30 APRIL 2008

An entire month since the last entry…. This Blog business is no lark, particularly when you’retrying to finish a book. (Something called ‘The Wonderful Weekend Book: Reclaiming Life’s Simple Pleasures’ which John Murray are publishing in October. The deadline is tomorrow morning and the manuscript, re-read so many times I’m bored silly by it, is finally ready to send.)  Tucked up in bed with a cold, I’ve just spent a good half an hour looking at the Three Beautiful Things Blog (www.threebeautifulthings.blogspot.com) - a wonderful site where the author simply lists three good things that have happened to her every day - and admire its lyrical brevity.  So perhaps more frequent yet shorter entries would be the best thing for this Blog. Especially now that I have some progress to write about….

Work is finally underway on the carriages. I can’t wait to get down there this weekend and see what has been going on - and share some pictures, which won’t, by the sound of things, be as pretty as the ones I’ve been posting in previous entries. But hurrah for that. Having said goodbye to the architect, it’s now just us and the builders, and I love it! (Please remind me of this comment in a month’s time when I am tearing my hair out and cursing the day they were born…) The immediacy of the process is refreshing - it’s so much easier to get things done and decisions made when we don’t have to put everything past a ‘professional’ who then has to make a detailed drawing and check every subsequent nail and roof tile against it. John, the head honcho, is extremely practical (as you’d expect from a builder) but also has a great eye. He’s already had some good ideas about how to tackle the roof and our ideal preference for an upstairs room, but is investigating the existing roof first, to see what he finds, before we finalise the shape, style and construction. 

Given the unusual nature of this building, and the fact that we more or less know what we want from it, this “feel your way” approach seems to make sense. Thank goodness the planners seem to agree - the fact that we have tried and failed twice to go down the “official” route, and already have permission for a building far larger and more dramatic than the one that will now be built, seems to be in our favour, and I am hoping we will be allowed to submit retrospective drawings once we know exactly what is going on. 

Last time I was on site was two weeks ago, just for the day, when we finished emptying all the rooms except those in the seaward-facing “birdcage” carriage, which are acting as store rooms, packed to the gunwhales and swaddled in dust sheets. After two trips to the recycling centre with the car boot so full I couldn’t see, and emptied of all the furniture, pictures, books and rugs, the long central space between the carriages looks huge, and it’s easy to understand how the new scheme should work. I’m very excited, and trying not to squander funds on stuff to fill it up again with from the gorgeous new Toast House & Home catalogue (www.toast.co.uk). 

John’s voice on the phone tonight was excited - it is good to work with people who are enthusiastic about the project and keen to get work underway. They have already taken out the section of interior carriage wall that needed to go to make the new kitchen extension, and have kept it intact either to use in the upper room or to flip round the other way and use to repair the exterior of the severely damaged compartment (see the picture top right of the Blog masthead) that is earmarked for my study. The former kitchen, soon-to-be utility room, has been partially taken down, and the next step is to create the new foundations that would also support a small upper storey. So much of the existing concrete floor - really just a floating plinth laid on the shingly soil - is being broken up and removed. And the rain pouring down through the openings in the roof is creating a fair bit of mud. It sounds as if we’ll find a proper old mess on our arrival. But, after all this time waiting for work to start - that’s just as it should be. I’m so looking forward to seeing it all.