in place, so we get started on installing the wall plate and clearing the rubble.

Beaming

Looking from the back, both beams which need replacing are on the right hand side and so, starting from the left we get started on measuring up the rafters and passing a template onto Gary to start cutting the 6x3s at the front of the building. Me and Donald get started on cleaning up the beams and installing and levelling lengths of C24 4x2s on top of the oak purlins to create a level across the whole roof and give us a workable piece of timber which we could drive some wood screws into, to secure the rafters. Again, the beams are rock-solid and the huge nails we try to use securing the 4x2s don't get very far into the timber but it gets far enough in to hold the timbers together really well.

Tom, Donald's son is with us now to help manoeuvre the concrete lintels into place over the original barn opening and the rear wall. Between the three of us, we manage to get things in but it's an absolutely knackering experience which I'm glad we are doing now. Putting these in down the line would be an awful job.

As Gary ploughs through the 6x3 C24s, cutting the angle to meet the ridge beam and the birds mouth to meet the wall plate he seems to be enjoying himself. He's getting a bit of a workout here as these lengths are quite heavy but he keeps at it, bringing them around the back and stacks them ready for Donald and I to install. It's not long before we have a pretty good conveyor belt going on and the structure of the roof starts to take shape once again.

As the day draws to a close, Donald packs up his gear and Gary and I carry on. There's a surprisingly large amount of work to do even after a builder leaves. Tiding up, finding and putting away tools, cleaning the brew kit, sorting stone or slate for the following day it can easily be another two or three hours before we decide to knock off for something to eat. On this occasion though, Gary has spoken with John the local farmer who has agreed to let him pitch his tent in the corner of the field near the gate. So we'll both be staying over tonight ready for an early start.

With that sorted out, we head into Bentham for a well-earned drink and a chat at The Coach House before heading back for some rest.

Replace and Re Use

So, although really handy having something to carry materials in, I'm starting to rethink these white van sleeping arrangements. There is no insulation so it's either stifling or freezing cold. It's dusty, smells a lot like the petrol can and the chemical toilet and I've had another night feeling like I'm being shot at. As a light rain and leaves land gently on the roof, it echoed through the metal panelling all night long like ball-bearings. I'm awake well before dawn with bloodshot eyes and a slightly vacant thousand yard stare going on splashing water from the stream into my face trying to rouse some enthusiasm. Gary on the other hand has had a great night's sleep in his tent. The gentle pitter-patter and the babbling stream were enough to send him off to sleep for nearly nine hours, only packing up his stuff and putting the kettle on again as Donald arrives!

It's around 8am. I'm already knackered and very jealous! This roof isn't going to build itself though so I have no alternative really but to shake it off and get stuck in.

Moving along with the roof replacement means we have to move these ridiculously big stone slates off the roof and place them very, very carefully onto the scaffolding ready to go back on. I can see Donald is a bit worried about these not only as replacing them will probably be impossible but because of the added weight the scaffolding will need to cope with, so we start off by moving things around and if it doesn't need to be there, it gets moved off. Gloves on, it takes every bit of strength to slowly slide the first one down and into position and my back is already screaming for me to look into a Pilates session after today. Only another ten to go!

My sleep deprivation seems to be taking hold by late afternoon though and as Donald shouts out measurements, I'm struggling to take one number from another and have to leave him to figure it out, which considering I'm currently studying for a degree is more than a bit embarrassing!

Our neighbour pops over to see how we're getting on and we have a brief chat about what we're trying to get done next. It's a really nice chat though and he's genuinely interested to see how we're getting on. As Donald leaves, me and Gary carry on for a while longer cleaning up bits of stone and old mortar which have landed in the field.

With a proper night's sleep and a new day comes more climbing and we're all set to get stuck in with everything prepared the night before. While I get on with placing and securing the rafters, Donald makes a start on walling up around the chimney so we can rebuild the stack on a solid base.

Although raising more issues than the front roof, we're making really good progress and it's only once you're up on the roof that you can see it's almost twice the area of the front, so it's going to take a little bit longer. At the end of the day, we've tacked the felt on to give the building a little bit of weatherproofing, given the place a good tidy, secured the tools before it's time to head home for showers and a good meal.

One important thing to do before we start to relay the slates is to source two new (reclaimed) purlins which not only suit the building but which are also of on an equivalent or better quality to those being removed. One additional problem we've got though is the beams being removed are 12 feet long. Most oak beams on the market are actually cut to 10 feet almost as standard so it's a bit of a relief when I come across High Pole Reclamation in Bolton-by-Bowland who might have what we need.

The next day me and Donald do a bit of measuring up and after speaking to the owner on the phone, we head out on another road-trip.

I'm terrible with names but either Graham or Keith (apologies, it's the same person by the way. Like I said, terrible with names!) meets us at the yard and we go through what he has. There is a lot of American oak which although it looks in great condition just isn't the right colour for us. Most of the stock has been pre-cut to ten feet but an old barn which was recently brought down hasn't yet been cleaned up and cut so it's here among a mixture of English and French oak we find what we need and at £10 per foot, it's a great deal compared to what I've seen elsewhere. Cleaned up and trimmed to length they're worth more but the two lengths which pass Donald's hardness poke-test are loaded into the back of Donald's van while we take a look around the yard at the stock. Pretty much everything in there has a shabby-chic feel to it but they also restore things too so I have a feeling we'll be back at some point, probably with Rachel.

It takes a bit of doing between myself and Donald but we manage to get one of the old purlins out and onto the floor ready for its replacement to be put into place. This isn't like placing a concrete lintel as nothing on an oak beam is quite straight so it needs a bit of adjustment to get it just right. That done, Donald gets into walling it up so it stays where it is supposed to for the next few hundred years.

With the weather turning against us a little, that's almost the whole day gone so we bring the beams to the front and I get stuck into cleaning them up ready for going in the next day.

Moving on

With the old beam out, the generator gets fired up and the angle grinder gets a wire-cup head to help me clean the worst of the softwood from the beam and although it's a messy job, it doesn't take long to get down to the rock-solid material beneath. Once cleaned up and treated, it goes around the back ready to be placed in front of the steel-reinforced concrete lintel to give the back of the building a more authentic look again. To be fair no one wants to see a stark grey concrete lintel so it makes for a nice feature. The beam isn't load bearing as all of the weight from the roof is taken by the new lintel but from the outside it's much harder to tell and it looks really nice.

Rachel (occasionally referred to from now on as 'the client') has come up for the day to check on progress and is really pleased how things are moving on and the way the patchwork of stone looks from the front. No one is allowed to stand still on-site so she's on brew duty and can't help herself, getting stuck into cleaning out some rubble and trying to help out wherever she can. She's not a fan of heights so although we offer, she has no intention of making the trip up the scaffolding to get a better view. We do get her half-way up the ladders though so she can see we aren't skiving but overall, she's content to take photos from the ground!

With the woodwork going in, the chimney stack can be built up a little more and we get word the skylights have arrived at the builders merchants Armstrongs in Bentham. That's a job for another day though so we leave them there, it's good to know they've arrived safely though as I really don't want any delays now we're motoring on. Again, at the end of the day, we loosely tack the felt back on to protect the building a little.

Again, working into the night and knowing we have planning approval to reinstate the original rear window dimensions, I decided to pull out the plastering to see how much work was required and it turns out, most of it wasn't really held in there with much at all. There is a new concrete lintel above the window taking the weight of the roof timbers so although you can't really tell, the stone to the outside is more of a decorative feature. It's hard to see from the ground but the original window must have been around 6ft by 7ft so once we've decided on the style, I'll need to start ringing around for a supplier as I'm not tackling that one.

Astley Hall, Chorley

So, the suns out and it's about time we spent a little bit of time together as a family. With that in mind, Rachel has messaged my sister Stephanie who recently moved to a new house in Leyland has agreed to meet us half-way in Chorley, Astley Park to be precise. We meet in the car park and head into the park with the kids on their bikes and have a lovely catch-up with Lauren my niece about her options once she's finished college and how confident she is about her exams. She's super clever and has aspirations to go into surgery and between us, we all think she'll do it assuming the bright lights and 2-4-1 offers of Uni life don't throw her off track. Fingers crossed! It's a lovely chance to have a bit of time with my big sister too as we don't see a lot of each other these days.

Little Helpers

The kids seem to be getting big fast so when they next visit, they're super-keen to be put to work. PPE is issued including a bump cap, face mask and gloves and they get to choose what they do. Giving them a bit of ownership over what they get involved in seems to be working and seeing them take pride in a job well done is really heart-warming.

As we stop for some lunch, John the local farmer who has taken an interest in the build and has been really helpful already stops by on his quad bike. Sensing the opportunity for a photo, Rachel asks if the kids could have a sit on it (keys removed obviously!) and I think this helps to cement the idea that they're really in the countryside. It's good to show the kids the real use for this kind of stuff and the scale of it. As much as I think they've grown, they look tiny sat on it.

It's good fun though and thanking John, he mentions he was involved in repairing the gable end years ago, so I might spot his initials in the mortar somewhere when we get up to that bit!

The more time we spend up there the more people from the local area we seem to meet and it seems almost everyone around here either has a story to tell about the hall or has played a part in its upkeep at some point.

Big Slates & Tin Sheets

So, the day has come. Those huge slates which ripped at my back muscles as we slowly lowered them to the ground need to go back on. The wall is repaired, the lintels are in and the wall-plate is level. So, there's no getting away from it now.

For the first one, me and Donald are standing to the left and seem to be doing a lot of talking. Neither of us seems that keen to try and lift this bugger up and we're clearly stalling! We need to do it though so after psyching ourselves up for a few more minutes we quickly talk through the process and what to do should the worst happen and one of us loses their grip, slips a disc or quite possibly looking at the size of them dislocates their shoulder! I'm feeling positive though and as we get into position, lifting with the legs, it takes about thirty seconds to lift, rest, lift, rest and wiggle the first beast into place.

Not wanting to lose the momentum, we get straight over to the next one and again lift, rest, wiggle that one into place too. Repeating this for the whole row before we stop for a well-deserved brew. All-in-all, we must have only been at it for twenty minutes and the slates which I'd been dreading lifting were done.

With that, we can continue with walling-up the gables and cut the steel sheets which I picked up from Nelson after work last week. That in itself was entertaining. It took a while to find the business tucked away on an industrial estate and when he saw my little white van, he didn't seem impressed! We managed to carefully load the panels into the van though despite the rain and, with a third of the panels resting outside of the vans open rear doors and with more cargo straps than you can shake a stick at holding everything in place, I slowly made my way up to the hall somehow getting a wet head (as hailstones bounced off the panels and into the van) in the process, to drop them off at the hall, which was by now, in the dark! Such fun!

Let there be (sky) Light

With the slate started and the steel sheeting in place, we start to make our way up the roof and it's only now I realise how hard it is to walk on steel sheeting! We need to restart the tiling above the sheets, but they're 6 feet long giving us nowhere to stand when we put the slate on. Resting on the tile batons above where we need to be and trying to drill upside down isn't as much fun as it sounds so as soon as the first row is up, I heave a sigh of relief before we move on.

Owing to a communication breakdown (yes, probably my fault) I arrive at Armstrongs builders merchant and with no sign of Donald or Tom, I make the decision to start loading up the skylights into the back of the van. These things are huge and with the packaging around them, there is barely room left to fit your hand. Just as I close up the van, Donald and Tom rock up ready to collect the skylights too and instead, we leave with my little van struggling uphill, rammed with the three skylight boxes and accessories as Donald's massive transit van follows close behind, carrying a roll of lead!

When we chose the skylights, we knew as an off-grid build, we needed to get as much natural light in there as possible without ruining the look of the building, and these things are massive! I'm sure they'll look ok once they're up as the building and especially the roof is deceptively big too, but the metal strips in the middle of the window (which make it a 'conservation' skylight) should hopefully help them to blend into the building a little better. Fingers crossed!

When you install a skylight, you're weakening the structure above and below so we set out by measuring out where they need to go and install additional 6x3 rafters to either side to strengthen the roof. With the measurements made and re-made, we install a timber piece to hold the cut pieces in place before making up the box shape needed and removing the supports.

On the ground, Donald figures out the bits and pieces and we lift the frame into position, adjusting it to make sure it sits squarely into the space. Adding the flashing kit and securing it into place it takes all three of us to man-handle the glass section onto the roof and install it carefully into the slots before locking it in and closing it to check the seal and make sure it was still square.

That's one in.

The next one goes in slightly faster and the last one faster still all sitting squarely in place and all located so they just miss the oak beam beneath them when they open. Looking at it from ground-level, it still looks like we have some way to go but I'm told help is coming tomorrow as Donald has drafted some extra lads in to help us back on schedule.

Not Topping Out

The suns really come out for us today and it's a stunning summers day to spend playing out on the roof. With the skylights in, I'm a lot more conscious to make sure I don't step backwards through the glass and seem to be brushing them off constantly as dust from the slate drill covers them in a fine powder throughout the day.

We were motoring along and as I put the last row of slates onto the ridge, it suddenly dawned on me there were no more slates left for the other side. Whether it was the sun or just the fact this was the first roof I've ever rebuilt I don't know but I'd made a bit of a cock up and probably lost us an hour. I'd put the slates destined for the front roof onto the back by mistake. It wasn't a big job to undo but it was a bit embarrassing.

Donald and Gary spent the next hour offering helpful advice (don't fall off etc..) and constructive criticism from the ground.

It was only now that Donald pointed out that we hadn't arranged to have a topping-out of the roof! No champagne, no fanfare, nothing!

To be honest, I had no idea we would get things done this soon so the idea of a topping out hadn't even occurred to me so as we left, I popped to the shops in Bentham and dropped off a few beers at Donald's place. I'd be driving for the next hour or so, so I'd have to wait until I got home to enjoy a cold one but made a mental note to celebrate the next major milestone with Rachel properly when we were next up there together.

Underneath The Stars Festival

Like last year, we've decided to go to the Underneath The Stars Festival again in Barnsley but this time, we're bringing the in-laws with us.

Just before we set off, I get my results through for the first part of my final Uni project and have cruised through it with a very satisfying 76% (Outstanding) result and it feels like the pressure I've put on myself to pull my socks up has paid off.

The Palk's (..well, Margaret to be honest) aren't known for camping but Gary seems to have enjoyed staying up at the hall so we get them in under a family pass. They already have all the gear so between us, we fill the pitch with stuff and settle in.

Rachel has made sure the kids, especially Emily have all of the flower-power accessories you might need for a folk festival and although Gary is more of a Northern Soul man, he's up for seeing what the bands have to offer. It isn't long before he spots a Ukulele band on the rota and heads off to watch them play coming back quite impressed. Gary doesn't give much away so if he comes back and says he enjoyed something, it must have been pretty good.

Everyone has a go at the circus skills area and we get some great photos of the kids playing with Margaret and Gary at the various event stands. For me though, one area grabs my attention.

I've not used a lathe for a long time so seeing someone from Earth Encounters making stools on their own traditional foot-pedal lathe is something I really want to have a go at. The guy on the stand is more than happy to oblige and helps me get the roughly cut green-oak branch set up and gives me an idea of how to use the foot pedal. It's not long before I start to see something resembling a spindle. It needs a bit of work to get it looking smooth but I'm really impressed with my efforts so far. He already has a few seats cut ready from a tree stump so, after cutting the top of the spindle, driving it into the hole in the seat and securing it with an oak peg, I have my very own hand-crafted one-legged stool.

With the sun out, everyone is happy to spend an hour just chilling and playing while the music drifts from the large tents out into the fields before we head over for some food and choose which tents we want to check out later on.

Going potty

As we head into August with a solid roof in place and a very smug looking me, there are a few jobs which I'm just not going to have time to get involved in. Namely re-setting the chimney to the rear roof. We have chosen not to do anything with the South gable chimney until we've figured out the layout inside as we will most likely want to change the height of the fireplace once we've had a chance to measure everything, so we leave that one as is for now. We can come back to that any time as we still have the stone which makes up the original stack to one side.

The pot which we removed whilst doing the roof looks Victorian and Donald is careful to make sure nothing happens to it while he builds up the level with the original stone, lime mortar and new ceramic flue liners.

It's another two weeks before I can head up and see the progress though as I'm laid low with a bug or virus of some sort which sees me take some time off work to recoup. Donald is only popping in when he finds a gap in his other work anyway but he's managed to get us up to chimney pot level.

Once I'm feeling a bit perkier, I meet Donald at the hall again and he's brought his acro props with him so we can raise the height of the lintel above the internal doorway to the rear entrance. It's far too low to be practical so it needs moving. Most of the roof weight is supported by the purlin above and wall plate below so the stone could be removed by hand without much resistance but to be safe, Donald puts the props in just in case. We can then move the stone and raise the lintel up into position increasing the door height by around a foot and walling back up.

Garden Chill Room

Back in the real world, we've just enjoyed a night in the garden with some friends into the early hours of the morning and for some reason we've both woken up early and motivated to make some changes to the house. Where we live had an extension built on the side making an integral garage area at the front which we decided to convert into a playroom when the kids were still tiny, leaving all of the bulky toys, tools and gardening equipment to be re-homed into the original garage at the rear.

Most of our neighbours have long since demolished theirs in exchange for a bigger garden but given the condition the house was in when we bought it, this had never really made it onto our radar. We discussed replacing it with a garden room but had never really gone anywhere with it.

So, with only a minor hangover and no real plans for the weekend we rough-up a plan and head to the timber yard.

There aren't any beefy looking timbers in there, so I opt for two 5" x 1.1/2" C24 lengths to act as a lintel (probably overkill really) before we can pull out the window and door and start removing the brickwork.

The front aspect at some point would have had a door in, so it has been walled-up and is pretty easy to dismantle, the side aspect needs a bit more work.

To cut the garage in half and still give us access, we need to do the same again around the back to put the door into what will be a storage area and I get busy building up a concrete block wall from bottom to top and run the electrics in a different route to keep it hidden and safely tucked away.

With all of that done, it's all down to battening and boarding the insides with a nice red-pine boarding, exhausting the supply with just one board to spare.

That's the weekend gone though so Gary, Rachel's dad, helps us out the following day while I'm at work and has re-pointed the rough walls and half-brick gaps. So, by the time I'm home it's starting to look pretty good.

Once the lighting is installed, the electric heater and garden furniture gets moved in and it gets its first trial run with a beer ..or two

80s / 90s Festival

Another example of us being lucky in our choice of friends comes in the form of Rob and Joanne who have (with Rachel) been organising a grown-ups weekend away to an 80s/90s festival. The line-up looks like something out of a 'Now That's What I Call..' sleeve with a few firm favourites of mine on there and one highlight for Rachel, Chesney Hawkes!

We get instructions to head there before 4pm and as we arrive, it's a bit of a melee with tents pitched wherever there was space. People have clearly been arriving for hours and it takes a few minutes before we find a space big enough for both tents.

Before long, we're completely surrouded and there are guide wires everywhere ready to leg-up any unsuspecting or (..more likely) drunk revellers passing by.

Once we're set up we head off to get our bearings, something to eat and see who's on the bill. The first day is a bit of a chill but the second is fancy-dress day and as Rachel and Joanne appear looking like they've just walked out of a Cindy Lauper cloning facility, I waddle through the crowds carried aloft by Luigi and come face to face with none other than Slash from Guns and Roses! One thing is clear. Rob has clearly put far more thought into his outfit than me! One thing he hadn't factored in though is the chance of nice weather, so Slash occasionally goes bald only to reappear a few minutes later with a full head of hair. I on the other hand can't really get out of my outfit and as the night wears on, my Luigi waddle starts to look more and more like I've had an accident, especially when the low light prevents people seeing my actual costume! Good fun though!

As for the main events though, we've managed to befriend Phatts & Small after their set but Chesney got through his set without spotting Rachel in the crowd and proposing on the spot. Which, were the sun not in his eyes he would have obviously done.

