In the dark

Okay, so I've been a bit tardy recently with no posts for a couple of weeks due to being so busy. Thankfully so have the builders, been busy that is.

With the clocks going forward last weekend it's been more difficult to catch up on every day's progress. And with winter arriving early it's not been quite so appealing going out in the dark and freezing conditions to try and see what has been completed during the day - especially with the muddy obstacle course where our garden used to be.

However, progress update time. The retaining wall is virtually complete - both skins are full height and the final pour of concrete between then happened today. Other than finishes (cap stones and render) which won't be applied till next year, that's the walls done. Brickie Paul is now well on the way with the kitchen/diner footings and we'll have to order the timber frame soon. They've also done the tanking for the rear walls of the garage - required to prevent moisture ingress into the garage from the hill. And they've been able to do some backfilling of the retaining walls, so the spoil heaps have started to come down which is good to see, and starts to give us some idea of how the garden levels will work.

Thanks to the cold the stove is back in action!

Planning No. 3

And I almost forgot...we received confirmation yesterday that our latest planning has been approved. Hooray!

Until recently you could make amendments to existing planning applications. This is no longer the case and if you want to change anything (We wanted to add a small window in the kitchenand alter the garage doors) you have to submit a new application. A tedious and relatively expensive exercise for such minor changes but it's now the only way to get them approved so we didn't have much choice.

At least it's all sorted and signed off now - just the Building Regs approval for the timber frame that is left to do now.

Going up

It's been a busy few days. Not only have I been very busy, hence the lack of posts for a week, but so have the builders.

Despite a heavy shower or two last tuesday, the concrete pour all went to plan with the footings for the retaining wall and kitchen/diner put inplace. Since then Paul the brickie has been on site putting up the blockwork for the retaining wall. Friday saw another pour for the garage footings and so far this week Paul has started on the garage retaining wall while the other guys put the drainage behind the retaining wall. All in all lots of progress and it's great to see the walls coming out of the ground, even if they're only the retaining walls.

With the weather still being very kind to us its good that the guys are making such progress. Hopefully they'll carry on at this pace and get fully out of the ground, for the extensions as well as the retaining walls, before we see any change in the weather. That said, the long range forecast for this winter is for a drier and warmer than average one so maybe it'll stay like this for a while.

Mudslide

Thankfully the Met Office have been their usual pessimistic selves. The heavy rain forecast for Sunday didn't turn up - yes it rained all morning and was enough to turn parts of the garden into a quagmire, but it wasn't the torrential rain they implied we would get.

There has been a mudslide, but only a very minor one with a few handfuls (quite literally) of earth slipping into the base of the retaining wall trench in the far back corner. It's nothing of any consequence thankfully.

We've not had chance to see the builders today but it looks as if they've got everything ready for the big pour tomorrow, shame we'll be at work. We thought they might have to postphone the pour with more heavy rain forecast, but that seems to have changed with only occasional showers now expected. Should get home to find a load of concrete.

Had an interesting and unexpected visitor yesterday - a woman who grew up at Hillside, the granddaughter of the boy that planted the Horse Chestnut tree! More details to follow...

Rebar, tree huggers & rain

It's been a busy week. The steelwork turned up on Tuesday (with more on Thursday) so the builders have been setting out the rebar for the retaining walls. Progress has looked slow after the drama of the excavation, with a lot of time involved in setting out the reinforcement and wiring it all together. The delay in getting it on site has meant that the concrete pour now won't be until next week.

Mid week we had a phone call from the builders to say we had a 'planning observer' and a 'tree hugger' on site claiming we don't have planning permission. They'd flashed a business card claimimg they were from the local council so the builders believed they were legitimate and let them wander round our garden and take photos. We spoke to our planning officer who knew nothing of any visit and had no idea who or what a 'planning observer' was! After 24 hours wondering who had been snooping around our garden, it turns out it was a 'tree protection officer' from the council - he contacted us to point out that the spoil heap could be having a detrimental effect on the Horse Chestnut tree. As if we would want to damage the tree! And with the spoil heap being more than 10 metres awy from the trunk we can't see that it'll have any detrimental effect for the (hopefully) short time that it's there.

After two weeks of dry weather the builders are worried about rain and the impact it may have on the soil heaps. Once they get the concrete in they can do a load of backfilling and get rid of a lot of the spoil, but in the meantime it's towering over the footings and house, causing the builder to have few sleepness nights! Rain has arrived this afternoon and it hasn't been a problem, but tomorrow's forecast is a lot worse - hopefully the worst will miss us leaving the piles of soil/clay intact and the trenches free of debris so the concrete pour can happen as planned on Tuesday.

We'll all be a lot more relaxed once we get out of the ground...