In Boil-the-Water Land

 I was taking the small dog for a pre-breakfast walk in Boyle Harbour, and as I passed a boat a voice asked 'Is the roof on yet?' Someone who read my blog!? I didn't want to presume so muttered some class of query. But it was. And Angela gave me a DVD of her travels too, called Angela's Journey, 2013, so a splendid start to the day.

Of course Angela asked the question because the house build has taken over this blog, but we've been boating too, driving up to Leitrim for a few days, then back to do house stuff. We were in Leitrim Village, first on the dodgy jetties where this notice makes you nervous:

 These jetties were supposed to be released to Waterways Ireland, who built a bridge allowing access to the carpark and facilities. Never happened. The developer went into receivership and apartments just up from this sign, and the jetties, are now the responsibility of NAMA. Some boats outstaying their welcome were chained to the jetties, a boaty version of clamping.

So we left the boat on the wall below the bridge while we went home for a few days:

Then part of a timber-boat sandwich in Cootehall:

And then to Boyle, where there's a boil notice on the water. There was one in Cootehall too, but I couldn't resist the boyle and boil. Sorry. This water problem has been going on for 18 months, and is unlikely to be solved until the new water authority comes into being. Fortunately we were forwarned so filled up our water tanks before entering Cryptosporidium County.

After Boyle we mooched into Lough Key, heading for the Forest Park's new jetties. We'd seen them from the land a couple of times, and they didn't look particularly appealing - we were sure we'd prefer our usual spot on Drumman's Island - but no harm in dropping in for an hour or two. We slotted into a spot that was surprisingly pleasant. Everything looked different from this point of view. We could look out into the lake and the island with the castle on it, were close to trees. Not so bad after all.

It was also a great opportunity for Joe to do his salesman thing with 'Skipper', which he did with his usual verve. He's truly amazing. I'm still shite, embarrassed in the background.

There's all sorts of jolly activities at Lough Key. Look at these guys on Segways:

I've just found out more than I ever knew about the Segway from Wikipedia. It's proper name is Segway PT, PT standing for personal transporter, which sounds a bit Star Trek to me. The name Segway comes from segue, which means smooth transition. Segue is one of those words you see written down more often than you hear it spoken. When I was doing my MA, one of the tutors was going on about one thing segueing into another, and he was saying segwaying. My God, I thought, he's making a fool of himself. Fortunately I said nothing, thereby saving myself a red face (why is it OK to confess such things on a blog?). The thing is, Joe thought it was pronounced 'seeg' too. You know, as in words like vogue. How you get segway out of segue seems peculiar even for the English language.

Another activity was this sort of thing:

No, monkeys haven't been introduced to the park. This is a man. There are many children too, clipped on and clambering, zipping, climbing, swinging, even cycling through the trees. This was the domain of Zipit Forest Adventures, and I have to say I was tempted. Not by this stupidly high-off-the-ground stuff, obviously, but by the low-down zipwires designed for eight-year olds. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow, however, started damp and got wetter. No zipping. No cycling until we finally went out in the rain in late afternoon. We finally left, still waterproofed up, and decamped to Carrick where it finally stopped raining.

And then, finally, to Drumsna to relax with tools and wine.

Up she goes! Our own Grand Design.

This afternoon I was lying flat on my back (how else can you lie on your back?) on the roof terrace of our new house. The PVC membrane went on this morning, and it's all clean and smelling like you could get high on it. I was high in a different way, however, looking at the clouds in a blue sky. Having been chilly all day I was shedding layers as though I was in the Med. Then Joe came to join me. We were both lying there, imagining living here.

This is the roof terrace (OK, it's just a flat roof at the moment, but it will be a roof terrace once we've decking and plants out there).

And here it is looking into the house. That hole will be all glass with a door on the right.

Of course I'm going backwards here. Joe had been supplying me with photos all week. Here's the exciting bit arriving - the crane. And there's the scaffolding behind it, put up a couple of days before. I was incredibly disappointed to be missing the crane.

And missing the lorry arriving with the house on it.

Actually this was only half of the house. There was another lorry's worth. It was a giant numbered jigsaw puzzle. And guess what. One vital piece that should have been in the first load was in the second. Tricksiness before the build had even begun.

Behind the first lorry load was a carful of tourists. They'd spotted the house-bearing lorry, recognised what it was from too many viewings of Grand Designs, and come along to watch. Joe says they were practically having a picnic.

And here we go. Bits of the jigsaw up in the air.

There's the sitting room!