Cleaning Up

Now we have a working roof, I've removed the remains of the old plastered ceiling and taken the 4x2 timbers which held it up and put them to one side for use elsewhere. That means I've made a LOT of mess though and considering we need to make a start on the interior, I need some help to get it fit for visitors. There are a few internal fittings which I quite like but there isn't really any way to incorporate them into how we want to refurbish the building. In what was the kitchen, a long worktop was supported by a few fold-out timber struts and, although the unit didn't fold down fully because of the sink, it's a nice idea which I'd like to use somewhere.

For now at least we need to get on with a big clearout. There are bits of roof or crumbling mortar everywhere so we get a day to palm off the kids on my Mum and James while Rachel and I head up for a day of getting messy.

We must have forty rubble sacks ready for collection and we're both a bit achey when we head home but it's things like this which gives us a bit of time to evaluate how we want things to flow and what we want where.

I'm sure we'll change our minds as we go along but it's actually quite nice to be able to do something with Rachel for a bit.

As I'd promised to take her out for a nice tea on the way home, we head to the Craven Arms and feel immediately under-dressed and more than a bit grubby. The food is lovely but it feels wierd having a nice meal, in such a nice place looking like we've been dragged through a hedge backwards! I make a mental note to bring Rachel back here one night when we've not spent the day covered in dust and grime!

Safari Time

It's no secret Rachel and I really enjoyed our honeymoon in Kenya. We tell anyone who'll listen how amazing it was so feeling the need to re-live some of that magic and show the kids what they (through no fault of their own, having not been born at this point) missed out on!

Knowsley Safari Park has a cool park, cafe and most importantly Big Cats!

Not to throw shade on the smaller, less violent animals in the park but I'm fairly confident I can hold my own against one of the monkeys pulling windscreen wipers off the car in front of us.

Fortunately, we've come in Rachel's car today!

Big Pink Charity Night

When we first met Rachel was always the one inviting people back to hers after a night out and regularly held parties. She would spend the whole week preparing things and on the day would have spent so long getting things ready it wasn't uncommon for her to have fallen asleep by 9pm leaving me to perform hostess duties until the early hours.

Fortunately at the time, her little terraced house had to one side, Elsie who was in her 90s and seemed to be able to sleep through anything and, on the other a couple who were both hard of hearing so although noise wasn't often a problem but I was always careful to be respectful of the neighbours, even after Rachel had donned her slippers and disappeared.

This love of putting on a doo has never left Rachel and she loves getting people together especially if they can raise some money for charity so once again, I find myself evicted from my own home as she hosts a Pink Party to raise money for Breast Cancer Care.

Returning to carnage, it looks like they've had a great time, raised a lot of money and most importantly, left me a bit of cake!

Pumpkin & Brain Picking

I'm not sure why I haven't asked before now considering it's common practice with my employer but I've managed to secure a few study days to spend on my degree course. It's really valuable not only from having to find a few hours less to juggle in the evenings but also that it feels like my employer taking my studying as seriously as the younger employees, who would generally be offered day-release for the same course.

While I'm pouring over books Rachel has managed to get us tickets for the weekend to visit a farm up towards Garswood where they are holding a pick-you-own-pumpkin event. We meet up with the Demelweeks and head off to find the biggest, shiniest and firmest of the patch.

Wrestlemania

Our kids can often be a bit rough with each other and we often find Emily is far more hands-on than Adam so when Rachel heard about the Wigan and Leigh Wrestling club down near Trencherfield Mill in Wigan, she signed them both up for a taster session. The club is run by volunteers and gives kids from all over the borough a chance to try something physical, burn off some stream and learn a bit of respect. It's a great place and the kids are soon getting stuck in. They have no idea what they are doing and Adam spends the whole time smiling, much to the annoyance of some of the other kids but Adam is giving as good as he gets and still has a smile on his face at the end. He's probably a lot more like me than I thought. He's capable and will be able to look after himself as he gets bigger, but he's not in any rush to hurt people.

Emily on the other hand is absolutely going for it and seems be holding her own with much bigger kids. I'm swelling with pride watching them both.

Watching Emily again, she reminds me of my sister Stephanie. She was never one to back down so paired with Rachel's 'take-no-sh*t' attitude, I start to relax a bit about my little girl being able to look after herself in the big bad world.

Walling-Up

The temperature has really started to drop as we head up to the hall for another edition of 'grafting-for-kids'.

Rachel starts the trip with her camera in hand as she's become a little obsessed with the Highland cattle in one of the nearby fields. I'm not sure what it is about them she loves so much but I'm sure they're delicious fun to work with.

I've made a start removing the plaster from the walls which, with a little persuasion from my SDS drill is now totally covering the floor which me and Rachel cleared just a few weeks ago. And that's only the start of it.

Adam isn't quite as bothered about getting stuck in this time around and is content to tend to the fire and get creative at the old table which the church left behind. It's actually strange to feel any warmth in the hall as it's the first time we've had it on since we got the keys!

Emily is getting her hands dirty though and while I'm up the ladders with Donald walling up the beams from the inside, Rachel and Emily are working wonders. Adam eventually succumbs to the cold and decides to get moving and we all come away filthy but fairly pleased with how we've done.

This is going to be a long build given we are only available over the weekends and the occasional week here and there so we need a way of making it a proper family affair otherwise I'm never going to see the kids.

So for now, me making a mess and then bringing in my very own cleaning crew works for me!

Tough (Mudder) Family Edition

It's been quite a few years since Rachel and I took on a tough mudder and even then, we didn't cover ourselves in glory, sauntering in past the finish line totally indifferent to our times. My brother and sister in law though have been on something of a health kick lately and have signed themselves and my nephews up for a mini-mudder at Haigh Hall in Wigan which Rachel has signed Adam and Emily up to.

Watching from the side-lines, I'm pretty confident I've let myself go way past the point of finishing this one, so I'm quite happy to let the in-laws shove and cadjole the kids around this one. Maybe next year!

Snowy Visit

It's not often we need reminding how lucky we are to have found Temperance Hall just at a time in our lives when we were in a position to not only make time for a refurbishment but had the energy and (just about) the finances in place to do it. Arriving at the hall on a snowy December day merely to check the place over and have a bit of a mooch around the local area, we see it in all of its chocolate-box glory with a light dusting of snow on the roof and a white frosting all around. It's no-where near finished but it's ours and we are feeling very, very lucky indeed.

As we get home my results come in for my very final degree assignment and although it's not what I was hoping for, it's not bad and might just be enough to push me into position for a first, so we'll see once all of the other marks are pulled together. All in all, I've been sponsored by work who have covered the cost of a degree qualification which I've been craving for most of my professional career. We have the hall which even in its current state isn't in any danger of falling down for at least another hundred years and we're all pretty healthy which for me, means we end the year on a massive positive.

Limefitt Visit

Rachel (you knew it would have been Rachel by this point didn't you!) has organised a christmas break for the family at a lodge near Bowness in the Lake District complete with a hot-tub and play park. It's bitterly cold so we're all wrapped up ready for a chilly break and once we've got the kids in the car we're off, the roads have gone a little dark and slippery but we're not in any great rush to get there.

The lodge is lovely and clean but it's really dark now so we settle in and make some tea, a dip in the hot-tub before getting ready to play some family games with a few treats. The following day we're all up early out into the chilly air before we have a trip out to Bowness for a walk alongside Lake Windemere followed by a hot drink and a game of pool with the kids in a waterside cafe. Rachel came here for her hen-doo so she's busy pointing out all of the places she probably won't be allowed into again (kidding!) as the kids enjoy sliding on the frozen paths.

Back at the lodge, the kids (and us) have a go on the play area

On a slight tangent, I don't know if anyone else gets this but on hearing a camera click I'm usually fit for three takes, maybe four at a push but beyond that I'm done. If you didn't capture my magnificence in the first few attempts then frankly you don't deserve to, so it's with this in mind that Rachel's attempts to get a 'nice' picture of me falls on deaf ears. It's one of my few rebellious traits so I make sure Rach gets nothing from me except a series of catalogue poses. I'm still not sure which is my favourite so I'll let you decide! Merry Christmas, you're welcome!

Christmas Lights Tour

Every year Rachel organises a facebook tour of the Christmas lights where residents try to raise money for local charities. She posts a list of the attractions and their worthy causes, including links to any JustGiving pages they've set up. We all have our favourites but mine is in Shevington this year supporting Wigan Children's Ward at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary. On the way back home, Rachel gets wind of the Rotary Club sleigh passing through the area we live in, so we drive around a few more streets to track them down and let the kids have their photo taken with Santa.

It's quite a nice way to spend a few hours and judging by the number of people passing by and donating it looks like word might have got out.

Festive Walks

Once we're all off for Christmas, it's always nice to get outside for some fresh air and a bit of a trek through the mud and fallen leaves. Today we're off to Haigh Country Park for a bit of a mooch, a play in the park and to have a look at what changes they're looking at making to the area. The rumour mill is rife with stories of what the Council are going to do with the place after it came to light it was costing quite a lot to maintain. This being the age of austerity, it was probably an easy target but as local landmarks go, it's one which everyone in the local area makes use of. The latest rumour is a collaboration with a hotel chain but seeing as I haven't been inside the place since my High School leavers dinner in 1994, I can't say I have much of a stake.

They asked for ideas on its future a few years ago and I suggested they repair the glass houses and walled gardens before opening them up to amateur gardeners for an annual fee but I don't think they took it up. Idea number two involved building on the sandy play area into a covered version but again, I can't see that one taking root.

I think I'll focus on sorting the hall out and leave changing the world to someone else for now.

Birthday Girl

Well, despite my original misgivings, we've had Ember in the family for just under a year now and as it's her birthday she gets all of the fanfare and attention everyone else in the house gets. And here she is modelling the latest in canine fashion, the collar-bib. Just because you're a dog doesn't mean you can't look fabulous!

For reference though, when it comes to my birthday I'm not looking for a box of pigs-ears, squeaky toys or a birthday-boy bib thanks. She might be part of the family but we clearly have very different tastes!

Melwood Visit

So, alongside the vast number of gifts showered onto the grandkids by Liverpool FC they have also provided four VIP tickets to see the training ground at Melwood, watch a training session and meet the players. On this occasion, it's going to be Adam and Oliver going, Oliver with his encyclopaedic knowledge of Liverpool FC and Adam with his enthusiasm for doing anything with his big cousin Oliver!

Sadly, despite the build up and excitement, Gary just isn't well enough to go and Rachel who as I've said before knows only slightly more about football than I do is going in his place. Fortunately, Rob, Rachel's brother is there to represent the family and give her a nudge whenever someone famous walks by.

To start them off, one of the Legends Ian Rush comes in to do a talk and answer some questions from the visitors and Rob is straight in there as Rachel video's the proceedings. A bit later on, they all get to have their photo's taken with him and it's smiles all round. Just because Gary can't be with them doesn't mean he doesn't want them to get the most out of it, so they're keen to make sure they have plenty to tell him when they get home.

Adam gets to meet his favourite player Mo Salah and even managed to get a photo frame signed by the players for one of his friends who's a massive reds fan. They all manage to grab a photo opportunity with Jurgen Klopp (the Liverpool manager) too.

When they get back, Gary is still feeling pretty poorly but is excited to see everybody as they let him know how the day went, especially Oliver who's able to reem off the names of the players he's been able to meet.

Again, we're all extremely grateful to Liverpool FC and their community team for putting this together and I'm still finding it so heartwarming to see how much effort people will go to for complete strangers going through a difficult time.

Hall Walks

There are some lovely walks up around the hall and we haven't explored them all yet, so with a dry day and nothing in the calendar we have made our way up just to spend the day there, play in the stream and go for a big walk with the kids.

We have so much still to do on the hall that it's easy to forget why we're doing this so days like this are great, not only for recharging the batteries but also for getting the kids into the countryside.

I keep saying I'm going to invest in a proper Ordinance Survey map but for now, we'll just follow the signs.

All the worlds a stage.

With no land to site a waste treatment tank, we need to make space beneath the floor to house a holding tank. Something we aren't entirely sure about yet is just how deep it needs to be and, knowing Rachel responds best to visuals, I have put the scaffolding together along with some of the insulation panels to help us figure out how high we're happy for the floor to be in what is now going to become the lounge. Once we're happy it isn't too high, we can get a rough measure and figure out how much material we need to remove from beneath the floor to site the tank.

Bouyed with success of the mockup we decided to do the same again but this time to try and get a feel for how big the bathroom needs to be. It's going to be a changing area too so as we move panels around and pretend we're getting changed, the dimensions change to suit.

It's a pretty good way to mock up a space and it helps me to visualise where the studwork will need to be for the mezzanine floor.

That done, it's back to picking out and moving things from one side of the room to the other to make space!

Time with Gary

Rachel is spending a lot of time with Gary and Margaret at the moment and she's trying to get him out of the house whenever he's up to it. Sometimes he's just not up for it but when he is, the fresh air usually does him good and despite his diagnosis hanging over him, he's open to helping Rachel make some more positive memories with him.

We don't really go over his treatment options with him unless he brings it up but on a day like this, everyone is just enjoying the walk, the cake and the company a little too much to dwell on it for too long.

Stocks Reservoir

There are some lovely walks around the Temperance Hall area but as we're all in need of a bit of a blowout, and some family time, we've got a visit to Stocks Reservoir booked in to take in a bigger walk.

The car park meters are broken so it looks like we're starting the trip with free parking which is always a nice bonus and as there aren't many cars here, we pick a choice spot, raised slightly, looking out over the water.

Rachel has sorted out a picnic for the walk and it feels like we've got more provisions than a small army in my rucksack but I'm confident we'll power through those too. So, as we head off there is a small hide overlooking the water which we have a quick look in before doubling-back and setting off on the proper walk of Stocks-Loop over open fields and well-worn paths. It looks like it should take about an hour or so, but we'll take our time and see how we get on.

There is a small broken down barn at the top of a track so we stop there for some lunch as some walkers pass us, clearly on more of a mission than us. Suitably recharged though, we set off again and turning left we cross a foot-bridge over the River Hodder which is a lovely feature. Rachel isn't great with bridges so Adam steps in to give her something to hold onto while Emily takes the lead and checks out whats around the corner.

We seem to have been walking for quite a while now and the kids are starting to get a bit tired but I can see the car park in the distance so it shouldn't be long now.

That is, until I realise a small obstacle between us and the car park. Stocks reservor!

I'm not sure how but it looks like I've underestimated the length of this walk, by a fair margin! The body of water we've walked around must have just been the feeder to the reservoir-proper and turning right the whole of the reservoir opens up in front of us and it becomes clear we're a good two hours away from the carpark at least, even if we pick up the pace! The walkers who passed us probably are still only half-way done now and their haste starts to make more sense.

Adam, Emily and Rachel all need a bit of encouragement to get them going and there is more than one mention of trying to get a taxi but as we pass over the Dam and through a memorial orchard, we're on the home-stretch. Maybe another hour and we'll be back where we started.

..Probably!

We've pretty much lost the light now but I think our eyes have adjusted and within minutes of getting to the car, its pitch-black! What great timing!!

The kids, Rachel and the dog are all asleep in the car by the time we reach Clitheroe but I'm really proud of how they all powered through what was a fairly long walk, especially for little legs!

There are a few other walks on our list of to-do's closer to the hall and I think we'll probably make sure we're a little more motivated the next time we try this one. If you fancy it though and you get the weather, it's a lovely way to spend a day.

Insulation Overload

I can't quite put into words just how boring and monotonous cutting sheets of insulation into smaller pieces, and pushing them into place, bringing them back down to trim them and then gap-fill foam them into position is. The tiny particles irritate wherever they land so if I'm not rubbing my eyes, it's my neck, wrists or 'elsewhere' as that stuff goes wherever it wants to, but I'll leave that to your imagination!

I'm routinely going home with red eyes and sore shoulders but the majority of the 100mm insulation between the rafters is done now and we're finally onto the 50mm stuff which covers both the rafters and the 100mm insulation, totally hiding all of the work!

Where you might think nearly six inches of insulation is a bit over the top you need to remember this whole building needs to be heated from either a log burner or a solid fuel stove so every bit of energy which we lose is one more night spent in a cold building. The walls are two feet thick but are solid stone so although they will act as a thermal mass once they're warmer, at the moment, they're acting like walls of a chiller cabinet and it's not proving that comfortable a workplace.

That said, with the 50mm insulation on, you can start to see the beams more clearly and how the whole place might look once the plasterboard is on which is nice.

I'm sure I'll appreciate it more once I get the feeling back in my fingers!

A touch of weather

When it rains in Yorkshire, it does a proper job and my visit to the hall today is fortunately a strictly indoor affair with lots and lots of picking-out to get done. The heavens haven't entirely opened but the constant drizzle seems to have amassed in the fields and it seems the run-off has become a torrent which is now passing through Keasden Beck and under Reebys Bridge at a fair speed.

The height of the water is probably two metres off the bottom of the stream bed and it's making its presence felt with a constant roar and splash as it heads downstream. On any other day this might have been a bit alarming but I've kind of gotten used to the weather up here now and the roads are dry, showing the culverts and brooks are doing their job. If you think it's going to be a lovely day, chances are it will be. If you see black clouds on the horizon, you can be pretty sure they're heading straight for you within the hour. Being fairly elevated you can see for miles when you get near to the hall so you get a fair idea of what to expect well before it lands and today, I had a feeling it was going to be a bit wet. My main priority today is to keep myself warm, busy and dry. So, pick in hand, I get back to the walls to prep them for pointing.

Beach Visit

With it's squirrell sanctuary to its back, Formby Beach has always seemed to me at least, one of the better known beaches in the North West. Ainsdale on the other hand seems to be the poor relation but for us, all the better for it. The few run-down buildings at the entrance to the dunes could probably do with some tlc but the beach itself just makes sense for a family. The car park can be accessed regardless of the tide, the main beach is blocked off with wooden barriers so kids can run unobstructed the whole length of the place and it has a nice feel to it with parents pitching up chairs and picnics from the back of their cars. We all enjoy exploring the dunes, making slides from the sand and the wide open space and sea breeze always seem to inspire us to get a little bit more active with the kids.

As Emily tucks into her fruit box, Adam is honing his football skills and with everything we've got on at the moment, it's lovely to just slow things down a bit and have a bit of a breather.

Joinery Joy

When I studied for my Mechanical Engineering HND back in the 90's we touched on other areas of building, construction and trade skills but despite spending a lot of time messing around in metal, I've always had a soft-spot for wood. As a material, it's warm, strong and a renewable source which we still keep finding new uses for, I just love it. So, it's always been a bit of a shame that I've never really had the time to get really good at shaping or building with it. Until now that is!!

Project time and with some of the spare C24 timber from the roof and a few bits of 4x2 I've had lying around for a while now I've managed to knock up what looks like an half-decent sash window. It's a pretty close match for the ones at the front of the hall but whereas they are top-opening, this one is a proper sash, well, it will be once I've built-in the runners, weights and bottom sash part anyway. It's got more filler on show than Towie, but as a first attempt I'm quite pleased with it. Whether it's square or strong enough to put in isn't quite known yet so once the glue has dried, I'll see how it looks but right now, replacing the windows and doors is looking that little bit more affordable!

Pointing Party

I've not managed to get any of the lads up to the hall yet as we've all been doing other stuff but we have a window of opportunity to get them involved. The inside walls which I've spent months picking out are pretty much ready for pointing so with the promise of bacon butties and an end-of-graft beer Paul, Gaz and Dave are up early to help us out.

We arrive just as Donald is getting the gear ready and has already set up the scaffolding inside ready to put us all to work. Once we have a full mix ready to go on, we get jobs divvied up and are trowelling as introductions are being made. Making sure the wall is damp before you point is important or the mix might not adhere to the walls, so that's one job. Getting a consistent mix ratio for the mortar is essential or we'll have patchy walls so that's another job but before we know it we're all grafting.

