If you're an owl, this is the place to be. Or if you're two owls.
We (not I, too high) installed two luxury owl boxes in a bid to keep the lovely hooting creatures happy in the neighbourhood.
Blimey, all that time gone and ZERO progress. It's proper frustrating.
It was quite a windy cold snap we just had, so we spent a lot of time mending fences..
Now the weather has turned towards a more spring-like phase, and we.just.want.to.get.going.
Next planning meeting is 22 March, but we hope to get permission to clear the site ready for actual construction work before then. That means taking away the many tons of masonry and wood that are in the way, as well the pile of scrap iron you can see in these photos. As soon as that happens, I'll post some pictures of people actually doing something. Promise.
Access road is still under discussion. I know, right?
Later taters
We've had a couple of surveys done on the site, and the results are in.
First the Asbestos Survey concluded that there's no asbestos on site. That's a relief, as it could have been a real problem.
Then we had a desk-based archaeological thing done. It concluded that there's an outside chance of disturbing some bones from the old graveyard when we do our footings. Means we will need a proper archaeologist on site during that part of the work. Highly expensive, a bit of a nuisance, but fascinating. :-)
These surveys will go towards the planning decision, hopefully demonstrating our intention to cut no corners. As mentioned, the next planning meeting is on this coming Monday. Any news from that will of course be reported here.
In other news, the council meeting planned for last Monday was postponed due to a Covid scare at the Town Hall. We await news of the rearranged date. A lot rides on these meetings so we're hoping there won't be too much of a delay. Also hoping nobody gets sick.
More soon
We're still on stop, so not a lot to report. Hopefully planning permission will be granted soon - there's a meeting later this month. Then we can get back on site and start the real work. The access road we need so badly is still just a dream, and we're forced to consider Plan B - do everything through the narrow front gate. Not ideal, but would side-step a lot of red tape with the Town Council. For now, we continue with Plan A and hope that common sense prevails and we get access.
My stop-motion camera is still dutifully taking photos of an unchanging scene, and I keep replacing the battery. Perhaps some snowy scenes will brighten up the eventual result.
The electricity people arrived today, dug a big hole and installed our feed cable to the cabinet. In a little while the meter will be installed, and we'll have real actual power to work with. Think we won't bother with gas and the house will be all electrical. Our feed is three phase, so we have the potential to install some very powerful equipment - cookers, kilns etc. We've looked at ground source for heating and decided it's probably worth the high installation costs, as the savings on bills are enormous.
Lyn has begun thinking about how the house will look and feel. It's a bit early for that really, but I am looking forward to seeing what her artistic tendencies will do with such a large canvas.
That's it for now, sorry it's a bit downbeat. I post this the day after yet another national lockdown so it would have been nice to say something more positive.
More soon, faithful Owlers. Keep your chins up.
So our plans have been uploaded, now we wait for the GO. Fingers crossed. We love the version we ended up with, hope we don't have to change too much. I'm keeping the alligator pool whatever happens.
We're currently on a stop notice period for 28 days, after unwisely removing a chimney (which was about to remove itself onto some poor bugger's head) and being photographed and reported for it. Yes, someone took the trouble of photographing Paul the builder as he went about his work, and helpfully sent those photos to the enforcement officer. Words fail me.
Before that, we found a lovely old parquet floor where our garden is going to be...
Well now, it's been a while since the last update, and much has come to pass. Sadly no access road yet, but we creep ever closer to that goal, despite miles of red tape.
Using the "Plan B" route through the front door to a skip on the road, Paul has managed with a small digging machine to clear most of the rubble etc from the main chapel. It's unrecognisable from the rubble-strewn forest we first encountered all those months ago. Kudos to Lyn, who has been a solid member of the wheelbarrow team, moving literally tonnes of rubble to the skip.
There is a council meeting later today, in which we hope we will receive official permission to build our access road. Things will move a lot faster from then on.
This weekend we moved all the potted plants, benches, chairs etc from our garden to the front of Mount Pleasant. I would estimate we've moved 3 tonnes of stuff. Have to say I was glad to sit at my desk today, my bones are aching. This was not an attempt at some extremely premature landscaping, we just need to empty our garden so we can move out in early December. From then on our home (and office) will be a holiday apartment. At least until we can feasibly fit a caravan on the site at Mount Pleasant.
We had a lovely bonfire on the 5th. Actually two:
Spot the missus: 
In the morning, twenty tonnes of roof trusses, floorboards and general church paraphernalia had been reduced to this:
Our in-fern-ary now has added hostas. Hostalry, anyone?