At this next stage I was beginning to think Joe was codding me. He'd just bought a child's house-making kit and was putting it together on the lawn outside the kitchen window. But look! There's a real man standing on the scaffolding. Those little boxes are the downstairs loo, a bedroom, the utility room and the pantry. They look too small to be real.

And then I came home from the parents last Thursday evening. I was supposed to be in Shannon by 6.30 but that's when the flight took off. It was delayed for an hour and a half, our intended plane having been struck by lightning on the tarmac in Bristol (not encouraging, not to be dwelt upon). Frustration. But never mind! It was still light enough to visit the site. All those photos hadn't prepared me for the shock of a three-dimensional house. So long looking at 2D plans, and here it was.

This is looking inside from the sitting room to the kitchen. The rooms no longer look improbably small.

This will be our bedroom. Nothing like fresh air for a good night's sleep.

But finally we have a roof, pitched as well as flat, and all that natty red stuff is a fireproof cavity barrier thingy.

Next is the outer block wall and slates on the roof. The views from upstairs are fabulous, and from downstairs nearly as fabulous. Hurray! It's all fabulous!

New build photo record

Back from the boat, which we've left up in Leitrim for a week. Not much time as I have to go over to my parents today (hospital stuff), so here's the photos of the latest developments on the site.

Jan the digger man put down the radon barrier.

Jano the block man put the blocks on top.

And yesterday the men from Tuam in Co Galway erected the scaffolding.

This will more or less be the view from upstairs. We're going to have to get a telescope so we can see who's going up and down the lake.

The build starts on Monday. Should be well under way by the time I get back on Thursday.

In the meantime Joe is doing a mighty job of project managing.

Escape from Lough Derg!

So we finally got away. It didn't happen last year for several reasons, not least because I was launching The Skipper & Her Mate at the Scarriff Harbour Festival at the beginning of August. If we'd gone north we'd have had to come all the way back down again. But off we went upriver last weekend, through Meelick Lock (still working during the usually sacrosanct 1 - 2 pm lunch hour!) and onto Meelick Quay. Here we are in the lock:

Well packed with boats. Everyone seemed to be going north. Nice weather, warm and partly sunny.

For now.

The car was halfway to Meelick - we'd cycled back to Portumna. That afternoon we were going to cycle back for it in lovely sunshine. We stopped at Meelick Quay as it was on the right side of the river for this. Had lunch. You'll have guessed what happened next.

And then this:

It was torrential all afternoon. This bowl and saucepan both filled, were emptied, filled. These were leaks we didn't even know were there. In the galley, in the saloon, cockpit, forecabin (oh no! Joe's bed got wet).

The day didn't improve much. We cycled back for the car. It was further than we thought. The route was disputed. Back at the boat it was discovered I'd forgotten the potatoes.

But there's always tomorrow. Who can beat this:

Taken at Shannonbridge. The jetties here were full. There was a contingent down from the North including Nigel who made the splendid winter covers for Winter Solstice - Irish Spars and Rigging were the company then. Now there's just himself working away.

There was the usual difficulty at Tarmonbarry Lock where the keeper has no interest in pleasing people. Forty minutes to lock down a lock of boats, and then, oh dear, it's one o'clock. Closed for lunch, thank you very much.

We got through the first lock after lunch. I'd say it would take him a couple of hours to clear the backlog. We were heading for Richmond Harbour but had to go the long way round, turning into the Camlin River above Tarmonbarry instead of going via the lock below, the lock having a fault and its mending time being uncertain. I'm glad we did though. It was beautiful. Sitting at the front of the boat daydreaming ...

And here she is in Richmond Harbour.

Back soon. Can't wait.

The walls are rising

So we have Jan (pronounced Yan) doing the groundworks for the new house and Jan (also pronounced Yan) doing the blockwork for the rising wall. Jan is also known as Jano. Jan has a Dutch/Irish accent. Jano's is pure Dub even though he was raised in Clare - Dublin Dad and uncles.

Another hole, only this time even bigger - house size, not shed size. Another enormous pile of topsoil (yes!). Another mound of slig. Here's Jan1 marking out the shape of the house.

And here's the yellow outline of it, as though its just been murdered.

Then they started digging trenches and it all got confusing.

These were filled with concrete, and then Jan2 got to work building the rising walls. The house is going to be timber framed, but needs to sit on several courses of blocks, some of which are called quinlight. Thermally efficient don't you know. Everything in this house has to be thermally efficient.

All ready to go.