Donald has been in the week before to plaster the bottom of the roof so we have a level to work down from (you point top to bottom) and after a short while we seem to have a bit of a system going. By lunchtime we're pretty much covered and now it's just a case of waiting for the mix to harden. So as the cool-box is broken out, we have a little wander about before sitting in the outside space we have, to take it all in.

Donald comes back from another job up the road to check if we're ok to start brushing off but it isn't until the end of the day when Paul reminds me I still haven't delivered on the promised bacon butties! At which point the camping grill gets an outing and I try my best not to give everyone food poisoning.

I'm not sure if it was the bacon, the beer or the hard-work but we managed to get a snap of a snoozing Paul, away with the fairies on the way home!

Family Time

So. It's become very clear that Gary's illness is taking its toll on him so at the annual easter-egg hunt which Rachel's mum and dad host, Gary announces his retirement as event adjudicator to the Grandkids. Stood talking to them, I'm amazed at how well he's doing, explaining it in a way which they understand but without any sombre undertones. He wants them to enjoy themselves today, not worry about him not being around or what to say around him and it sums up how much he does for his family. He's helped us more than I could ever really have appreciated being very generous with his time, his energy, his organisation skills and occasionally his bull-headed approach to things which we might have otherwise skirted around. In the end though, the kids are here for chocolate eggs, so he sets them off. It turns out the easter bunny has been particuarilly busy in their garden this year and even leaves something for the grown-ups too!

CrockyTrail Time

The next week, we head to Crocky Trail for a day with the kids. Rachel has a few Facebook pages which helps the community, businesses and voluntary groups find each other, the most popular being Tots2Tens and after asking for information on their events, they've reached out with a complimentary family pass, so we're off to give it a try. Rachel has always been a bargain hunter but getting something for free always put a smile on my face before we've even got there! There are loads of things for the kids to do and everything seems to have been built from agricultural-looking equipment which only adds to its quirkyness and the kids love it. So much so, by the time we've managed to get them off the rides they've closed the actual crocky-trail the place is named for!

Having had such a good time though we'll definitely be back and will do it next time.

Picking & Pointing

With one internal wall done, we can start making in-roads on the rest. Donald lives far closer to the hall than me, so we arrange a bit of a system where he gets things started, gets the mix onto the walls as I travel up to the hall and once I get there, I should be able to start brushing off where he started and he can get off to his other jobs.

It's a massive favour and I doubt you'd find many builders prepared to do this with their Saturday mornings but Donald is used to being busy and he wants us to be using the building almost as much as we do so I'm really pleased we can move things on like this.

As I get a wall picked out we can pencil in the pointing for the next weekend and before long, it starts to come together and I somehow manage to keep the inside fairly tidy. I've even had a bit of time to start picking out the seating area too and it's easier to see the original archway now which has been covered with layers of patching mortar and paint over the years making it almost invisible. I have to admit, it would be been a very cool feature to have used if we had a garden but with the outdoor seating area providing a really useful space, I'm happy with how things are progressing.

Charity Car Boot Sale

With Gary's pancreatic cancer diagnosis flooring the family there was every chance it could send everyone spiralling into a kind of paralysis of grief so Rachel, her brother Rob and Margaret have been doing as much as they can to keep Gary involved and active but Rachel has had an idea on how to get the kids involved.

We're going to help the kids hold a car-boot sale to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer UK.

Rachel has put the feelers out and family and friends have given us loads of items to place on the stall ready for a trip to Burscough. We're up around 5:30am and Adam is riding with me, loaded up with stuff. The tressle tables and banner is put up, things are laid out and it's literally just minutes before Adam makes his first sale. Rachel and Emily arrive soon after with our Bacon butties and once Rob, Hugo, Oscar and Felix arrive we have a full team to man the stall. People who were previously a little disinterested cross over when they see the sign.

Pancreatic Cancer is one of those illnesses which people don't really hear a lot about but is one of the most deadly and untreatable illnesses out there. It's not one which I had come across but as the day goes on, people are coming over, sharing how they lost a relative to the disease and donating without even buying anything which, if you've ever haggled with someone at a car-boot sale, is pretty astonishing.

With a final tally of £297 the kids get to pass on the news to Gary, receive a thank-you letter from Pancreatic Cancer UK and even get the citizen award from their Head Teacher back at school. All in all, that's how you do a good deed right there!

Pointing & Boarding

It seems to have become a bit of a theme now where I'll send months doing one job, only for the next job to completely hide it and this one is no exception. With the 100mm insulation in, this gets covered with 50mm foam insulation which itself gets covered with plasterboard which itself will also be covered up with plaster. You can guarantee that it's the plasterer who'll get the credit though! At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that when I eventually get around to it, it'll be my painting which finishes off the job!

We're not there yet though so I've spent a lot of time back up on the scaffolding with plasterboard panels and a tape measure. I've replaced foam debris with plasterboard debris and instead of having my eyes filled with foam, they're gunked up with chalk and I'm leaving after each visit with a salt-and-pepper hair colouring which is making me look significantly older! It's coming along though and as I get another layer of boarding up, Donald comes during the week to plaster it. He's not sure what he's going to do when it comes to the apex as he might get another lad in to finish that bit off but again, we're not there yet.

Boarding around the skylights is taking a LOT of time and we really need to get some heat into the building to help things dry so I've asked Donald to finish the flue from the rear chimney and get it walled-up, so if nothing else, that's one more thing off the list.

As ever though, I'm staying positive. Every hour done is (..usually!) an hour of progress and as the plaster starts to dry out it's starting to look like a proper building.

Mezzanine Madness & Cellar Shenanegans

I've not really planned this very well. I've got a week off work and was hoping to get Donald on-board to help me out but I've left it too late to book him in and as a result he's off on another roofing job somewhere near Pen-Y-Gent, so as I arrive for day one ready to do what I can, it's a bit of a surprise to see him and two others turning up.

They have been rained off the job so as I wasn't answering my phone, they were just going to come and do a bit of plastering, hearing this though, I have other ideas!

The mezzanine floor is on my wish-list and with three builders at my disposal, a week off work and a lot of work which can be done indoors to get stuck into, we hatch a bit of a plan.

Tom and I spend the morning cutting out the floorboards and joists where the raised floor and cellar will be, as Donald and Pete nip out for materials and tools ready to put the wall-plate up when they return. Around lunchtime, Tom is despatched to collect a prefabricated set of stairs from a supplier in Lancaster and, as they can't deliver for nearly a week, we could potentially have them up by tomorrow. As it turns out framing the mezzanine is surprisingly fast and by the time Tom gets back we're ready to cut them to size, adding a 90 degree turn at the top.

The next morning a delivery of T&G boards, breeze blocks, sand and cement arrive to build the walls to the cellar and raised floor but the breeze blocks are the wrong size and type, so we spend the morning digging out the footings for the concrete foundations, as Donald gets onto the supplier.

By afternoon, Tom and Pete have put in a sluice ramp to get the concrete mix in the right places as Pete gets the depth and levels right.

Donald and I are cutting, glueing and screwing the T&G panels into position on the mezzanine and it looks and feels like a solid floor. I have floors at home which don't feel half this solid and the whole thing feels like it's been here forever. If anything, what is does do is make me wander what's wrong with my floors at home!

Towards the end of the day, the right blocks arrive and we get a bit of a conveyor belt going, moving them from pallets to Pete so he can stack them where he wants them.

With another day, more materials arrive this time 3x2 C24 which I'll need to build the ballustrade to the mezzanine floor as Pete gets busy with the blockwork.

The weather has picked up a little so Donald has left Pete with me to crack on with the blockwork while he and Tom head off to try to make up for lost time on their other job. It's my turn to be the gopher so I'm keeping myself busy making sure Pete has whatever he needs and putting in the noggins for the bunk room framing.

With the week coming to an end, the blockwork is where it needs to be and the structure of the original floor feels all the stronger for it. The mezzanine framing is looking good and with another delivery, we have enough 3x2 timber to get the non-structural framing done for the bathroom and the 5x2s and more T&G panels for the raised floor. It's getting to the point where I need to get using this stuff the moment it arrives as we're running out of space!

Pointing again

Removing the pointing from the outdoor seating area has been a bit harder than I had imagined. The mortar came away pretty easily but over the years, it looks like layers and layers of paint have been applied which is taking a lot of scrubbing to get rid of. While I'm at it, there is a chunk of concrete and London brick which was been used to patch up the pillar which needs removing so Donald has popped down with an acro prop just to be on the safe side.

The original through's have been put onto the small wall which are a nice finish so while we've got a bit of time we've pointed the wall bit which, after bring brushed off and a bit of a clean-up, looks really nice. It strikes me that we are doing almost everything on this job arse-about-face and are like opportunists, doing whatever jobs we can just to keep things moving on. There is so much on the to-do list that it seems a bit pointless trying to nail down a plan of action when it's mostly just me, so if I have time, materials and the ability, that becomes the next job!

Not very scientific I know but there you go!

Knocking out brickwork is a messy business but once its out, we can at least point the inside of the new retaining wall and give the area a good clean up ready for the next full-family visit.

Lower Bank Ground

Since we found out about Adams nut allergy, we've been super-cautious about him going places on his own or trusting other grown-ups with being confident enough to administer his epi-pen should he have a reaction, so signing him up for his first school trip is something of a milestone, not just for Adam but for us too!

He has been invited to go to Lower Bank Ground on Lake Windemere with school where they will have all sorts of adventures, caneoing, canyoning, orienteering and the like so there is a big part of us which wants him to go and another big part which is desperate to keep him safe. We've put a lot of trust in the school staff though, Rachel has refreshed his careplan, has emergency numbers for the teaching and site staff, has checked ingredients for planned meals and has even got a promise from one of the teachers to inform us (briefly) on how mealtimes have gone. It might be overkill but for us, it's all part of the day-to-day checks we need to do whenever we eat out.

Mid-week a few photos start to come through from the staff and the kids are having a whale of a time. When he finally gets home it turns out he's lost two of the disposable cameras he was allowed to take but the one's he's remembered to pack still cost £36 to get processed and its clear he's no David Bailey! Some school snaps from the coach, a few of the floor, one or two of his classmates eating outside and that's pretty much it. If it weren't for the staff photos no one would have known he was even there but once home, he's walking that little bit taller. Talking that little bit more confidently. Almost strutting about the place now he's been on holiday with out his parents. He doesn't know we've hardly slept the whole time he's been gone but seeing the change in him proves we made the right choice in trusting him and the staff to stay safe.

He's an expert on everything now though from making breakfast to walking uphill, nothing is off limits and his new-found confidence is lovely to hear.

Mezzanine Boarding

With the framing done for the mezzanine, we can start to pasterboard the structure and create the rooms properly. We've boarded the bathroom wall and with the ballustrade done, I've ordered more half-panels of plasterboard to start building up the walls, insulating wherever it looks like it might be useful such as between the bathroom and bunk room. I'd over-ordered on the insulation panels and with the off-cuts we have plenty left over to act as soundproofing between the two rooms.

When it goes in, you can start to see how each room will flow and make decisions on the location of the reclaimed radiators Rachel found a few months ago. With things progressing at pace, it doesn't feel like long before the whole place will be in a usable state.

Fun at Scotsmans

After coming back from Lower Bank Ground, Adam is pretty convinced that he's an expert at all things water-related now, so seeing as we have Scotsmans Flash on our doorstep and Emily is busy at Gymnastics, we are heading out onto the water.

It's years since I was in a Kayak so we opt for the sea-kayak style which is like a moulded open seat. It means if you tip in, you're going to get soaked but neither of us in is in a swimming mood, so we should be fine. We've been instructed to give the swans a wide-berth so we have a circuit of bouys to work our way around but its clear Adams confidence has come on leaps and bounds. He's happy to chill though so we only have a couple of speed challenges before we're back at it, at a more leisurely pace.

Paddling along, we have a good hour just chatting and joking about which is lovely. He's growing into a proper little man now and times like this are precious. He probably won't remember what he got for Christmas or Birthdays but hopefully he'll remember the day we went out on the water, just two blokes shooting the breeze and putting the world to rights!

The next week, Emily's Gymnastics club has a tournament which she doesn't want to watch so the three of us are on the water again, me and Emily in a tandem sea-kayak and Adam powering along on his own, leading the way. It's definitely a lot more wobbly with my passenger busily splashing water at me from the front seat, but with Adam leading the way again and Emily keen to keep up with him, we agree Emily should be allowed out on her own kayak next time as I'm apparently slowing her down!

One ( ..or three) steps closer.

So, Rachel has come up for the day and Donald is with us which usually means our plans are about to take a turn, as between the two of them, they can usually find a missed opportunity. After a bit of a discussion, the raised floor area is now going to be the lounge instead of the kitchen and although we now need to figure out how to get an extractor fan into the wall somewhere, it looks like it will really work out a lot better.

Measuring out the distance to the raised floor it looks like we'll need three steps to get to height so if we are having the kitchen downstairs, that probably means we can install a solid fuel cooker, but we might need to strengthen a part of the floor, so I now have some thinking (..and sums) to do!

Gary

So, after fighting Pancreatic Cancer for nearly a year, Gary has sadly passed away.

It was peacefully, at home and most importantly on his own terms.

I'll write more soon but for now, you just need to know that he will be very sadly missed.

This is gonna hurt!

I've had some minor accidents since we started this, mostly cuts and scratches here and there but this is potentially the worst accident I have ever had on this whole build. My back hurts, my arse is bruised, the purple and yellow graze making its way up my right leg is looking angrier by the day and I still can't quite believe I was not only able to walk it off and get another three hours of work done but that I was able to drive home afterwards! I've been whingeing about my injury for three days now and every morning brings a new ache and pain. My mother in law has helpfully brought some strong painkillers which she had lying around and given how I feel right now, she could have got them from the cast of Trainspotting and I'd still chomp them down without question. So, I should probably at this point, explain what I've done and why the build is going to have to take a back burner for a week or two.

If you've ever watched the chuckle brothers or any comedy from the 80s, someone usually falls down a hole and me alone on a building site when I'm already 8 hours into a day's work, tired, filthy, sweating and feeling motivated but not entirely switched on, I start to resemble one of those characters. Don't get me wrong, I've really enjoyed working on the hall but I don't always recognise when I've overdone it and could do with a break. So, after deciding to fix the squeaky, bouncy floorboards in what would become the kitchen, I pulled two of them up to have a good look at the problem.

This is where it got a bit painful. See, the one thing you forget about when taking up floorboards is it usually leaves a bit of a gap where there used to be a floor (..or is that just me?). So after picking up the second floorboard and struggling to find a place to put it down, I decided it might be better on the other side of the room whereby I stepped backwards, my foot reaching and swirling to find the ground that was no longer there and then in an instant, the recognition of what I'd just done flashes through my brain and my whole body prepares itself for a real hammering.

The feel of the rough wood dragging along my leg is really painful but I know I'm still moving and the worst is probably yet to come...and as it does 16 stones worth of muscle, bone and kitkat investment slams my coccyx into the chunky oak floor joist, protruding rusty nails and all, but we're not quite finished yet. Although my arse and the gap are roughly the same width, it only serves to slow me down, so it's down to my elbows and rib cage to prevent me from falling completely under the floor. The foot which didn't fall is now just above chest level forcing me into a very much not-warmed-up version of the splits and the floorboard (which, to my credit I didn't drop!) comes down violently at its edge across my fingers.

At first I can't seem to move and I instantly crap myself (not literally) thinking I've done something to my spine, but the pain slowly starts to circulate, my muscles start to work again and I slowly drag myself, battered and bruised out of the gap and onto my knees cursing my own stupidity.

Somewhat amazingly, I feel absolutely zero damage to the twig and giggle-berries! So you know ...every cloud!

I'm on my second cup of coffee before I’ve built up the courage to get started again as I look at the hole as if it's got it in for me but I can't leave it like that. It's clearly not safe, so I give myself another looking over and after finding some more bits bleeding, I patch myself up and carry on. It's a floorboard after all, not a maths exam and if nothing else, I'll get to spend the next few hours smashing at it with a hammer and nails to get my own back.

Anyway, long story short, the floor is fixed and I’m feeling a bit broken.

The Demelweek Inspection

We have just had a visit from some close friends in Wigan who haven’t seen the building yet so we were super excited to meet them at the hall. Unfortunately, we hadn’t spoken to Donald the builder that week but he’d managed to get the plasterers in from RCP Plastering on our behalf. Cue lots of talking and pointing but not a great many of the ooh’s and aah’s which we were hoping for. To say it wasn't looking it’s best would be something of an understatement with scaffolding out, plaster splodges on the floor and the cloying scent of damp everywhere, we couldn’t have picked a worse day to show the place off.

As ever though, the area it’s in came to the rescue and Keasden Beck played host to both families as we chatted on the bank whilst the kids skimmed stones into the water and checked for trolls beneath the old stone bridge. What started as a bit of a missed opportunity to get others excited about the work that’s been done turned into a lovely afternoon lying in the sun talking about their recent holiday in Morecombe.

We make a mental note to pay the beach a visit the next weekend as it isn’t far from the barn and it would be nice to get some fresh air into the kids. Result.

Hmmmm Smooooooth!

The day does finally comes when the plastering is done and Donald has been on to let me know the plasterers are all finished. Fast forward a week and I'm feeling up the walls and ceiling like a proper wierdo, checking out the smoothness and finish. Fortunately, I'm alone throughout!

Given the work that's gone into the ceiling so far is now completely hidden, I do feel a little cheated but it looks good and I'm really really pleased at how they've managed to feather a soft curve to the apex, so I think I'll have to let this one go!

Gary's Memorial

We discussed pretty early on that we didn't think it was appropriate for the kids to attend Gary's funeral. I'm not sure what age is appropriate but for us, it just didn't seem right. The last memories we want the kids to have of Gary are hopefully happy ones, so Rachel has had an alternative idea.

Gary has had strong ties with Maghull football club since he was young and his father Stanley having enjoyed his career as a professional footballer was a regular at the pitch-side and lived just down the road. For our more age-appropriate memorial, Rachel has arranged for a balloon release with Gary's kids and grandkids each having written a personal message about their grandad and tied it to a balloon.

The suns out though and as the kids assemble in a nice line, they are all excited for the release but it's also a nice opportunity for everyone there to just spend a bit of time reflecting on the other, happier visits we've paid to the club. The last time we were all here together, Gary played in a seniors match and seeing Rob, Rachel's older brother sprinkle Gary's ashes around the edge of the pitch, it felt like a fitting location. It's really nice of the club to have agreed to it though and I'm sure we'll be back at some point in the future.

Family Break

After my brush with disaster a few weeks ago, I'm pretty much back to full-strength now just in time for a short break to the Rivers Edge Holiday Park between High Bentham and Ingleton. The plan is, we'll have a few family days together followed by a few days where I'll be grafting at the hall. On those days, Rachel will take the kids out to explore until I finish. At which point, we all get cleaned up, eat dinner together and then probably have a go at stargazing in the hot tub later on.

Our first few days are family based though so we're off to Morecombe for a few hours of scooting, stone skimming, play area climbing, fresh-air inhaling and giving the dog a chance to sniff amongst the more shingle-filled beaches where dogs are allowed. We all like it here and it's great to have a place like this just a short drive away. We haven't really had to go far from the parking area when we find out there is a bit of a fair on and the kids are keen to have a go at the zorbing activity and a few of the stalls before we carry on with our walk. It's all a bit strange as we've just finished binge-watching a fictional drama series called The Bay, based in Morecombe and recognise a few of the local landmarks as we go. The programme is a bit gritty and dark but we have always found the place to be very welcoming!

