Migration and colonisation

If clutter depresses you look away now.

Migration: The movement of stuff round the house has not stopped since our house building project began. Before we got here I’d looked into buying a shipping container in which to store building materials and personal effects on site, but it seemed doubtful whether I’d be able to get rid of it again or recoup any significant proportion of the outlay. So, since moving my-life-in-cardboard-boxes here, those boxes (and crates and loose items) have continued to shuffle round the house, from room to room and back again, along with a table, a temporary sink support (a nice-height-to-stand-at desk), mahogany linen-press (in two pieces), rough shelves and a work bench the builders left behind, sheets of plasterboard, oriented strand board, plywood, timber of all sizes, nails new and used, screws…

…pop-rivets, glues, tools, plastic pipe (indoor and outdoor – various sizes), copper pipe (fifteen and twenty two millimetre), fittings for all the pipes, a huge coil of semi-rigid air duct, room outlets for the air duct and two boxes of joints I’ll never use, bags of cement, adhesive, string, cord and rope, sticky tape (masking, gaffa, parcel, technical airtight of several kinds), tubes of specific adhesives, sealants, decorators’ caulk and expanding foam, personal protective equipment, shower doors, screens, two toilet bowls, cisterns and basins, taps and, more recently, two stacks of boxed ceramic tiles, powdered adhesive and grout. That’s not an exhaustive list but perhaps gives an idea of the beast I’m wrestling.

I’m determined that the recently arrived flat-pack kitchen units will be an exception to this shuffling migration. They have been leant against the walls they will ultimately be fixed to and I see no reason to shift them. Everything else has made innumerable journeys, sometimes for a day or two, sometimes for several months, usually coming back close to its starting point. One consolation is that little by little the materials are being absorbed into the permanent fabric of the house. We have yet to buy wooden and stone flooring with all the trimmings to fix them but, once they arrive, they should be used quite quickly and the stone at least can live outside until laid as a floor.

The entrance hall and plant room are cluttered, despite having been recently emptied, but, once plastering is complete and the stack of waste (in empty plaster sacks) disposed of, a new order should descend…

Writing this and looking at the photos makes me aware of the need for a review of what I’m actually storing and moving around. I want to have a record of this mess and apparent chaos, knowing it will soon be gone, into forgetfulness; that which was yesterday. I want to see the back of it as soon as possible. I told Ed (self-building a mile away) that on Monday I’d return his three bags of plaster I’d borrowed. He prevailed upon me to keep them another week; “I’m trying to sort out the garage,” he said. I know what he means.

Friday up the tower: Jef spent Friday up the tower, calling me every few minutes to wheel him and the whole edifice along so he could work and rework the surface, losing as little time as possible. And saving his knees. Twice a day he mixed a new ‘gauge’ (enough plaster for the session in hand) but the floppy bucket of plaster was too heavy for me to carry on my own, so he hauled on a rope while Kirsty helped from the ground as I walked it on my shoulder up the step ladder. Team effort. By five fifteen, in fits and starts I’d managed to assemble two Ikea base units (not exciting enough to feature here) and Jef had plastered most of both sloping ceilings, each side worked to a horizontal sacrificial tape that would later be peeled off, leaving a clean bottom edge to work to on the next session.

Although our neighbours’ plasterer covered their patch of cement board (which protects the ceiling from the heat of the flue) with no preparation and only minor crazing – since hidden by several coats of paint – it didn’t work for us. The board sucked the moisture from the plaster, which fell off in scabby plates and patches. I’m not worried about it – we’ll find a solution.

Plastering should be finished by Wednesday, in time to free us for six days on Colonsay, north of Islay, south of Mull, with car, tent and kayaks.

Colonisation: Nearly all the earth that was raw last year is now woven with vegetation. The cat is missing the loose soil and using our several heaps of pea gravel for her convenience. Elsewhere, on a less scatological note, the semi-compacted gravel is being colonised by various hardy and tolerant plants. I pull out flowering rush, hard rush and more vigorous grasses where I can, leaving other, less invasive species, enjoying the journey though not knowing where it will take us; here are a few of the colonisers…

And here again (this time in the small meadow areas) is yellow rattle, now with seed pods rattling with seeds – as they should.