And here it is. The size of the rooms comes into being.

This is where you try not to panic. That downstairs bathroom is tiny. How can you fit anything in there? And how will we put everything we want to into the utility room? And surely those two walls aren't parallel when they're meant to be. Joe's the project manager, so we're going to head up there with the measuring tape.

I reassure myself regarding size by thinking of the house my parents have moved into in a retirement village - a two up two down that you'd never think you could get anything in, but it's astonishing what will fit. Clever storage, that's the trick. The kitchen and sitting room are fine anyway.  

Here's Joe on the kitchen wall.

The view's going to be great.

In the meantime I've been planting shrubs I bought in England.

 Photographing them.

 And loving our trees.

Cornwall stories (aka holiday pics)

So Winter Solstice has been out of the water in Portumna having a few things sorted and Joe, Aoife-the-dog and I have been in Cornwall in the camper van. Plenty of boat stuff there - a lot of coastline in Cornwall.

And gulls. Lots of gulls doing this sort of thing (note barbecue in foreground):

Some weird rock formations too. This is a tor on Bodmin Moor called the Cheesewring - apparently it resembles a device once used for making cheese.

It's close to a small village called Minions, along with two stone circles that have very little atmosphere at this time of year. Too many people. So many people even when you walk into the moor.

You could, however, imagine this on a misty night as the winter solstice (not, of course, the boat) approaches, all alone, car broken down, possibly nursing a sprained ankle, the wind keening round the stones keeping ghosts company, the hound howling in the distance, coming closer ...

And then there was the glorious coastline, though no more beautiful than Ireland.

We were in a campsite right out at the west - the further west you went, the lovelier and quieter it was. People in St Ives were talking of it as though it were the ultimate back-of-beyond, a bit like people in Scarriff (7 miles away) talk of where I live. The light is similar to the west of Ireland - clear and blue.

All around were reminders of Cornwall's tin-mining days:

The BBC are making a new series of Poldark here - the tin-mining-family saga set in the 18th century and based on the books of Winston Graham. The set had been created around some of these old buildings just off the coastal walk. They were filming as we walked past. Apparently there's some heartthrob actor in the role of Ross Poldark, the romantic lead.

One of the most beautiful things about this area was the wild flowers along walls, roadsides, banks. You can see the red campion in the forefront of the photo above - it was in flower everywhere.

I'd intended to write about progress on the new house, but this came out instead. More house bulletins soon.

Trouble with calculations

This probably looks like a considerable river, a waterway that will easily take a boat such as Winter Solstice. To an extent it was, in spite of the overhanging branches we scraped past, scattering leaves across the deck and putting the fear of god into the bicycles strapped to the pulpit at the bow.

We were making our way down this channel into a small marina designed for fishing boats. We'd been offered free berthage here if the boat would fit.

We got as far as this, thinking 'we could cut back some branches, it's doable'.

That's the channel we came up, right ahead. If you were to turn to the left you'd see this:

Nice isn't it? Looks very possible. However, it wasn't clear of boats when we came in. Actually, we knew that as we'd driven down to check. Tied against the jetty right where we needed to turn was this yoke:

So we went aground, pulled ourselves free, moved the rib, went aground, pulled ourselves free and finally reversed all the way down the long channel back to the Scarriff River where we'd began. We're wondering whether to try the second channel - for there are two ways in - that you see ahead of you in this pic. A bigger area to turn, and maybe deeper ....

So we need to be more careful, plan a little, use measuring devices. For we nearly got into trouble again last night. We were in Rossmore halfway up Lough Derg, a quiet spot but somewhat exposed when the wind gets up, which it did. Winter Solstice was tied up against Knocknagow, a very steady big steel boat, and was bucking around a bit. It was suggested that we might pull around the corner where the slip enters the water.

 We'd be sheltered here, on that wall you can see. Joe went to have a look. 'I'd say there's enough depth,' he said. We donned lifejackets, started the engines, discussed how to rope her round.

'But wait!' said our friend, Skipper of Knocknagow. 'Are you sure of this? Have you made calculations?' If we'd had him with us on the Scarriff River we would never have got into trouble. The tape measure appeared, we put in a pole to check the depth, worked out whether there was space.

We took off our lifejackets, turned off the engines, pulled up the ball fenders to stop them banging. I cooked dinner braced against the bathroom door.

The wind died before we went to sleep. Next morning Joe took the boat to Portumna while I took the car. Here he is pulling out:

Will we learn to calculate before we go? Probably not.