Whilst I'm off hammering and basically making a mess, Rachel has taken the kids to Ingleton Waterfalls for a ramble. Now they're that much bigger since their first visit they make short work of the walk, so it's probably harder on Rachel and Embers legs as they try to keep up. Rachel has been snapping away though so when I get back, filthy and tired, I get a full run-down on the days activities.

Something which the kids weren't expecting though was a visit to the Ingleton Outdoor Pool. They are both really good swimmers and being able to get them into the water on a family break is too good an opportunity to pass up, so Rachel has signed them in and is sat comfortably on the sidelines as they burn off some energy. Again, once I get back there are pictures galore and it seems like a really good break has been had by everyone.

I've had a really productive week at the hall, the kids have had a really nice time with me and their mum and we all feel like we've all had a bit of time to relax.

Floorboard Reclamation Project

Not long after we got the planning permission through, I made a decision to buy myself a very special toy tool. Something I’ve wanted for a long time but never up until now been able to find any justification for ...a table saw. Once bought, I would be catapulted from jobbing amateur joiner to fully fledged woodsman, a master craftsman, a real man.

So, after trawling a few review sites and clocking the eye-watering price differences, I opted for the Screwfix 10" Titan (even the name sounds manly and dangerous!) so you can probably imagine my surprise when the first task a real man, a master craftsman and a fully-fledged woodsman needs to take on is two hours of self-assembly!

But, just £99.99 lighter and instructions in hand, I get stuck into putting the kit together and start to realise why I found an identical saw on eBay for the same price, despite being a year old. The owner clearly wanted to be compensated for his or her efforts in putting it together yet after a few wrong turns, it starts to look more straightforward despite the slightly dodgy instruction drawings and the fact it’s nearly 10pm before I make a start.

The legs are on, the guards go in, the blade is added and it’s looking pretty good. I’ll wait until the following morning to turn it on though as it’s pretty late by now.

Morning comes and all of the earlier memories of being scared witless by a circular saw come flooding back and I turn it off before I hurt myself! It's always exciting getting a new bit of kit but there is always the nagging feeling that something might need to be tighter or slot A isn’t sitting in Tab B properly, so I power it off and go around it again checking everything is nice and tight before I find a piece of scrap and give it a whirl.

It took me a minute to realise that with the guard on, the height adjustment doesn’t help you cut slots as it rises and falls with the blade, so to test making a rebate, I take off the guard and give it a go. All in all though, I’m really impressed. The motor seems to have a fair amount of bite and although this is only with fairly thin offcuts, I think this could be a good buy.

I’ve used this quite a lot whilst trying to make some window frames and it works quite well on anything up to 3" and mostly softwoods. I’ve had a go at cutting a 3.1/2" Oak beam and, even with the guard off, although it got through the experience, it didn’t enjoy it, but I imagine if you’re going to need a tool specifically for that, you’ll invest in something beefier anyway. Day to day though, it’s a nice bit of kit. It's a bit bulky to store away as the legs don’t go through a standard door opening and you have to take them off, but otherwise, I’d recommend it.

Anyway, seeing as we want to reuse as much as we can from the building and we have a pressing need for a proper back door and a cupboard door for under the stairs they become all the justification I was waiting for.

We've taken up a lot of the floorboards from what will eventually be the lounge, so I’m keen to repurpose them into a simple z-shape for the stairs cupboard and a much more robust barn-style door for the back. So, after assembling the tool kit, expanding glue, clamps, screws and hinges, I get stuck in. The images are the end result which I think look pretty good for a first attempt.

Check out the table saw info here

What a lovely delay!

Some people might see being stuck behind a tractor as a bit of a pain and, if you're on a main road I get it but out in the countryside, I love it. Few things make you realise you're out of town than seeing a teenager driving something the size of a small house spraying mud and cow manure from its huge rear tyres at you.

Something not quite as common but ten times as fun is driving up to the hall just in time for the cows from the local dairy to be moved from milking shed to the fields. My current car, a Renault Kangoo is jet black with tinted windows so it blends in with the herd quite well. Not quite well enough to sneak into the fields with them, but enough for it to get a lot of interested looks from the group.

It might just be me, but I love taking a minute to get out of the car, have a quick chat with the farmer and watch as they do their thing and patiently steer these 1-ton lawnmowers from place to place. The farmer usually starts to the conversation with an apology, but I couldn't be happier!

Deer oh Deer

We have decided to have a weekend up at the hall, just me and Rachel to try it out and see if it's possible to stay over yet. It's so dusty that it's just not practical for the kids to be with us but we've brought the pop-up tent from home and set it up on the mezzanine floor complete with a foam mattresses, blankets, torches and sleeping bags. The hope was, this should keep the dust out and the heat in, and it seems to work relatively well.

The following morning as we're sitting in the outdoor area with our coffees and instant porridge, we are paid a visit. A deer is making its way nervously across the field from left to right oblivious to us sitting there over our steaming breakfast pots. Rachel instinctively reaches for her camera phone and I try to stay still despite my excitement. It's beautiful and the fact this is happenning while Rachel is there makes it all the more special. This is what we could have to look forward to when we stay over for real and it just ramps up our love of this old building significantly. There aren't many things which make you feel more privileged than having one of natures more timid creatures roaming around right in front of you, while you enjoy your brekkie.

This place is going to be amazing once it's finished!

Project Time

Whenever Rachel is up, she likes to have a very specific project in mind. Something which adds value, is achieveable in the time we have and if possible, uses or reclaims something we already have. Today, we're going to build the stairs to the raised floor.

It's only three steps but it's going to be a bit of a focal point for the building and needs to not only be functional, strong and sturdy but it also needs to look nice too. So, using the last of the 5x3 timbers we reclaimed from the original floor joists, we've built the three steps we need, using the recommended building regulations measurements and made allowances for the depth of insulation and flooring we're going to put in once they're installed.

I know I'm biased, but I think these look really good and more importantly, Rachel is really happy with the end result too!

A bit of 20's glamour

With all of this hard work going on, I don't think anyone will begrudge us a little bit of 'us' time and as one of our friends is having a 20s themed 40th birthday party at The Old Courts in Wigan, it's time to crack out the peaky-blinders waistcoat, braces and flat-cap ready for a night on the tiles.

Rachel has gone all-out and even complimented her outfit with a faux-cigarette smoking-pole thing. I have no idea where she got it from but she looks ready to charlston the night away. It's a look which, considering she doesn't actually smoke, she pulls off really well. There may be a few clues to her mis-spent youth in there somewhere?

It's a really good night though and I for one feel like it's a real shame more of my outfits don't require a set of braces!

A little bit of history

If this blog were hosted by George Clarke, this would be the bit where he goes off on a tangent and pretends to have spent days researching the history of a building or town so if you’re used to fast forwarding that bit, feel free to skip to the next blog!

I just thought I’d share this which I think is a bit cool. It turns out there was a religious sect in the area around the barn which was an ultra-orthodox version of the Methodist church, the Sandamanians. I’d never heard of them before and when I read the book a local farmer passed onto me, I realised the hall must be a little older and more famous than we first thought.

Throughout its life, it’s had a variety of uses. From being just a barn, it became a small dwelling with animals sheltering below and farmers above. It was used as a bobbin mill and weaving shed which helped to sustain the Faraday family (…yes, that Faraday) and prior to the field being drained and levelled, there are indications it once housed a water wheel. From then, it became a school house with local stories abound about misbehaving students sent under the floorboards into the cellar, and lying low on the school donkeys back to trot around during detention. This then became something of a church and scouting hall with events being held in there until the late 80s when it fell into disrepair and was just used for storage.

If you're interested in learning more about the history of the area, you can check out the North Craven Heritage Trust Journals

Water Water Everywhere

Jetwashing the front of the hall and finding the cobbled path was a real bonus but finding the cover to a water main, just by the roadside could probably be considered our very own rollover!

As we've mentioned, we have no land to site a water treatment tank, have no electricity connection and right up until this point, we were pretty sure we'd have to catch and purify all of the water we needed from the sky. This being North Yorkshire, we weren't worried about it not raining enough but being able to store it internally, process it with an off-grid system and pressurise it for use indoors was causing me a fair few sleepless nights. Finding what could potentially connect us to the mains water would be a real shot in the arm!

We've been in touch with Yorkshire Water and after a survey, they think it could be a live main, we've paid the invoice and we're booked in to get MAINS WATER!

We also need to have the single lane road closed for the day. As the road sign guy arrives, I'm amazed at how far away he started. We seem to have signage almost from Wray to Settle, so every man and his dog must be using a diversion today!

The guys from Morrison Utility (..Yorkshire Water's contractor) arrive, check the map, wave a wand and are soon digging their very own hole in the road, looking for the pipe. My main job today is to provide a constant stream of tea or coffee but there are a few jobs which I can be getting on with in the meantime.

It gets to about 1pm though and they seem to have been drilling the pipe for a very long time. One of the guys is starting to think it could be a dead main and my heart sinks with the news. They have a go at it for a little while longer until, releasing the clamp, a 20ft jet of water shoots up, knocking his glasses off his face and filling up the trench to waist height in no time. It turns out the main is live but the pipe cutter is knackered! My relief is off the chart but we're not there yet.

They try to get the main turned off to finish the job but given the time of day, there isn't time to get the required approval so, the road needs to stay closed until that night when a second crew can come out to finish the connection.

I'm back in work the following day so chase up with Yorkshire Water to check on the progress but it turns out there isn't any. The crew which were due to come were called to an emergency elsewhere, then another crew the following day, then again the following day and so, it isn't until the end of the week when the connection is made and the road closure is lifted. We can only imagine the local reaction to this, so hopefully this isn't too much of a hardship for everyone and we can live it down sooner rather than later!

Waste Tank Delivered

This looked a lot smaller (and lighter) on the internet!

Right from day one we understood the hall had no land, no services and little chance of getting planning permission for use as a dwelling, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t ever be useful or comfortable. So, after some back-of-a-fag-packet engineering planning, I figured out a way to hold the waste water internally in a sufficiently large enough tank to make it useful for long stays between emptying and so the search was on. The tank I settled on from Tanks UK was a heavy duty rotomoulded version with a few inlet's including one for a level sensor and an inspection hatch and drain valve. Not entirely the off-the-shelf option I was hoping for but given the constraints of the buildings footprint, the levels and the fact no land was available for sale to site a septic tank, this would be the way forward. Now, just the small task of getting it inside the building.

Plan A consists of me and a very, very helpful delivery driver manhandling the tank, including the pallet attached to its bottom off the lorry and around the back of the hall. My idea is, to open the temporary rear doors, put some surplus timber up as a ramp and slide the tank uphill until it tops out over the edge and into the lounge area. It was all looking very promising and possible until five minutes in, when the heavens opened drenching me, the tank, the ramp and the ground all around me.

Looking like Sisyphus pushing my very own boulder forever uphill, my feet slid backwards, the tank stayed still and the rain kept on coming.

So, plan B. Put the scaffolding up in levels and lift it up, then push it closer to the opening, lift it again and then into the opening. Unfortunately, it's no use and I simply can't lift it high enough without it slipping and I don't want to risk damaging it, so I leave it in the rain and make a coffee. Everything seems more possible when you're dry and holding a hot drink, so this is currently the best idea I've had so far.

Plan C. From the deepest recesses of my memory, I remember something from my Engineering HND days about pulleys and so, seeing as I had only managed to move the tank a total of 1 metre since I started, I figured I'd give it a go. Attaching special offer ALDI roof rack straps around the tank and the other end to a couple of spare pallet's, I suddenly had the equivalent of someone pulling uphill. With the ramps sloping up onto the scaffolding and a little encouragement (wiggling and swearing!) we start to get somewhere and twenty minutes later, the tank is up and inside the building.

It's late afternoon before Donald's son Tom is available to help me lower the tank into the cellar but another half an hour later, we're done and the tank is in place, ready for my next brilliant idea!

Christmas Lights Tour

Rachel has put together another Christmas Lights Tour for her growing community of Facebook-ers and this year more and more people seem to be looking to raise funds for local good causes. The displays seem to get bigger each year, as if they've all been watching National Lampoon and gone out of their way to step it up a notch.

Couples Night

Unfortunately none of us have managed to make time for any proper grown-up night's out again this year, so it's down to December to bring us all together again.

We've opted for the Steakhouse in Ashton-In-Makerfield again and after a lovely meal, we've found ourselves meandering through a few of the local pubs until we finally land in the Thomas Gerrard. It's another night of laughs and catching up and again, we make ourselves promise that we'll not leave it so long next time. Hopefully next year, that's a resolution which we might actually keep!

Floored

I've spent quite a lot of time during this build checking TRADA tables to make sure whatever we put in the building will comply with building regulations and my worries for the roof were soon put to bed with the arrival of C24 6x3's, which were almost indulgently strong for our purposes.

Wanting the same strength in the floor we were putting in above the cellar, I've opted for C24 5x2's at 300mm centres, which is well within the span tables, so it shouldn't really move at all. These are going to be insulated between, with the remaining 100mm insulation foam and topped with 18mm T&G boarding. Once it's all screwed and glued down, it should be more than strong enough for a small lounge area. Hopefully it feels just as solid as the mezzanine and we have zero bounce.

Crocky Trail Visit

As promised, we're back at Crocky Trail to actually do the trail this time. On our last visit, the management were kind enough to send us a family pass for Rachel's efforts in promoting the events through her Tots2Tens page but this time, we were paying our own way.

After prying the kids away form the play areas and the rides, we set off on the crocky trail to see the areas and try out some of the activities which lie along the way including swings, rope and log-bridges. We have a minute in one of the tree houses with the swing-seats as we decide where to go next and it's decided. Back to the play area! The kids like being in nature, but it isn't everywhere you can be spun off a ride or try your luck with a huge inflatable bull.

Survival Skills

The kids received a set of Walkie Talkies for Christmas so those, plus a camouflage rucksack, compass, multi-tool, tarpaulin and paracord should be enough to help them make a shelter at the hall so while we're busy sorting something inside and with only a gentle drizzle falling, they set off to the stream to get set up.

I think it's fair to say it's not a massive success but given it's their first attempt, the tarpaulin isn't massive and the paracord isn't all that long, I think they've done a good job.

They're smiling anyway, which is the main thing!

Working flat out

When we got the keys we soon realised there the majority of the floor was in pretty good condition, with the exception of one or two bouncy bits. Those repaired, we were trying to figure out how to insulate the floor and try to retain as much heat as possible when Donald suggested we insulate and board over what we already had.

So, idea fully absorbed and a few more measurements taken to make sure the levels would add up, I started with a 25mm foil backed panel, 18mm T&G board with plenty of gap fill foam to help to set everything into place. The insulation values of this building are looking really good now and even without a log burner, the building feels warmer.

Walls (2ft of local stone) Roof (6 inches of solid foam) Floor (2 layers of wood flooring plus 1 inch of solid foam and a foil blanket under the original floorboards).

We are looking at putting a thin laminate over this to help finish the look and keep things nice and clean, but we haven't picked one yet, so fingers crossed we make the right choice.

Chim Chim Chim Chimene-eney

Now we know (..roughly) where the furniture and fittings are going, we can get the vent pipework into position and in this case, it means we're ready to re-instate the gable end chimney and stack.

The chimney stack on the southern gable-end had largely collapsed so when we fixed the roof, we took out whatever we could from the flue, saved the stone and after a chat with Donald, it was clear we'd be able to come back to it in the future. Having pointed the inside walls, I was a bit upset about having to re-do the whole stack on the inside though and was cursing our impatience in getting it done. We wanted to make sure as much of the flue-pipe was exposed as possible to maximise the heat transfer from the log burner so we decided to put the new flue as high up the wall as possible and run the pipework to it, rather than have it heat up just the stone on that wall.

Not having pointed the outside walls though, meant Donald could access the flue externally and just repair the small area internally around 3m up the wall where it comes out at 45 degrees. It's clearly a different colour to the pointing surrounding it but hopefully over time this will be less and less obvious and if we fit a wall plate around the flue, will disappear altogether. I'm happy though and now Donald just needs to rebuild the stack from the outside.

A lick of paint

Given I've spent months up the scaffolding at this point, the prospect of spending more time looking upwards and having weeks upon weeks of numb shoulders and arms, I happily concede to Rachel's suggestion of getting a proper painter in to do the walls and ceiling.

Again, we defer to Donald on this one and he suggests we speak to Sam Dably, a local painter with a background in fine art and a keen eye for detailed finishes. We have plenty of intricate bits to paint, so that last bit will probably be put to the test however, paint chosen, it's not long before he's with us and getting stuck in.

I'm really happy with the end result as the bright but subtle shade really lifts the building and so, once Rachel and the kids give it their seal of approval we tick one more big job off the list.

It's really starting to look like someone loves the place again.

Choices Choices!

We're getting close to that time where we can start to think about the end finish. To be honest, I was hoping a little bit that Rachel would have had a mood-board ready, samples chosen and suppliers lined up ready for this bit but having spent the last few years agonising over every material choice, most of which are now hidden behind plasterboard or insulation, I can't help but muscle in on a few more things.

We have spoken to a few local suppliers so far including a few supply-only closer to home but in the end, we decided to keep it local and speak to a company in Settle, Andrew Mounsey Flooring and borrow a few samples ready to make a few decisions. Time will tell if we're right but we're in agreement, and that's enough for us.

Wet One

Anyone who still wants to debate the effect of climate change on the UK needs to pay Yorkshire a visit. On the way up to the hall passing through Long Preston fields which would usually play host to hundreds, possibly thousands of cattle were submerged and as you get closer to the hall, although you get higher that doesn't mean that we're entirely immune from the effects of a consistent downpour. This particular one seems to have been going on all week and as the fields struggle to hold much more, it starts to make its way downhill including through the Keasden Beck which fronts the hall.

It looks higher in the picture because of the daft angle I was sitting at the time, but still, the water level at full flow managed to make it to around a metre below the height of the road. As news reports come in of towns and roads downstream flooding, my heart goes out to the families who will be spending the next few weeks, possibly months in hotels or sofa surfing with relatives in the knowledge their premiums will only keep going up.

We knew back in 2015 that the flood risk assessment for the hall was a little off in its prediction for the flood zones but it doesn't make life any easier for the people downstream.

Life in the old boiler yet..

I don't like seeing useful things go to waste, the scrapyard or worst still, landfill so when we started looking for a log burner for the hall I put a few feelers out and it turned out Tom had just the thing, quietly rusting in the back of his workshop. Some years earlier, he'd removed a Hunter Herald 8 from a house clearance with a view to restoring it himself but, like for all of us, life got in the way so there it stayed. It looked largely complete so, haggling done he dropped it off at the hall ready for me to have a crack at restoring it. Long story short, it takes a long time to remove rust with an angle grinder and a wire brush so if you choose to do this yourself, give yourself a full day, plenty of energy bars and no small amount of stove paint. The end result is definitely worth it and once the fire rope is replaced, glass cleaned up and new fire brick installed, it should be a very welcome addition to the hall, especially once the night's start to draw in.

Mould, but not old Mould

So, somewhat depressingly after spending so much time getting the beams cleaned up and then so much money on getting the hall painted I arrive to find the beams have gone all mouldy. Small, white/blue spots have appeared indicating mould spores have started to breed on our still slightly damp oak beams. Having done a bit of research, I believe it's penicillin mould which although it sounds good for you, like all mould, really really isn't. So, for this and probably the next few visits it will be a case of down-tools, and up-antibacterial wipes and face masks.

Also somewhat depressingly, a virus from China called Covid-19 has sent the country into a pandemic lockdown, meaning by the time I get to come back, everything I'm about to clean will probably need re-cleaning again.

Picking Out

Before we can look at pointing any of the outside walls, there are a few areas which we need to knock down and rebuild. These are mosly the slopping out holes which have been crudely walled up and filled over the years so they need a bit of attention.

