12 months

The last month has flown by, helped by our first real holiday in ages where we escaped to Cornwall for a week with no DIY. Not wanting to totally escape from talk of buildings and projects we found time call in on Graham and Isabelle to sample produce from their vast veg plot and to see what their little project looks like - http://tremayne.tumblr.com/

Meanwhile back at home Autumn has finally set in, reminding us that we moved back home a year ago today. Things have moved on massively over the year, both inside and outside the house, but it's been surprising how long some tasks have taken to complete. Laying all the oak flooring was an epic task that took up a lot of time, and prevented us from fully using the house till Easter. That's something I'm glad not to have to revisit, although we did have to cut an expansion gap in the oak downstairs at the end of September to prevent it from buckling.

With the cooler weather now here we've fired the boiler once more with the solar thermal system providing a top-up for the hot water. 1 year on it's interesting to see that we've used 7 tonnes of wood pellets. This sounds like a lot and is more than I'd hoped we'd use. But I think the combination of the extremely cold winter, a house that was incomplete when we moved back in, plus the poor thermal performance of the old parts of the cottage and teething problems with the boiler last year will all have resulted in increased pellet consumption. My aim is to make sure that the next 12 months see a significant reduction. We'll see!