Given how long it's taken to get the front and inside ready for pointing, I know this isn't going to be a quick job, especially when I need to be walling-up too, so wherever I can, I'm going to ask Donald to pop down and give us a head-start. I'll be sharpening my new pick and doing the donkey-work wherever I can and get the 'grown-ups' in for everything else.

Homeschool of hard knocks

Setting a home-schooling timetable isn't altogether straightforward and I don't really think I appreciated this until Lockdown. The kids school has had this dropped on them with little warning so they're doing a mix of jobs at the minute having to provide cover for key-worker families whilst also look into making materials for kids who are home-schooling but they're not quite there yet.

So, Rachel has bought a shed-load of age-appropriate workbooks and learning materials which, alongside the kids bedroom-libraries and the internet will hopefully be enough to keep them on track. My job is to help them out with anything they don't understand and keep them to something like a routine.

It probably won't be long until the school starts to dish out their own curriculum so the sooner we can help the kids power through what we have, the better prepared they'll be to get stuck into whatever distance learning lessons they end up with.

Having done a degree through online learning a few years ago, I know first hand this isn't going to be easy for them and not being able to just raise your hand is going to mean they have to find more answers for themselves but given how well they've started, I'm sure they'll be ok.

Whether we'll be any use as teachers is another matter entirely!

Nature calls

Given we're not supposed to be anywhere near anyone and still get plenty of time outdoors, heading up to the hall seems like a fairly good option for us today. We're going to spend the time in the car alone then spend more time in the countryside, most likely alone until I remember Donald has asked if the kids want to feed the lambs on their next visit, so that's where we're off.

Everything is done so far within the government guidelines, we're almost living to our very own, stricter version of lockdown so although the obedient, rule-following side of our natures is satisfied, the kids do manage to get up close to some gorgeous new born lambs which need a little bit of a feed. It's the sort of thing they'd never get the chance to do at home and being able to do it safely, out in the countryside is just a bonus.

Lockdown hairdressing

Everyone has had to adapt to the new restrictions and few know the hardship experienced more than me and Adam, who now attend the Salon-Du-Rachel a few times a month to get our ears lowered. Now, when we first went into Lockdown I think Rachel was actually quite excited about having a go at hairdressing and might even have been looking forward to it. The idea that she's get our barnetts just as she'd like when was quite appealing (what we might want was secondary to this!). However, as time has gone on, she seems to have lost that early enthusiasm to the point it now feels a little bit like being sheared!

We don't have a proper setup and we seem to have gone from sitting, to kneeling positions so she gets the best light but we often have to go back to the salon the day after when she spots a bit she's missed.

We're not quite at the fully-shaved-head option yet, but I fear we might be heading that way!

Livin La Vida Lockdown

Well, I think it's fair to say as a nation we would be stuffed without our NHS staff, utilities workers and teachers. If lockdown has taught us anything it is that setting a challenging and inspiring curriculum for kids aged 9 and 7 is (eventually) fairly straightforward however, actually following it through whilst holding down jobs is another altogether.

Fortunately, the weather is helping and once our kids have done their 4 hours of home-schooling and had their work checked then they are free to play in the garden. The sun has been out most days and we seem to have invested in just the right number of water balloons to help the kids to make the most of it.

Our kids Adam and Emily are adjusting to being locked into the house all day really well, with only the occasional squabble. We have three birthdays in April (Emily, Me then Adam) over 5 days and need to figure out how to celebrate without bringing in a cast of thousands.

How do you get those last minute party things when you can't just pop to the shops without a full-on hazmat suit on, or see family who are currently shielding.

More on that soon once we (..or more likely Rachel) has figured something out!

Emily's Bounce-a-thon

With great boredom comes great opportunity and Rachel has given Emily a challenge.

She spends a lot of time of the trampoline but never a full hour and so, her challenge, should she choose to accept it, is to bounce for a full hour and if she thinks she can do it, Rachel will ask her friends to sponsor her.

Rachel has been doing a lot of promoting and fundraising for the Wigan & Leigh Hospice since her dad Gary passed away last year so Emily agrees anything she can raise should go there. Given how well they looked after her Grandad and the support they still give to Rachel and her mum Margaret, it seems like the right choice.

So, with my phone acting as the stopwatch and Rachel's in Video-mode, Emily gives us a quick intro and gets stuck in. It doesn't take Rachel long to get the word out and after a few encouraging messages, she's set up a Just Giving page for Emily's challenge which is where it gets very interesting. Emily's initial target of £50 is soon reached as Rachel posts another video of her progress after 30 minutes and it isn't long before donations and messages of encouragement are pouring in from friends and family.

It shows something of the spirit of the people in our community that, even in the current circumstances they can still get really behind a good deed and help to promote an act of kindness like this.

As Emily smashes through 40 minutes the audience gets an update, then another at 50, we countdown the last few minutes and Emily's total is standing at over a hundred pounds!

As the day goes on and more people hear about Emily's challenge, more donations arrive and after smashing her £50 target by 409%, Emily's efforts have raised £209 for the Wigan & Leigh Hospice.

We're really grateful to be surrounded by such generous poeple and I'm sure her Grandad Gary would be as proud of Emily's achievement as we are.

Working from home (..and garden)

Of the privations being asked of the nation during Lockdown, I have to say I really like the working-from-home one. I'm that little bit more productive, am far more relaxed and possibly more organised than I would be at the office. I'm lucky that I have the sort of job which can be done from the moon (given decent wifi) but without our posture-correcting chairs and resident DSE assessor, I've found my posture has suffered. So, given I'm not about to spend hundreds of pounds on an desk which raises and lowers, I'm improvising.

The weather is nice enough at the moment to work from in the seating area we built out of the garage the other year but the garden furniture isn't comfortable to sit in for a full day, so I've built a little wooden stand for my works laptop. The wires reach, I can get a decent wifi signal and my back starts to thank me almost immedidately. Keeping paperwork from flying off is a little more challenging and having only one screen isn't ideal but for now, it'll do for me. If this becomes a long term thing, I'm sure I'll think of something better.

Home-Schooling for Dogs

We've not had a lot of success training Ember, our Cockerpoo and given none of us can leave the house at the moment, it seems like a decent time to do some much-needed and long-overdue puppy-training.

Aside from getting her to walk nicely bedside me during her initial training last year, I haven't really tried anything at all but Emily now has Ember sitting, shaking a paw and turning in a circle before she gets the obligatory biscuity treat. I don't seem to have the knack and although she'll sit, there are no acrobatics when I try it and it looks like there's a power-dynamic between Emily and Ember which I just don't have. Maybe it's more of a respect thing than a power thing but whatever it is, I think I'll leave Emily to get her ready for Crufts!

Emz Fest

So, you've got style. You've got rhythm. You've got attitude. Just what do you get for the little girl who has all of that going on already, for her Birthday during a global Lockdown? Well, you get her, her very own festival that's what!

Rachel, has been working hard behind the scenes to get accessories together, music and presents fit for such a special girl. In the dead of night, we've set up the Gazebo, fit party lighting, blown up the inflatable hi-fi stereo and dug out anything which sparkles to help set the scene.

She was completely oblivious to it so when we head out she's excited to get the music on and get into the swing of it.

It's probably not the way most kids would want to spend their 8th birthday but she's happy, we're happy and with a late-bedtime-birthday rule in place, she can happily dance her way into the night.

Daddys Day

42!

It doesn't look like a very high number when you write it down but that's the number of years I've been on this planet. 15,330 days! Now that looks like quite a high number doesn't it. Its only when you see it as 367,920 hours on planet Earth that you start to wonder what you've done with all of that time!? Sleep and studying probably only covers about half, working possibly another quater but that leave nearly a quater of my life where I was doing what exactly? Building character? Growing as a person? Reading Facebook post on the toilet? It's hard to know if I've made the best use of my time really but as I open my 42nd set of Birthday cards, it's a real treat to see how many people thought enough about me to put pen to paper.

What's more is when I head outside, the number who have got their crayons out too! Rachel has put the feelers out and a few friends have gone all art-attack-y and made pictures for me! They're all totally different and creative and it strikes me that, that chunk of time might not have been entirely mis-spent if I've managed to get people around me, who would do this for me!

Whats the inflatable pizza for?

It's with good reason that Adam is stood looking at a giant inflatable pizza slice, with a puzzled look on his face. It's his 10th birthday afterall and although he did say he'd prefer surprises, I'm not sure his thinking was quite so abstract. There is method behind our madness though, you see he was supposed to be opening this gift in Lanzarote! However, like most families with an overseas trip booked, we're currently at home hurriedly improvising an alternative birthday.

Being possibly the best person you could meet at spontaneous party-planning, Rachel has pre-empted the potential disappointment and instead of a dry cake and sullen looks, Adam has a lot of random presents and a Movie-Themed lockdown-birthday-party.

She's sourced cinema treats and proper popcorn holders and we've laid out the sheltered, theatre-style seating. We've even got a small projector set up ready to watch the new Sonic the Hedgehog movie in the back garden. When it's time for the intermission, she's even got ice-cream! What a woman!

We didn't quite get time to decide on a projector screen, so an old curtain with a black-out material lining is hooked onto the wall, but it works a treat and the lads happy, which considering how this year has gone so far, is no mean feat!

Lego Champion!

I can get a bit competitive at times and for some reason, Rachel has had the affrontery, the temerity indeed to imply I might lose a Lego Challenge against the kids!

Gauntlet duly picked up, we all set off making a sci-fi cloning station and the best design will be chosen anonymously via a Facebook poll. Now, some people might be intimidated by that but for me, that means it's on! Yes, they're my children and Yes, I love them and want them to do well in life but this isn't about them, it's about me! Me, Me, Me!

It isn't long before we're all told to stop, photos are taken and the results are in and so, with all of that build-up, I think it's only fair I share the results. In third place, Emily with her 2D cloning plate. In second place with his 3D single-person cloning unit is Adam but in 1st place (..with a design so good I can't quite believe it doesn't actually work for real), and taking the invisible trophy and bragging rights is me.

As you can see from the photograph, I took this with all of the dignity and maturity you might expect of a 42yr old father of two!

I still won though!

Woodland Skills

Heading out of the house for an hour at a time doesn't really lend itself to rambling. We're quite lucky in having a bit of wildlife on our doorstep with the fields and woodlands which lie between our home and the M6 but even that isn't entirely wild. There are a few reminders of it's past dotted around such as concrete drainage channels, steel posts which at some point would have probably held sturdy pit gates as the whole area would have been unrecognisable 100 years ago. Wigan was extensively mined in the early 19th century and you can still see lines of troughs where mine shafts have been deliberately collapsed, dotted around the area. It's all a lot greener now and nature is doing it's thing, but the scars are still there if you look hard enough.

So with Lockdown preventing any proper exploring, we're resorting to getting the kids outdoors in the back garden. Rachel has made a little rocket-stove for them out of an old stainless steel kitchen utensil holder and has bulk-bought the chocolate biscuits and marshmallows.

Just because you can't sit beside a real campfire, doesn't mean you can't enjoy the best bits!

Woodland Walks

We've decided to venture a little further affield today. Our hours exercise tends to lend itself to a half-hour each-way round trip through the housing estate and woods which back onto it, but today we're going in a straight line. There is a farm up the road from us in Billinge which often puts out a number of painted hay bails when the weather improves and I think last year hosted a fun run.

This year, they've made a series of scarecrows to highlight the work of Key Workers during the pandemic such as nurses, police, drivers and the like. It's a really colourful display and they've included a JustGiving page link so whoever passes can donate.

We don't pass a soul on our way there or back and we're back home in just over an hour, with our instinctive rules-following spider-senses tingling all of the way! Sometimes I think we can take rules a little too literally, there isn't a queue of people waiting to be tagged out of their home when we pass, tutting and pointing at their watches but I suppose that's a part of who we are as people. Hopefully, if we can all try to follow the guidance as best we can and give eachother a wide berth for a bit longer, we can get this mess under control.

V.E. Day

I'm a bit of a history fan so just as I'm finishing up my Max Hastings book on the war in Japan, the whole country is entering into Victory in Europe (V.E.) Day celebrations.

Pre-Lockdown, the kids have been doing some work on the second world war but I'm keen to impress on them that that wasn't the proper end of the second world war, just the bit closest to home. Many allied soldiers and civilians across the world continued to suffer and die, under either the barbarism of the retreating or intransigent Japanese or the less-than-accurate bombing of the allies.

I find it really surprising how few people know the fighting went on until August 1945 against Japan. After the atomic bombs hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it still took a week before the reality of their situation sunk in. Few know about the submarine blockade, the wholesale fire-bombing of Japan, the recapture of island after island at massive cost to human life or of the attrocities committed on both sides.

If you feel like you've only ever heard half of the story, I'd really recommend his books but for some passages, you might want to eat a hearty meal first. Anyway, sorry about that, back to the celebrations!

Given everyone is keeping at least 2m apart, kids aren't allowed to mix and street-parties are going to be a lot less sociable than we're used to, we have moved our cars to the end of the road and pitched up camp on the driveway. Our neighbours to one side and opposite have done the same and we've all got the bunting up, scones and cream teas are out, plus a few cold drinks to boot.

I wasn't aware we had been craving something resembling a night out so much, but it's gone 11pm before we finally round up the kids and tuck them into bed! That said, we've had a good catch up with our neighbours, enjoyed some fresh air and sunshine and anyone who'd listen got a bit of a history lesson, whether they wanted one or not!

Lockdown Learning

Well this Lockdown is moving into it's 2nd full month and to be honest, I'm quite enjoying it! We've established a few boundaries with the kids each day and they know once they've finished their to-do list, the rest of the day is for free-play. As it stands, they're probably doing a lot more at home than they would at school at the moment and we're rattling through the maths workbooks Rachel bought and we've included the whole family in proceedings. My mum has taken on the role of English teacher with Emily using my phone to WhatsApp her, read a story and work through the questions while me and Rachel are working. The kids school has started to send work home too so we can ease off on the volume of stuff we give them a little now. Adam is powering through his work so he can get back to his games console, football or the trampoline and it's working quite well so far.

I've had to back off from 1-2-1 teaching as I have too much to do for work, but I'm still available should they get stuck on something. To be honest, it's proving to be a nice distraction and I'm treating the 5 minutes that they might need me like a smoking break (although I don't smoke!), albeit a more productive version.

Something we haven't done very well at maintaining though are the P.E. lessons! When lockdown started, we were all there in front of the big telly with Joe Wicks, trying to keep up with the star jumps and planks but after a few weeks (..OK, days!) we'd had enough and decided to leave the kids to get active however they felt appropriate. We're making sure we make use of our hours exercise and have been going for long walks in the woodlands near us with the dog. We've also walked a 10' trampoline all across the estate we live on from a friends house, who are revamping their garden and no longer have space for it. So, we now have two and the kids are bouncing from one to the other trying not to collide in mid-air. I can already see the grass beneath getting thin and pale, so we'll have to see how long they both stay!

Zooming With Friends

We haven't entirely embraced this whole online quiz culture which has overtaken the country since the Covid-19 Lockdown restrictions came into force. If anything, we've been more concerned with making sure the kids had a way to keep in touch with their friends, sort of neglecting our own in the process but we've finally organised something.

It seems to be taking forever to get everyone onto Teams but after about twenty minutes of farting about, we're all online with Dave, Ange, Gaz, Kerry and once they get the link working Paul and Belinda. Gary is the quizmaster for this one and he's recycling one they put together for their family a few night's ago, and it's a cracker. As we agree who's hosting the next one, you can feel the pressure fill the screen until Paul agrees to put one together for next week.

It's not the same, the conversation doesn't flow quite as naturally as meeting in person with the 'pardons' and glitching but it's really nice to see them. We really need to sort out our internet connection though as we look like we're beaming through on an 80's satellite connection while everyone else is in 4K and lip-synced perfectly.

That's one more thing for the list though!

Gary's Memory Bench

I think it's fair to say this first year without Gary has been rough on everyone. For the first few months after Gary passed away Rachel seemed to be carrying on with a level of energy I'd not seen in her for a while and with a bit of support, she's starting to come to terms with it and has been expressing herself a little more, with happier memories becoming more prominent than those from when he was ill.

On our latest visit to the hall, she's got a project in mind and wants a bit of help to make it happen. We're going to build a small seat at the front, which is usually a bit of a sun-trap, to sit and just remember.

It took a few attempts but while the kids are busy making rock sculptures in the stream, we eventually managed to build something sturdy from one of the old roof slates and some stone from the rear wall. Rachel is happy, the seat looks really nice against the restored stone wall and we even have enough stone left over to make a little rockery to plant behind.

Gary was a keen walker and cyclist, so hopefully it will give anyone passing, somewhere to just have a minute and take in the view.

It's going to carry on being wierd for some time but at least now, Rachel has somewhere she can go to just remember happier times.

Big Lad

We recently had a few photos popping up in our Facebook timelines showing the kids outside of the hall and these two of Adam, one, just as we got the keys, compared to today, where he's helping me out with some minor joinery, stuck out like a sore thumb. It's hard to believe the lad in these two photos is the same person as building work like this usually has a start and end date a lot closer together!

Seeing him learning skills 'on the job', getting stuck into helping me with the heavy lifting and even taking a power-drill and mallet to a failed attempt at window-making shows just how far he's come on. Right now, he's built like a whippet but you can already see he's filling out and is probably going to be way taller than me in no time, all the more reason to get the place finished before we have to adjust the door heights!

We've not had a lot of time to do stuff like this lately and getting both of the kids away from technology (although it's been vital to keeping their spirits up during lockdown) is great. I think it'll probably be a few more years before he's towering over his old dad but it's a lovely excuse to spend some time together.

Upcycling

We've had the old table and chairs around the back of the hall for a while now and it's worked quite well but it hasn't really looked the part. Rachel wants a nice chunky bench which could accomodate us all without taking over the space, which is why, on a sunny June Sunday morning I find myself driving to Crewe.

The couple we're buying this rustic looking bench from are lovely and when I explain the project we've got on they are really happy it's going to get a new life somewhere in the countryside. It needs a bit of tlc but that's reflected in the price and seeing as it just fits into the car, I should be able to get this cleaned up and up to the hall in no time.

Palk Inspection

Gary's memory bench which Rachel built last month has had a little time to set and it's time for Margaret, Rachel's mum to test it out and (hopefully) give it her seal of approval!

Taking a moment in the sunshine on Gary's bench, Margaret is in charge of the dog and listening to the kids on their walkie-talkies whilst they play in the stream.

Inside, me and Rachel confirm a few measurements and hold up colour samples before I start to paint the options onto the old windows to get a better feel for them.

It's a bit of a wierdly emotional day but topping it off with a nice walk in the countryside, along the tracks which loop back to the barn, is a nice way to finish up.

Gary's memory bench gets Margarets seal of approval and the walkers and cyclists who pass by, get somewhere to rest their weary legs.

Mezzanine Bargains

The girl has done it again. We need something to help store the chunky blankets and bed sheets when we start using this place properly, and Rachel has put out the feelers and found this lovely piece of furniture which a family friend is getting rid of. Once up at the hall, it seems to fit nicely in the space.

It's another example of Rachel's ability to spot the potential in pre-loved furniture which I think she should probably turn into a career at this point. I'm sure once it's been given a lick of paint and possibly some feet, it'll look the part.

Droning On..

The first time my sister Steph and her husband Jason saw the barn, it was a drive-by shortly after we'd had our offer accepted. We weren't around on the day but they've driven past once or twice on their caravan trips to Riverside just down the road so they had a rough idea of how things were going.

Today, we were going to be able to show them around properly though and to top it off, Jason has brought his new drone to capture some aerial shots for us. He's still figuring it out but he's plotted a route and got us a lot of high-level shots, a circuit and some close-ups of the roof detail which most people will never see.

Best of all though, they seem to be really impressed with how things are going and can see the appeal now properly. Like us, they think it's a shame we haven't been able to progress things like we planned but given everyone is in the same boat they understand our disappointment. It's lovely to see them though and really nice to have someone else's ideas pinging around as having recently completed a camper-van conversion, they have first hand knowledge of the off-grid-types of kit we're probably going to be investing in soon.

Birthday Girl

Sometimes I think this Covid-19 mallarkey is doubly cruel to those in that older age bracket. Not only are they more susceptible to the disease and are hit harder but their whole way of life, especially when they happen to be retired is utterly wiped away.

My mum is a pretty good example of this for two reasons. One, although she doesn't get about all that well at the moment, she has always liked getting in the car to go and see people which at present, as she's sheilding, just isn't possible. Two, and probably more importantly, she's a hugger! And I mean a proper clamped-on cuddler! When the kids were tiny she'd always keep hold of them that little bit longer, almost in an attempt to stop them growing up and although we're not big kissers in our family, we've always been good cuddlers and we probably get that from my mum.

Anyway, it's her birthday and we're currently allowed to mix outdoors, so we've popped around to hers with a card and cake the kids have made. This is a definite improvement on the drive-by visit we made a few weeks ago which, although technically within the rules as we were getting some shopping on the way, we were still concerned about being pulled over for! So, anyway back to the cake. One person is doused with anti-bac gel to cut it, plates are anti-bac wiped and although the cake is delicious with only the slightest hint of alcohol gel, I'm looking forward to the day when we can just pop around for a natter and part ways with a cuddle again.

Storage

A few months ago Rachel spotted a standalone kitchen unit with a Belfast sink and rustic cupboard doors on Facebook and made a cheeky offer which was politely refused but a week or so later, having had a sale fall through, Rach spotted it again and made a slightly less cheeky offer which was accepted.

I'd measured the back of the car to make sure it would go in and luckily, it would just scrape in so I went to go and collect it. It's a solid bit of kit so fortunately there were two big blokes ready to help me lift it in. Unfortuntely, they weren't planning to follow me back to lift it out at the other end, so as I headed back to the hall Rachel was on her way to meet me there to lift it back out again.

After a bit of plumbing jiggery-pokery, we got it installed and now had a cold tap available. The cellar access to the right and the gap to the left still needs a bit of thought, as we'd hoped to install some simple storage similar to that we'd seen at Dacres Farm on our last visit. With some leftover 3x2 I've knocked up a bit of a unit. We've only got the old laminate worktop at the moment but we'll hopefully get this replaced with something a bit more attractive soon.

Maghull Anniversary

So, this feels a little surreal but it's been a full year since Gary passed away and we had the grandkids balloon release at Maghull football club. We've come back just to give the kids a chance for a little kickabout on the field and have a bit of a walk.

Rachel has been a little up and down lately so spending today at home was never really an option, regardless of the restrictions. Whether we took a long walk or got in the car, the last thing Gary would have wanted, or Rachel needed, was to be sat at home.

She managed to spend a lot of time with Gary in his last year and if nothing else, has the peace of mind in knowing she did everything she could but that doesn't mean she doesn't miss him every day. It gets us thinking if he'd fallen ill this year when everyone is being bubbled and hospitals and services are being mothballed how much harder it would have been and our hearts go out to everyone struggling with getting access to treatment, bad news they have to process alone or the feeling of helplessness which comes with a diagnosis like Gary's. We're going to make today a good day though and as luck would have it, the suns come out too.

Ainsdale

Following our trip to Maghull and knowing we can travel a little further afield we're 'distancing in the dunes' at Ainsdale Beach. The tide feels like a mile away so the kids get the first opportunity in a while to really stretch their legs, paddle in the sea and have some fun in the sand. It feels like we've all been craving this to be honest and Rachel and I try to absorb some sun, despite the cool breeze which is whipping up little eddy's in the dry sandy dunes. We're not in any rush to get home and have plenty of food to keep us going for a while yet but given all of the anxiety we've been feeling about people lately, the best bit, is we haven't come within 30m of anyone the whole time we've been here. Seeing that written down though, it feels like quite a sad achievement really so hopefully things will start to look up soon.

Bailey Visit

We haven't had my mum and James up to the hall in a long time and now we're all starting to feel the effects of the recent lockdown, we're all a craving a bit of country air! So, we've organised a visit, Rachel has sourced a bit of food and some disposable BBQs ready to head up to the hall for a family day.

The kids are in charge of the tour and, as my mum is struggling to get around at the moment, we're keen to make sure they don't feel rushed to see everything all at once. Considering it was a shell the last time they came up, it's nice to hear the ooh's and aah's as they make their way around the building.

One thing is clear though, we're going to need a better cooking option going forward as the BBQ's either cremate or undercook pretty much everything we've brought with us. Fortunately they weren't coming for the food! It looks like what we're doing meets with approval though and they're excited to come back up soon assuming nothing else changes with the regional lockdowns. Fingers crossed.

Solar Cock-Up

After a LOT of googling I've finally made a decision and opted to get 6x Black-Framed, 310w Mono-Crystalline panels and a 3kw solar charge controller cabinet from Voltacon Solar. Unfortunately although the control cabinet looks right, the panels aren't the ones I ordered and need to be returned which, although it sounds like a good old-fashioned cock-up, this is taking some time to resolve. Having to wrap up the panels in the same way they arrived is using up all of my luggage straps and pretty much all of the cling-film in the house as I couldn't leave them on the driveway until the company were free to collect them again.

The replacements arrive around two weeks later and fortunately these look the part. The building is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty so we've tried what we can to make sure the building blends in with its surroundings, from conservation-style bars on the skylights to choosing colours which are in keeping with the area so although they're clearly not an original feature, the black frames really help the panels blend in.

Once the horizontal mounting rails are installed, it's just a case of waiting for a wind-free day to fit them however, one of those doesn't look like it's coming any time soon so I've found myself fitting them in a bit of a gale. Every time I move a panel around the wind catches it and makes moving it around a little bit more difficult but eventually, all 6 are mounted and connected together in a daisy-chain ready to be connected to the control cabinet.

Windows Day

This has felt like it's been a long time coming but after a bit of rescheduling, four of our new timber sash windows and our rear patio doors are ready to be installed.

Another contact of Donald's, Richard Hayhornthwaite has been making our timber sashes and patio doors in his workshop for the last few weeks with a view to getting them in before the weather turns nasty.

We've spent a long time choosing the finished colour, trying to make sure they're in keeping with not only the local area but aren't a million miles from the original too and as they are unloaded from the van, they really look the part. I've got the day off to help out, or more likely, make as many cups of tea as necessary to get the job done but as the first old window is carefully removed and placed to one side my excitement starts to build.

As loathed as I am to admit it, the quality of the windows and door are in a different league to the ones I knocked up some months ago now and it takes two people just to lift each one into position. The chunky frames feel really good and I'm already excited to get on the phone to Rachel with an update and a few photos.

Richard and his lads are all working really well together. They just get stuck in and it's clear they take a lot of pride in their work. The catches to the sashes need to be swapped out as the supplier has sent a dodgy batch but he's going to bring them once the front door and small rear window are ready so it's not a problem.

With the first one down, they have a bit of a system going where one removes and cleans ready for the installation, another installs and levels then foam-fills. There are a few areas where the uneven stone needs more filler than others but overall they're a really snug fit and, once pointed up, will really look the part. With the windows in, they turn their attention to the patio doors and have them in, square and level fairly soon. Then it's all about the cleanup as they go over everything and give them a good clean.

We've just got the small rear window and the front door to be built now, so once they're installed, we're secure and watertight. They have done a great job so far so I'm really looking forward to the next bits arriving.

Totally Floored!

After we'd had some time to mull it over, we've finally choosen the flooring we want for the hall. We covered up the old floorboards with a layer of insulation and 18mm T&G boarding so we opted for a QuickStep option from Andrew Mounsey Flooring in Settle. It seems a bit wierd covering up a floor only to go to great lengths to replicate it with new flooring, but that's exactly what we were hoping to do!

Anyway, the day came to get the flooring down and we'd moved pretty much anything we could out of the building, cleaned off any fallen plaster, cut off any hardened glue residue, mopped and swept the floor so we we're all set.

The lads arrived and gave the place a once over, decided where to start and got stuck in. The QuickStep option looks pretty easy to work with but our main concern in finding a floor, was it had to be easy to maintain. There might be long periods of time where there was little or no heating on, it could have muddy boots left on it for extended periods of time and speaking to a few other flooring suppliers, natural oak flooring was great in homes, but for a building like ours, it would be likely to need a lot more maintenance than we were hoping for. The QuickStep options come in a variety of styles and colours and as either standard laminate board or flexible panels which can even be used in wetrooms so we opted for that one.

It's a bit of a nerve wracking decision using such a modern material in such an old building but as it starts to go down, I'm happy we've made the right choice. Being easier to cut than oak or laminate boards, they are able to cut the panels to match the uneven stone walls really closely with only the minimum expansion gap left and no need to backfill or cover it with skirting board, which we didn't really want. They're done the same day too and with everything put back into it's proper place, the whole place starts to look that much closer to being finished. When Rachel comes up to check it out, she agrees it looks like it's always been there and is a really good match for the building.

We quickly run through our snag list as there is a bit near the lounge hearth and one on the mezzanine where a bit of plaster seems to have been missed and can be felt with your bare feet but Andrew agrees to send one of the lads back to sort it, which he does without any fuss.

It's a really nice looking floor now, laid and cut really well and done when they promised it would be. We're really glad we decided to get a local company in to do it too as we'd definitely recommend them.

Upcycling

Never one to throw away something useful, Donald has had a bookcase in his barn for a while now and has asked if we'd like it for the hall. It's a lovely size and would be just perfect for the lounge once we've given it a lick of paint and so, that's Rachel's job for the day.

She's found a local supplier of Frenchic paint in the colour she wants and we've just had a little trip out to purchase it before she can get stuck in.

Once done, it looks really good and sets off the colours in the hall really well.

Traynor's Visit

It's been quite a while since we had the Traynor's come to check out the hall. When they were last up we had a shell, a broken roof and a long list of expensive to-do's but now, with so much changed it's nice to have a chance to show it off.

After the ooh's and aah's, we all get a chance to play in the stream and then take the kids on a big walk down the lane, across the fields and around again in a big loop, meeting the friendliest cows in Yorkshire along the way.

Topping it off with another bit of playtime in the stream.

Trial Run

We know we definitely aren't in the same league as the proper bunk barns in the area yet, especially when it comes to facilities. We've got a portable toilet, a generator keeping the lights going and our heating system is currently comprised of 'putting another layer on' so although the place is looking a lot better, we're still a way off being finished.

That said, I need to be here early for the north-facing gable-end pointing and Rach wants to get involved, so we're taking the opportunity to spend some time up at the hall with the kids before we get stuck in. We're all loaded up ready to 'rough-it' for the night.

The generator has been on pretty much all day while I've been looking at the electrical system and pipework in the cellar but we don't intend to leave it on through the night and I have my doubts that the 15yr old car-battery and 500w invertor will do the job for this stay, so we've stocked up on lanterns and AAA batteries.

For the eagle-eyed amongst you, thinking we've gone mad and spent a fortune on bunk-beds, rest assured this was another freebie, this time courtesy of my mum's recent house move. Rachel sourced a few hospital style mattresses which are much easier to keep clean than fabric ones and Adam has claimed the bottom bunk, so they're all set.

So, how did it go?

We decided to put in a 'no-devices' rule for the kids whenever we come up to the hall and although we initially thought there would be a lot of sulking and grumbling, once the pens, paper and board games are broken out, they aren't mentioned again. My phone provides some music but when it goes off, we don't miss it. The log burner isn't in yet but it's been a fairly warm, if not a dry day so we expected we'd be alright and we were. The building is quiet and cosy and once the generator gets turned off, the lanterns provide more than enough light.

By morning, Rachel and I have slept relatively well but the kids are still fast asleep for another hour even after we've clattered around the place making breakfast and brews so clearly, the bunks are comfortable. There's no great rush for the kids to get started so they're still in their onesie's as Donald arrives to get started on the pointing with me and his lads, but as a first try, we're all really happy with how its gone.

Gable Pointing

Before winter kicks in and we lose another year I've asked Donald if he's available to come and point the rest of the hall. Apparently a bigger job elsewhere has been delayed, something to do with roof trusses not turning up, so he's checked his schedule and the weather and is able to slot us in.

It's a fairly routine process to me now. I've had a fair bit of practice with Donald doing the inside walls with me last year so once the scaffolding is up, we get stuck in and it isn't long before the wall is looking quite nice.

Rach inspects the window reveals to make sure we've got them looking right and once we've brushed it off, Emily is there to put her initials into the mortar and timestamp it. Maybe one day when her grand-kids come to repoint it, she can point out her bit!

More Upcycling!

So, it took a little longer than I had planned to get the bench up to the hall, what with all of the Covid-19 restrictions but eventually, we've managed to it into place and it looks really nice.

Rachel has worked her magic on the the welsh-style dresser which I picked up from somewhere near Liverpool (..I got a bit lost) and with a fresh coat of paint, it looks like new. We have a few other bits of furniture which we need to find but considering how well we've managed to upcycle the things we've been given or bought recently, I'm pretty certain it should come together pretty soon.

Morecombe Trip

Well, considering it's within 40 minutes of our doorstep it seems like a good day to visit Morecombe and get the kids out on their scooters. It's another nice day at the beach and getting the sea-air into the kids lungs is always a good feeling. There's something about being by the sea which makes you feel good and when the suns out, it makes it all that little bit better.

There are loads of play areas all along the promenade so the kids don't really need to ride far before they find something else to do and, even though we're still distancing it looks like a bit of normality is returning to the place. The play areas are a bit busy so we're conscious to make sure the kids are anti-bac'd to within an inch of their lives and are keeping their distance from the other kids and so far, it looks like they've managed it.

Tank Tales

With the waste water tank in place, it's time to start connecting it to the outside world. We need a vent pipe connecting to the 100mm guttering pipe, the water level indicator needs to be set and installed, the macerator tank pipe needs connecting and most importantly, the 100mm pipe which connects the tank to the outside world needs running through the wall and capping off outside.

So, considering we now have an inner skin of breeze-block, a 50mm cavity and around 2 feet of stone wall to get through, I have had to invest in some seriously long SDS drill bits to help me break through.

I was hoping this was going to be a relatively short job but three hours in, I'm still only looking through a 25mm hole to the outside world. It takes a further four hours of drilling, chiselling and hammering before I've broken through and run my 100mm pipe through the wall and it's not until the next visit when I can get my long radius bend connected to the tank and everything walled-up, but it looks like we've managed it. The cap on the outside wall is pretty discreet, the long radius bend should be gentle enough to get a 3" flexible suction hose through and once I've made the macerator pipe a little more robust, we should be pooping-with-confidence!

With a bit of luck, we can retire the porta-loo sooner than I thought!

Even More Upcycling

The kids are starting to enjoy spending time up at the hall again now and our tech-ban seems to be forcing them to get a bit more creative. Adam is flitting between helping me out and getting the binoculars out trying to spot things in the woods to the back.

There are loads of what Rachel thinks are swifts in the area forming small murmerations over the fields. Emily is getting stuck into her very own upcycling project restoring a small stand Donald found at the back of his workshop and has let us have for the princely sum of zero pounds, zero pence.

So yeah, she's quite enjoying herself and it looks like we have a little eco-restorer on our hands!

Getting to the point

We've put off pointing the rest of the hall until we had the windows in and now those have been installed, we can get stuck into picking out the remaining walls and re-pointing. The northern gable-end is done, the east facing wall is done and the south-facing gable chimney has been reinstated and is ready for pointing. So, once the area around the patio doors has been picked out we're ready to make a start.

Donald arrives the day before to get the scaffolding up as mine just isn't stable enough to support us all in one go but it goes together really quickly and within minutes we're ready to get stuck in. The wall is watered, the mix is being fed to everyone on the wall almost constantly and with five men on the job it doesn't take long to get the mortar on.

There is a specific ratio of cement/sand/gravel which Donald uses (I'll never tell!) to make the mortar look the same all of the way around and shows up the small flecks of stone so it should look really nice.

Brushing off is left to me and 'the other Tom', one of the lads Donald has with him who (although I hadn't realised) has done some of the internal plastering and he seems quite pleased with what we're doing with the place. He's an interesting bloke and the time passes quite quickly as we're brushing off with the sun on our backs. He's off onto the roof to finish off the flashing and pointing around the chimney and before long, the scaffolding is down and the gable end gets it's first proper showing. We've recessed the stone which shows the old slopping-out holes to give the wall some interest and even with the new mortar, you can see the original lintel positions. Personally, I think it all adds to the interest of the building and helps retain some of the history. Plus, it looks really good too.

The next weekend, once the rear area is a little clearer Donald is back and we're powering through with (almost) the last of the external pointing around the patio doors and the rear seating area. There is a small area which when I was picking out still had some concrete and old London brick in the wall which needs to be replaced, but we'll sort that out seperately.

It's a bit tricky to do this one because it's too small and uneven to put scaffolding up and a bit awkward for ladders but we get it done.

The last bits to do are around the front and rear windows, so Donald leaves me with more than enough mortar to finish off and that becomes my last job of the day, making sure not to splosh everywhere. We still need to point the other sides of the windows and doors from the inside but I'm quite confident I can get that done without any 'adult' supervision.

Here comes the (winter) sun...sort of

So, over the last few weekends of decent weather, I've managed to get the solar panel rails installed, pointed the chimney and added six 310w mono-crystalline black frame panels from Voltacon Solar onto the rear roof area. The wiring is pretty straightforward but it does mean drilling a big hole in the wall which I wasn't too enthusiastic about. We do need an extractor fan for the bathroom though which was going to be hard to fit, so as usual, Donald provides the answer. The hole for the extractor doesn't really need to be 'in' the bathroom as I can vent it anywhere, so I've repositioned it, run a piece of pipework to protect the solar wiring and run that down the inside wall instead.

I can't seem to get the expected voltage to appear from the solar panels but that's likely because it's gone a bit cloudy and the sun mostly has passed over the building now, but it might need a bit of thinking about when I'm next up, but it's looking good. Once the battery bank is installed, fingers-crossed, we should be able to retire the generator for a while. That's one for another day though.

New Door Day

This is exciting! Richard Hayhornthwaite who's team built and installed the windows is back with the front door and small bathroom window, plus a few flashing pieces for around the sash windows.

The little window is in, in no time at all and he's brought some extra pieces to nail to the windows to make up the gap between the rough stone and the sash frame, painted in the same colour which look really good.

The door is what I'm quite excited about though. We were originally looking at putting in a barn-door but as we wanted to recess it a little, this just wouldn't have worked really and what arrives is really well made and reassuringly chunky. Again, pre-painted the fitters get it in without much fuss and before long, we've got a finished, sealed and weatherproof building.

I was initially really reluctant to get someone else to build the windows and doors but having tried my best, there was no way I was going to come close to the quality Richard has managed. It all looks really smart, so now it just needs signing off by the client (..Rachel!).

Illuminations

This lockdown mallarkey is starting to get us all down now and although the kids have been fantastic throughout, we need cheering up and Rachel has just the thing. She's found a nut-save chippy not far from Blackpool Prom and as the illuminations have been extended to help bring in some much needed revenue to the area, we get in the car and head out.

The chippy has agreed to making Adam's chips seperately from everything else to ensure they're nut-free and although it takes a bit longer than usual, he's absolutely made-up. We park up on the prom and he's chomping through his food as we watch the sun go down over the Irish Sea, before having a socially distanced walk along the promenade.

The lights these days seem to be a lot more commercial than I remember as a kid and I was hoping to see some of the old characters and less LEDs but the kids love it and once my eyes have adjusted from the bright light, we head home full of smiles and sea-air.

More Upcycling

We said from the start we wanted to re-use and recycle whatever we could from the building and I think we've done everything we can do so far. Even the stone we removed from the rear wall is being bought by a builder Donald knows and being put into another building restoration elsewhere so up to now, our eco-credentials have been looking pretty good. That said, the two tables which were left in the hall when we got the keys haven't survived the process all that well and although they were handy during the rebuilding, they just weren't worth saving in the end. We still needed a nice size dining table though so ever resourceful, Rachel took to the internet with a small budget, to find us something.

Some friends parents have given us their folding dining table as they're moving house but it doesn't seem to fit the space quite right, so we're going to take it apart and reconfigure it into something else, probably a small coffee table as the legs are pretty cool. It doesn't take her long though to find exactly what she's looking for. A lady not far away wants to make some space and has a chunky oak table which is 'free to a good home' but needs to be taken away immediately on a 'whoever gets there first' basis.

Rach really wants it though so I'm off and racing (..metaphorically speaking) and bring it home within 20 minutes to a very happy Rachel.

A couple of weeks later, Rachel and Susanne are up at the hall for two girlie days of upcycling where they revamp it, in a beautiful country-cottage style. All for the price of a pot of paint ..and a few bottles of wine!

Accessories

Well, Rachel has been out bargain hunting again and this time seems to have come up with a nice size chest of drawers. Big, deep, chunky drawers perfect for blankets and things, it just needs a little bit of a spruce up and probably a coat of paint.

I still need to treat or stain the cupboard door frame as it just doesn't look right next to the reclaimed floorboard door, and think of a way to fill in the gap to the right hand side, but that's not a big job.

Alongside that, she's found a nice mirror which should help the bunk room feel feel a little more roomy and help to bounce the light around a little better, so fingers crossed, I can put it up without drilling through something important.

Sticky Doors

Without heating, the barn is getting pretty cold so we're keen to get this log burner installed. After spending months and months installing seven inches of solid foam insulation and getting the windows in, I was kind of hoping the building would be able to retain the heat but not really having any heat source in the building yet, it seems to be really good at keeping itself cold instead!

Probably as a consequence, the doors seem to be swelling and are getting a little harder to open and close so Rach has found a set of handles to add on. They actually make a nice addition though and with one front and back, we shouldn't have any issues getting in and out while we wait for the log burner to go in.

FEEL THE HEAT!!

After a false-start the previous week (which left me spending a seriously cold evening at the hall) our log burner fitter Graeme from NW Chimneys is back with an alternate flue fitting. Unfortunately, both me and Rachel are working from home still and Wigan has been placed into 'special measures' to help reduce the spread of Covid-19. So, Donald comes once again to the rescue and sends Tom down to let Graeme in and provide assistance if necessary. We need to get a baffle plate ordered as I hadn't noticed that was missing but once that arrives and we have the paperwork signed off, we should be good to go.

All of a sudden, we're all that little bit more excited to stay over now!

How much wood?

Something we've been trying to figure out is how and where we are going to store the fuel for not only the log burner but a solid fuel cooker too. We currently have a gas-fired teppanyaki grill which we've been using as a posh barbeque but it's a bit bulky and I'd rather not house gas bottles in the hall if at all possible. So, at the expense of a few feet of space in the outdoor seating area, I've had a drive up to Ingleton and picked up a few bags of logs to keep at one side. It seems to fit two rows of logs in the recessed outdoor area, which is too low to sit under so I think we've solved one problem here at least.

Solar Woes

So, as you may know by now we are mostly off-grid (no electricity connection, no gas connection, no sewerage connection and only mains water) and have up until this point been reliant upon the generator for powering tools and lighting. With the installation of our solar panels and the battery bank control cabinet, my hope had been to use the occasional appearance of sunshine in Yorkshire to recharge the batteries. Two issues with this are (1) Yorkshire isn't renowned for its sunny climate and (2) the hall roof was pointing in the wrong direction! To make the most of the sunshine, we would need to rotate the whole building 90 degrees which, although possible, is a bit over the top. Alternatively, we could fit panels to the front roof to make use of the stronger afternoon sun, ruining the appearance of the building.

That is, until the whole planet, quite unhelpfully in my view, moves around the sun and the angle of light hitting the panels is reduced even further. I wasn't sure quite how much difference this would make but trying to install and test solar panels in the Yorkshire winter, I'm starting to understand.

Looking at the inputs I'm only getting 5v on the solar panel and nothing once the fuses are installed so it's becoming clear to me that I've either wired something up wrong or this was a massive mistake. I'm bouncing between the former and the latter but you can be sure I'm going to try everything I can before I accept it!

STEM Project

Last Christmas, Adam got a Meccano set which could be built into any number of things and, considering how much time I had spent playing with Meccano growing up I was probably more excited than Adam to put it together! Fast forward 11 months and it was still only half-built with him looking at it on an ad-hoc basis but with the instructions being that little bit too hard to follow.

At this same time, Emily has been craving a bit of attention and so, with Adam not showing any signs of finishing this project, I asked if me and Emily could finish it off for him, to which he agreed.

What I thought might be a nice half-hour with Emily turned into a two hour exercise in decyphering Engineering drawings and when Emily chose to take it into school for show-and-tell, she thoroughly deserved the credit and I finally understood why Adam didn't manage to finish it! Meccano is far harder than I remember and my chunky grow-up fingers just aren't built for it any more!

Happy New Year Everyone

Well, through a mixture of extreme caution, a fair amount of agrophobia and good luck we've made it through the arse end of 2020. Something which looking back, is no mean feat!

Although we all seem to know someone who has been struck down with Covid-19 or suffered as a result of the pressure's it's placed on the NHS, hopefully like me, you enter 2021 feeling that little bit more optimistic. There is the promise of multiple vaccines on the way and although another lockdown is looming, it's almost enough to take your mind off Brexit for a while if nothing else.

Still, maybe this year won't be quite as horrible as the last one ..Fingers Crossed!

Ice Ice.. Maybe

Now we've seen the back of 2020 and we enter into another lockdown the nation is once again holding it's breath (..literally) to see if this time around, it will be enough to bring the infection rates down. The schools are looking to re-open but we've taken the decision to keep our kids off for the first week, regardless of what the guidance is. Personally, we just can't see how the relaxation on mixing households over Christmas could possibly end well and given it can be 10 days before you know if you have Covid-19, we'll wait until that had passed before they go in. We miss our families too but we've been doing whatever we can to keep them safe and making use of technology wherever we can to keep in touch, so a few more days of home schooling isn't going to make much difference in our eyes. Anyway, what it does mean is we won't be getting much done on the hall at the moment.

We're all itching to get up there but opt for a bit of greenery and fresh air to tide us over, this time just a short way up the road to Orrell Water Park. It's a nice spot to just have a socially distanced bit of exercise and seeing as the ponds have frozen over, it gives Adam and Emily all the excuse they might need to look for big sticks to hit it with.

On our walk around the park, we bump into friends Gary, Kerry and their kids Max and Olivia who have had the same idea. Not that you can really 'bump' into someone when they're over 2m away but it's a really nice surprise. It's been that long since we've seen them in person, we half-expect them to start buffering when they speak! Hopefully we'll be able to see them again in real-life once the latest restrictions are lifted.

Time to scoot

It's finally stopped raining for an hour so we've packed the kids into the car with their scooters for a quick trip to Mesnes Park. There are plenty of flat bits for them to scoot around on and as we arrive it looks fairly quiet. We've been trying to decide where to get some exercise today as we need a change of scene and as we walk around, two lads with guitars are being photographed in front of the duck pond and have to dive for cover as a flock of birds suddenly gets spooked and heads right for them.

This is already more excitement than we've had in weeks!

As we round the park and head towards the Cafe and Pavillion it looks like things have been closed off for a while and even the complimentary dog-water bowls are nowhere to be seen. We get a pic of the kids in front of the Boer War memorial and I make a mental note to look into that one, as I don't really know anything about that period of history. Like a lot of people my age, we got very little information about Britain's age of Empire and I suspect this one might be another example of our less-than-spotless attempts at promoting our interests abroad. Whatever it turns out to be, it's made it onto the reading list.

The first thing I read about it when I get home is the use of a scorched earth policy and an early interpretation of the concentration camp, so I have a feeling I'll be reading a bit more about this over the next few months.

I recently read the late Cecil Blanche Woodham-Smith's (what a name!) account of the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 which was an eye opener (1200 horses and many of the sickly lower ranks were left behind to starve to death before they even sailed to Balaclava!) so it'll be interesting to read if we actually learned anything in the following 50 years.

The Boer War was just before the first World War though, so something tells me not to get my hopes up!

Upcycling - Lockdown Style

Sitting in the house all day, staring at the same four walls, having the same conversations about how little we have in the calendar has taken its toll on us all. We have so little going on we've started to get excited about the Asda delivery, which gives you some idea of just how bored we all are! Getting an email, letting you know that 'Shaun is on his way' and shouting the news throughout the house just isn't normal but that's where we are right now!

So, not being able to stay out of the house for any length of time and with the weather making venturing out less and less tempting by the day, Rachel has a project in mind. She's got hold of a very solid, quite big-ish oak cabinet which she's going to refurbish. Her paints are out, the dining room table has been pushed aside and when I wander in for a brew, she's on the floor with a paint brush in hand, having already sanded and cleaned it up a bit.

Once it's had a few coats, I'm drafted in to move furniture around in the lounge where it's going to live and it fits the space really nicely to be fair. I wasn't convinced at first but she's done a great job and even a minor change to our surroundings is very welcome.

Some new handles are on their way from Amazon too, so that's another delivery van we can all look forward to! We're living the dream!

Mud, Mud and more Mud

We're off into the woods again to get some fresh air and despite all being wrapped up with our walking boots on, it isn't long before we realise this probably wasn't the best choice of route. Once the mud gets into the grooves of our boots, it decides to stay there and it feels like we're all skating along past exposed roots and sludge.

Emily manages to get her welly stuck in the mud and Adam comes to the rescue to help her out but it isn't long before I'm on my back, having tried to make my way down a raised bank with the dog still pulling me as I land with a thump. The kids come to pull me up but as you might imagine, Rachel is far too busy trying to find the camera app on her phone to help and so, more than a little embarassed and soaked through, we made our way home. As we get to the door, everyone leaves their boots and socks outside as one by one, we file in for showers.

Adam is upstairs with me trying to bath a very reluctant dog, who is constantly trying to make a break for it but we eventually get it done and we're the only one's left who need hosing down. The rest of the day is all about chilling and after an adventure like that, I think we've all had enough fresh air for one day.

Emily's Charity Book Sale

Each night, we try to encourage the kids to read something for at least 10 minutes before they go to sleep. Adam is a proper bookwork and routinely runs out of books which, pre-covid we would have donated and replaced at the local Book Cycle. Not being able to do that at the moment, we've been trying to keep the Kindle which he inherited from Gary topped up with age-appropriate titles from Amazon. However, considering he can get through an adult-size book in just a few days, it's getting a bit expensive but if it means he's happy reading, I'm happy buying.

Emily on the other hand tends to take her time, making sure she gets the expression and nuance of the story rather than just getting the words right. She's not as keen on independent reading as Adam (she usually wants an audience) so we've got a glut of books which she's either chosen herself, been given as gifts or had them re-gifted from Adam once he's read them. They're starting to build up a bit now though and she's after a bedroom clearout.

One quick chat with Rachel later and they're both sat on her bedroom floor sorting books by author and title and once she's decided she's going to sell them and donate anything she makes to the Wigan & Leigh Hospice, Rachel is posting the collections to Facebook.

After a few days, the selling is done and she's raised £45 for the Hospice and we couldn't be prouder.

Salon Apprentice

So, probably somewhat predictably, the kids school hasn't fully re-opened yet and we're still homeschooling while the NHS puts it's mind to a nationwide vaccine programme. I personally don't mind the home-schooling really but it's taken the kids a little longer to settle into a proper routine this time around. They're getting through their work though and taking some time to get some exercise too, so we're really happy with how they're getting on.

Rachel has found a way to push the boundaries of homeschooling though and taken on a slightly too-eager apprentice to her Lockdown-Salon.

Emily has been angling to have a go at the hair clippers and Rachel (possibly looking for some entertainment to break the monotony) has enlisted her help. Emily couldn't be happier and once she's had a dabble, giggling all the way, Rachel takes over to finish off the tricky bits.

The jury is still out on her future with the salon, but if Emily is willing and can find a stool big enough to stand on, she might end up with a job!

Showertime ...sort of!

We don't yet have any hot water in the hall but we have a bit of a plan to fix that soon so we're going to try and finish the bathroom. However, with absolutely no straight edges at the hall since we stripped out the old plasterboard, fitting a shower enclosure was never going to be straightforward. So, after a bit of measuring up, re-measuring and more re-measuring we formulated a bit of a plan on how to put something in, starting with a few straight panels.

We also need somewhere to hide the plumbing which is where the 3x2 comes in. I've put together a few stud walls in my time so this next bit is quite easy really but getting it level on a building like this seems to be taking a lot more time than I had imagined. The floor seems to flow in different directions and after I get one side straight, it seems to throw it out somewhere else. It takes about 5 hours but eventually we seem to have something resembling an enclosure. Once we've got some aquapanel and tiles on, this should start looking like a proper bathroom.

Solar Saviours

Well, it took me a while but eventually after swallowing some pride I finally made the call and got an expert in from ASK Renewables to take a look at the solar power situation and why it wasn't working as expected. It turns out connecting the 6 310w solar panels together in series was where I went wrong and it appears I have inadvertently destroyed the MPPT part of my solar charge controller. The unit should have been connected to two strings of three solar panels, not one string of six, so the MCS approved installers have been back to fit a new 3kw invertor and check everything is as it should be. From what I've read, most modern invertors can handle more than 6 panels, so it's reassuring that it was a fairly easy (..albeit expensive) mistake to have made.

The installers haven't been gone long but I must have spent half of my day popping into the cellar to check what the panels are generating. I'm really happy with how much they're pumping out though, despite it being a pretty overcast day. Anyway, everything seems to work, I've not had to put the generator on and all of a sudden, this place seems that little bit more finished.

Stone Slate Steps

Since we had the new door installed, we've been looking at ways to make the front of the hall look a little more attractive and given we have a few spare slates around the back which were too big and ugly to go back onto the roof, we have the perfect slabs to lay in front.

We still have some cement, gravel and a half-bag of sand at the front which we've been using to finish the pointing so seeing as that's nearly finished, there is plenty of material available to help get the slabs level. Rachel has been levelling the ground and after an hour or so, my back isn't thanking me for moving them around to the front as they're seriously heavy but all of the effort was worth it in the end. They look pretty good and with a little more gravel to even it out coming in the next few days, it's made the front door even more of a feature.

Family Day

With the lockdown restrictions easing up a little and the weather taking a massive turn for the better we've decided to spend the day up at the hall and see how well the electrical system holds up to a full day (and evenings) use. The rules haven't quite gone away so we still can't stay overnight but we're going to stay into the late evening and see how we get on. Adam and Emily have got their explorer kit ready and as soon as we arrive, they get stuck into finding just the right size of trees to set up their hammock and tarpaulin shelter before heading into the stream for some stone-skimming and a 'flamingo-race' (...think rubber-ducks, only pink). There are two which manage to get caught behind some rocks on the opposite bank so after Emily falls in trying to retreive them, I volunteer to have a go, only to follow her into the water!

Once Rachel has stopped laughing, she reminds me I have some wellies in the car so eventually, we manage to get all of our flamingo's back into one flock.

One of my legs is soaked but after wringing out my socks and a short break for a warming brew, Rachel and I are busily cleaning things over. It's been the best part of a year since we've all been up here together and it's weird to hear the kids' surprised voices when they re-discover the place. There are always plenty of things which need some attention but fortunately we have food, snacks, drinks and enthusiasm so we should be ok.

Since the clocks changed, we've got plenty of daylight to work in so it isn't until around 7pm when we start to use the lights and I seem to be obsessing with the Bluetooth app on my phone, checking and re-checking the condition of the battery bank. Throughout the day, the panels have managed to soak in over 1kw of sun and with everything turned on, we're using around 60w so I'm quietly confident we should be ok for power. Heat is the real concern as the sun goes down though so the log burner is fired up and is soon pumping out some heat, drying the socks and providing a relaxing backdrop as we chat and play with the kids.

Teatime comes in the form of soups and hot chocolate but by around 9pm, we're ready to call it a day and start to pack up the car for the journey home. All in all, we all feel like we've been able to get a little bit of respite from the same four walls and we've managed to make a few more decisions on what we want to get done next so it's been a really good day. Hopefully, as restrictions ease further over the coming months, it's the first of many.

Birthday Bash

After the success of last years Emz-Fest lockdown birthday, we were starting to get a bit stuck for ideas for this one. Rachel (..you knew it would be Rachel!) had the idea that whilst we were going to try and spend a few nights at the hall anyway, we should turn it into a bit of a doo and so, plans were hatched for a Barn Bash.

I'm not sure Glastonbury have anything to worry about just yet as there were only four of us but one of her gifts was an LED disco ball which showered the space with coloured light and with the music blarring, we were all up on her feet waving glow sticks around like loons.

From what we've been told, the hall has played host to a lot of local celebrations over the years so this is hopefully the first of many more to come.

Birthday Boyz

Back at home, a few days later and it's time for me to turn into Danny Glover from Lethal Weapon and start talking about how many days away from retirement I am, that I'm too old for this shizzle etc.. The kids have made me a birthday brownie which looks delicious however, given the candles required would have posed too great a fire risk, they decided to cut it up and give me a target of candles to blow out which my ageing lungs can handle!

A few days later and Adam comes home from school to find Rachel has transformed the front room into a Gaming Zone, complete with posters, gaming theme banners, snacks, treats and most importantly a console controller-style birthday cake. He's made up and once the world's least co-ordinated choir churn out "Happy Birthday To You.." he (..ok, we!) makes short work of cutting up and devouring the cake.

Making a big splash

Although I think so far, we've done a really good job of restoring the hall and kept it something-like within budget, I doubt anyone could accuse us of rushing it. Some of my decisions have triggered a lot of 'learning opportunities' but one which seems to surprise most people is how long we've managed without a proper toilet.

Being a camping (or glamping?) barn we were anticipating a few hardships and have up until this point managed quite well with our trusty portaloo but with all of the tank fittings and vents connected, everything sealed to within an inch of it's life and power to the macerator, we now have a functioning toilet.

Before we can declare it ready though, we've managed to source some wall-tiles which compliment the flooring really well and will provide the waterproof backing to the toilet wall, hopefully preventing any further damp which has crept into the building whilst it's been empty over lockdown.

Still more work to do but overall, it's starting to come together and now the small rear window has been repaired (small paint issue) we now have a loo with a view.

Ingleborough Trail (but no cave)

So we have a bit of family time set aside and although the weather forecast hasn't inspired us to break out the shorts and T-shirts just yet, we still want to get some fresh air. So, with that in mind we're taking a short drive down the road to the Clapham Trail, which leads on to the Ingleton Cave and Ingleborough walking trail.

Clapham itself is a lovely little village with a stream running through it called Clapham Beck, with loads of rural England style buildings and features. It's popular with cyclists and walkers and the little village shop run by volunteers and local pubs are on hand for the weary-legged.

At the entrance to the trail is a small kiosk (also run by volunteers) who ask for a small fee towards maintaining the route and with that paid, we're off. As we round the gentle sloping path above the entrance, Clapham Beck opens out on our right hand side with a canopy of trees showing us the route upwards towards Ingleborough Cave. We can't quite believe we've got something so nice on the doorstep but with lockdown in place, we've hardly had much chance to explore really. As we're walking we both make a mental note to start looking up things to do or visit in the local area so as we visit them, I'll try to post them on here.

It doesn't take long before the weather turns nasty though and a heavy shower starts just as we approach Ingleborough Cave, forcing us under the shelter of the small cave-entrance building. Unfortunately, due to Covid-19, the cave is closed to visitors so we'll add that one onto the list for our next visit.

The shower doesn't last long but it doesn't look like the sky full of black clouds it's going to pass any time soon either so we double back towards the entrance. We've had a nice long walk, found a new place to visit and as we get to the bottom, it has dried up enough for us to let the kids have 5 minutes in the play area (also maintained by volunteers ..you might be sensing a community theme here!). Back at the hall, the log burner is fired up as socks and shoes are placed on the hearth to dry out. It's been a nice excuse to find somewhere new to explore and next time around, I'm sure we'll go that little bit more prepared for the Yorkshire spring.

Currie Visit

With the lockdown restrictions easing a little, we have arranged for some friends to come up and spend some time with us at the Temperance Hall.

Avid followers of the blog will have read about the Curries already so it's nice when we can, to repay their hospitality. I think given the amount of times we've spoken about progress (..or lack of it) at the hall over the years, I would forgive anyone for glazing over as I talk through the minutae of restoring a property but once they get a good look at the place, they can start to understand the scale of the job we took on, all those years ago.

It's lovely to finally be able to give them the tour of the building, point out some of the more unique points which make it up, including the beam markings, lintels which seem to have been installed almost at random and help them make sense of them.

Their garden at home is lovely so Rachel is already quizzing Natalie on her recommmendations for sensitive planting at the front of the hall, so hopefully over the next few months, we'll have some local plant varieties to soften the front and help it blend in with it's surroudings even more.

12 Year Anniversary

Having the hall in a near-finished state (to us at least) means we can actually spend some time up here now, without worrying about having to bring everything up and down in the car each time. Being able to leave a bottle of ketchup in a cupboard, should we feel like a bbq is a simple pleasure but being able to spend a night there is something approaching luxury!

Given as it's our twelve year anniversary we've decided to stay the night with the kids and have a long weekend of fresh air and celebrating booked in.

Just being able to get the fire on, break out the board games and chat is something we don't really spend enough time doing at home but here, with little or no technology it feels like we all connect and get along that little bit better.

The morning of our anniversary the kids have got up early and have done us proud, setting up a special breakfast buffet, cards and coffees.

All in all, it's taken us a long time to get to this point but getting such a special weekend like this is the sort of thing which makes it all seem worthwhile.

Crooke O Lune Walk

We've only gone and found another lovely place to visit!

Just a short drive away from us is the little village of Caton and the River Lune which runs alongside it. We have only ever stopped off at the Co-Op until now but having visited the Centre @ Halton again recently on our way home from Morecombe, we spotted the car park which serves the Crook-o-lune walking trail.

Heading down to the waters edge with the dog, Emily tried her hand at magnet fishing with one of the really powerful magnets she got for her birthday however, aside from retreiving the 2p Rachel threw in for her, it was a bit of a dud. Looks like we'll need to find a more heavily trafficked route to really cash in on the lost property and hidden treasure which no doubt makes its way downstream. The weather turned on us just as we were about to sit down for a picnic lunch but as you can see from the photos. It's a lovely spot and we'll definitely be back now we know the extent of the route.

Progress ..sort of

So, after spending hours and hours making up a pair of flat walls for our shower tray and enclosure to sit in, we did a few more measurements and suddenly realised the tray was just too big. Length-wise, we could get away with it but the location of the loo means you'd have banged your head on the shower door every time you stood up so we've gone back to the drawing board and managed to return the original tray to Plumbworld via a courier. It's a bit of a pricey mistake to make but it'll all work out for the best in the end. With no hot water yet, we weren't going to get any use out of a shower any time soon so in the grand scheme of things, there's no harm done.

The doors for the bunk room and bathroom have arrived so we don't waste any time getting those on but we have another week or two to wait for the new tray and enclosure to arrive as there is a supply delay somewhere down the line but we'll get it done eventually. In the meantime, there is still a long list of to-do's to tackle so we'll keep busy.

Flowerpots & Tired Upcyclers

Although we're up at the hall again for a bit of fresh air, we have a list of jobs which need doing, mostly cosmetic but a few important ones too. Before we get too engrossed in hard work though there's time for a trip to Settle and the flowerpot festival. The local shops and some homes have created some really impressive characters with Emily's favourite being the Postman Pat figure standing guard outside of the Post Office.

There are some students wandering around the place with clipboards who look A-Level-Age-ish so we've decided they are either Geography students or Duke of Edinburgh Award participants but none of us can quite figure out what they're looking for. They eventually seem to congregate and head uphill and before long, we spot them at the top of what we quickly learn is Castleberg Rock.

Rachel isn't great with heights and Emily would much rather have a wander with her mum so it's down to me and Adam to explore. Having the younger legs Adam is leading the way but it only takes about 10 minutes before we're looking out over Settle and Giggleswick in the distance, thoroughly pleased with ourselves. If you find yourself in Settle, it's a nice walk and a lovely view (if you get the weather like we did) but if you and the gym have become strangers over lockdown (again, like me) you might want to make sure you've had your weetabix first, as the paths are on a 45 degrees angle all of the way to the top.

Once we're back at the hall and sufficiently refuelled, it's time to get some work done. Rachel has a bathroom unit to beautify and I have some plumbing to get on with in preperation for our new kitchen worktop and shower cubicle going in so even the kids are roped into this one. Once they decide between themselves which parent has the more interesting job, they both choose to help Rachel and leave me to mess about with pipes on my own (albeit surrounded by spiders), in the cellar.

Emily seems to have been hit hardest from todays exertions though as she manages to fall asleep in the car in what is arguably the least comfortable-looking position we've ever seen her in!

She won't thank me for sharing the photo, but only the hill-climbers have earned the heroic-looking profile pics today!

Moorland Picnic

Not far from Temperance Hall is the Keasden Road which leads up to Bowland Knotts, a rocky outcrop which gives you a huge field of view across the Forrest of Bowland on one side and down towards Stocks Reservoir and Gisburn Forrest on the other. The single lane of winding roads make for an interesting drive and the livestock which roam around on the rough grassy areas give it that 'million miles from anywhere' feel.

We've picked a particularly windy day to enjoy a sunset picnic so after a half hour playing on the rocks and generally annoying the sheep, we retreat back to the car to enjoy some food and soak in the views. The car is being battered left and right by the wind so it's an unusual meal, but given it's in such a beautiful location, it's one we'll remember.

Rachels Birthday Break

Without giving away her age, Rachels last significant birthday coincided with losing her dad Gary in 2019 and so, it understandably didn't feel like the time for celebrating.

A year on and with Lockdown Season 1 in effect, her birthday became something we couldn't celebrate and so, with restrictions easing following Lockdown Season 2, Vaccines and PCR tests all-round, Rachel had some making up to do.

Cue the hall coming to the rescue once again to provide the perfect backdrop for an almost-no-frills, chilled out girlie weekend away. Day 1 has Susanne and Rachel doing a big walk and heading into Ingleton Cave followed by some nice nibbles and a celebratory G&T for being so brave.

Day 2 and Lindsey joins them to kick the socially distanced celebrations up a notch with more walking, nice food and a few refreshments to wash it down.

By and large, it's usually said that Rachel is the bad influence whenever they're together but given the remote location, good company and free-flowing drinks, they round off the weekend with nothing broken and lots of smiles when they get home.

The Little Princess Cut

Ever since Emily was a toddler she's always had her own sense of style and after a short stint of princess dresses, she soon wanted to be doing everything her big brother Adam was doing too. Dresses and frills made way for joggers and sportswear so our little princess for quite a few years had enjoyed getting mucky, scraped knees and all, so it should probably have been a surprise that she kept her long blonde hair for as long as she had.

Time for a bit of self-reinvention though so, as another style idea comes around she's opted for a serious haircut and, given there is plenty to be cut, she's donating the lopped locks to the Little Princess Trust, hopefully to be used in wigs for other kids going through cancer treatment.

So, as sad as we might be to see it go, at least it's going to a good cause.

Oh the glamour!

If you've read this far you'll probably have figured out by now that, being largely off-grid might have thrown up its own share if challenges and you'd be right. The main one, which over a million septic tank owners will be familiar with is the periodic pump-out of the settling tank.

Given we aren't connected to the mains sewage system and don't have any land to site a septic tank we had to think slightly further outside the box than most and opted for what I can only describe as a huge elsan system. The toilet flows to a macerator which lifts the waste aroud 1m and into a 2500L holding tank in the cellar. This then needs pumping out through a 3" flexi hose which itself, is fed through a 4" pipe connected to the tank, which comes through the southern gable end wall, to a screw cap. It's a bit more complicated than we would have liked and, after nothing appeared to be getting to the macerator, we had to do a lot of test flushing trying to find the optimal angle for the soil pipe, so we have accidentally filled the tank already. Which is where Shift**IT (yes, that's their actual name!) come in.

We've booked them in for a suction and, a few hundred pounds later, they get the tank empty, I find the optimal angle for the soil pipe and we're finally able to poop with confidence, knowing the macerator will finally be able to do it's thing.

The Big Lads Leavers Celebration

When we first brought Adam home form the hospital, other parents would encourage us to make the most of the time and try to enjoy it, as it goes so fast and we kind of brushed it off, not really taking it all that seriously. Anyway, we seem to have blinked and all of a sudden we have a young lad leaving primary school!

How did that happen?!

Bespoke Builds

With us occupied elsewhere it's down to Mike at Turnerford Oak to build us a bespoke kitchen unit, extra-deep oak worktop and a chunky shelf to compliment the building. The unit has turned out really nicely, so Rachel has left the oak drawer fronts and shelves alone and just painted up the frame and it fits into the room really well, with plenty of space for those kitchen essentials.

Although we reinforced the kitchen floor, we haven't actually sorted out what we're going to do about a cooker yet and have been relying on the camping stove and tapanyaki grill to keep us going during our stays. However, once we've made a decision on the heating system, that will no doubt push us one way or another but it's a decision we'll need to make before the weather turns again. Although the log burner alone is just enough to heat the whole building, the levels mean you have warm and cold air areas until it's been on for hours which isn't ideal. Also, it doesn't solve the lack of hot water, so we need to do some more thinking about that one. The instant hot water heaters all seem to use more energy than our invertor can support, so again, we're back to the drawing board for that one too.

Anyway, the beautiful oak shelf which Mike has made needs a light coat of preservative but once the brackets are up and the tiles start to go on, the kitchen begins to look the one we've imagined for the last six months!

A little trim

Throughout this build, it's been the little things which have made the difference. Whether it's brushing off the pointing to expose just the right amount of stone or choosing the right colour for the windows it seems all of the little choices we've made from the start to (I was going to say finish then but that still seems some way off!) today are what have given the building its special look and feel.

So, clearly thrilled with the way the kitchen is going we decide not to round-off the worktop but to chamfer it instead. It's hard to explain why but it 'feels' like the right choice. Once it's sanded off it feels every bit as safe as a rounded edge but it just suits the building that little bit more for some reason.

The stairs leading to the lounge need finishing off though so we ask Mike from Turnerford Oak to help with the cuts, jointing and fitting the last of our original oak beams, which used to be floor joists. It might not sound like much but knowing we've reused or upcycled almost everything which has come out of the building makes it feel that little bit more complete than it might otherwise have done.

Bathroom (nearly) Installed

It's taken a lot longer than we originally planned but it looks like the bathroom suite we had to re-order is pretty much done. There are some pipes to connect under the floor, the extractor needs to go in and the tiling needs some finishing off but it's starting to look pretty nice.

You can judge for yourself really but given the room is quite bright we think the tiling compliments the flooring really well, without feeling like you're in a beach shack. As a note for the future though, I'll remember never to try and assemble a quadrant shower on my own ever again!

Ingleton Dog Show

Since we brought Ember home around 3 years ago, training has been a somewhat hit and miss affair. If there are plenty of treats in your pocket, you might command her attention for a minute or two but eventually, she'll run out of tricks and we'll just give up trying to get her to lie down, roll over or shake a paw.

So, I think we were all a bit surprised when Rachel enrolled Ember (and Emily) into the Ingleton Dog Show! It was only at the last minute when Emily chose to back out that we realised it was probably never meant to be but after watching from the sidelines, Adam and Emily put Ember through her paces on the obstacle course. It's fair to say although Crufts probably aren't going to be ringing any time soon, Ember and the kids have all had fun, on what might be the last dry day we see for a while.

Yorkshire Sunset

As the days become shorter and the weather forecasts become even less reliable than usual, we start to get the feeling the log burner will really start to earn its place in the Old Temperance Hall.

But before you can snuggle into the comfy leather couches in front of a roaring fire, there are always those small jobs to do including walking Ember down the lane for a stretch, sniff and a little wee. Today though, we're both headed to the top of the hill to take in the view over towards Ingleborough and on the way home, are treated to a warm, dry evening with a dappled sunset playing through the gently rustling autumn leaves.

For tonight at least, it's not that grim up north!

Yep, that's a pipe!

Sometime around spring we had some really heavy showers which turned the road leading to the Old Temperance Hall into a bit of a water-feature. The culvert before the bend had completely collapsed and water which might normally have flowed safely under Reebys Lane into the beck was angrilly chewing away at the soil, stone and tarmac, leaving a messy trail almost to Reebys Bridge.

Cars began passing at a snails pace as the torrent of water crossed their path before running across the road into the stream when it hit a light camber. So, although the water never quite made its way to the Temperance Hall, it was quite a relief when we saw the road closure sign.

It might have taken a few weeks but the difference is pretty much immediate with water flowing freely from the small streams alongside the field straight into Keasden Beck. The road re-opens and people, bikes and cars begin to pass again.

The road might flood again at some point but for now at least, it looks like they're done a good job.

Girlie Decorating Day

An opportunity has arisen for Rachel and Emily to spend some quality time together and they're both up for a project, so it's off to the hall they go. Food, drinks and treats are purchased, paints are collected and clothes are packed up ready for a productive day and a fun night away.

It isn't long before I get word that the projects have taken a back-burner and the girls have gone into Kirby Lonsdale for the afternoon to do some sight seeing and hunt for ice cream.

As the evening draws in, the fire is lit, the treats are unpacked and the ladies settle in for the night. It isn't quite what they had in mind but when they get home, they both have big smiles on their faces, so it was clearly worth every minute.

Big Move

Back in 2014 we couldn't have imagined that renovating a rickety old barn could have taken so much time, energy, blood, sweat and (almost) tears before it was in a usable state but here we are. Six years in and we're still renovating. Obviously, Lockdown hasn't helped matters but when restrictions eased and we were able to get back up to Keasden, the welcome change of scene, the fresh air and the feeling of being at-home-on-holiday was amazing.

So, after a long discussion with the kids, lots of googling on property websites and some back-of-fag-packet maths we've made the decision to move closer to Temperance Hall permanently.

And so, the house-hunt begins.

The UK property market seems to have gone mental recently and properties we might have considered a year ago now seem a long way out of our reach, so we've got our fingers crossed and will have to keep you posted.

Lets get cookin'

When we started looking at heating options for Temperance Hall, we looked at a LOT of options. Number one in our criteria was it needed to either be in keeping with the property or be hidden from view. We also needed something to cook on and the idea of an Aga or Rayburn style cooker kept coming to the top of the list. That said, being off-grid, we knew we couldn't just get something from the showroom and expect it to work from day one. We have solar power but it isn't clear if that will be enough to use a conventional boiler but again, it doesn't solve the problem of where to cook.

Late last year, our builder Donald put us in touch with a local lady who was looking to replace her solid fuel Rayburn with a more user-friendly version and so, we started conversations over pricing and when it might be available. Sadly, due to personal reasons they weren't able to progress the plans at the time but around a month ago, Donald put us back in touch.

Long story short, Donald and Tom were able to remove the cooker and drop it off at the hall and onto the concrete plinth which I had prepared the week before.

Until this point, we've been using a gas-powered tapanyaki grill and a camping stove to cook on, so we're looking forward to getting this installed and firing it up.

Friendly Fire

Since getting the keys to Temperance Hall a few years ago, we've been able to host visits from friends and family, share the vision and more often than not, have a good winge about the challenges we've been faced with along the way. Until now though, we haven't been able to recipricate the numerous invites we've had from the Garbutt's over the years and show them around so, when they get a free weekend to come up and see us, it feels like a bit of a treat.

The weather isn't being overly co-operative but the kids are happy to play together leaving the grown ups to chat, drink brews and make something for dinner. We've explained before about how much darker it seems near the hall than in our home town but it isn't until you see it for yourself that it really sinks in. The stars are out and the kids are around back with the mini rocket stove, loaded up with marshmallows before making their way around the front to make some cool shapes with sparklers.

It's been a really nice day and in a wierd way, hearing other people sound enthusiastic about how the Hall has come along makes planning the next steps that much more appealing.

Stargazing

It's fair to say Rachel is the photographer in the family. Emily is the dancer and Adam is the artist but for tonight at least, we're having a switch around. Up until now, we've never really taken much notice of the settings on our phone cameras but we have a clear, dark sky, warm blankets and time to kill.

Emily has volunteered on this occasion to help out, so once we've figured out it isn't possible to get a starry night photo with a hand held camera, we rummage around and find a piece of timber to act as a mount. With the settings switched from 1/100th of a second to a 30 second exposure, we end up (eventually) with a few great photographs of the night sky to the east of the hall from the rear seating area.

It's only our first attempt but the results really speak for themselves.

Generator Review

So, having pretty much rebuilt the 1700w SGS generator since we bought it, with new plugs, wires, ropes and switches it finally gave up the ghost. Not to be put off though, we have been renting a slightly more capable Honda version from Settle Coal for the last few months.

It seems like a false economy though for something we’re going to need for the foreseeable future though so we’ve opted for an upgrade of sorts in the form of a Parker Brand PPG-2800 model. It arrives looking good and once I’ve topped up the oil and made sure there is clean fuel in the tank, it’s off to a pretty bad start. In that it won’t start!

Cue two weeks of too-ing and fro-ing. Including a series of ‘noddy’ emails between myself and the suppliers as they coach me through the process of starting a small generator, all to no avail. The bugger just won’t go and no amount of throwing my Mechanical Engineering HND at them seems to persuade them that their kit might be malfunctioning and I’m not a complete idiot.

So, we eventually get a link to upload a video of me ‘starting’ the generator using the steps provided but, being in the middle of nowhere, it takes most of the day for the video to upload and I lose another weekend having to rent a generator whilst staring at a 40kg paperweight.

With video evidence, they finally agree it’s knackered and arrange a return and within the week, we have a replacement delivered which I test the moment it’s off the van. As predicted, oil in, fuel in and open, it purrs like a kitten on the first pull. Sometimes it’s hard always being right and although it’s not an expensive model by any stretch of the imagination, it works and given the sun isn’t cooperating it gives us the chance to top up the battery bank while the solar panels take a break for the winter.

So far so good though.

Winter Walks

So, up until now we’ve managed with just the log burner to keep us warm on the cold Yorkshire nights but we’re investing once again in some new tech. Luke from Diamond Heating in Settle has been round to size up our boiler and radiator needs and is currently in the cellar, fitting the pipework, vents and last I looked, was quietly cursing the stone walls and loose infill which is a pain to drill through.

Having spent 8 hours drilling a 4″ hole through the wall for the waste water tank outlet, I can attest to how frustrating it can be and after 3 hours, almost predictably, Luke concedes he’s going to have to bring out the big guns and return with some more beefy drilling kit before he can fit the vent pipes. What we have so far though looks really good, the Victorian radiators in gun-metal grey compliment the rooms really well and will hopefully help to keep the place feeling comfortable in even the worst of winter.