Author Archives: nickjtj

Not far away from our plot is another plot on another loch and Ali and Chris, the very recent co-owners (congratulations!) came to see what we’ve been up to. Clearly they have already given their future home considerable thought and as they are not intending to do the physical work themselves they are lining upContinue reading “Future self-builders in flue cliff-hanger”

STOP PRESS: two woodcock feeding beside the track on plot five in the dark. It feels good to have the guttering in place and working… Tash is down south, supporting her family and as a ferry foot passenger I went to Islay to see David for a bit of a weekend, adjusted to fit CalMac’sContinue reading “Refocus”

To Inverness and back in third gear. A week of distractions. At the garage in an old quarry up above town my car failed its MOT on emissions, an unwelcome distraction from house building and I had ten days to sort it out. Most of our car trips are local and at low speeds, leadingContinue reading “Up the Struie”

A large red lorry reversed down the drive. The driver had called from Tarbert to announce his imminent arrival with a load of pipes ‘it looks like guttering’ he said. It was the guttering. And down pipes and a couple of cardboard boxes of metal elbows, ‘nozzles’, clips and so forth. Indoors out of theContinue reading “Water, this way please.”

Saturday night we thought we’d sleep in the house, bedroom two. Take a tray with kettle and tea things, take an extra pillow and some water for the night and hopefully see the dawn in Greenwich mean time. I’d set up temporary electrics, taken the tray and was going up to bed when I noticedContinue reading “Untimely leak”

I was looking forward to plaster-boarding and building some cupboards and half walls upstairs, making the house look very different inside, but a weekend Guardian article about heat pumps mentioned that applications for the renewable heat incentive (RHI) would close in March. My plan was to install the flue and stove in the house duringContinue reading “Applications closing in March…”

Note: Nature is at the far end again. Returning to Islay, David stopped off here for a couple of nights, helping me with the concrete and the porch (easy) and helping Tash with a cryptic crossword (less easy). Although I’ve not yet had a chance to speak to planning about the concrete slab and shedContinue reading “David lends both hands”

(Nature notes are at the far end today). …”The enclosure for the water tank is fine; it’ll need a formal variation but don’t apply for that now as there might be other things you want to put on before you’re done. And I should just run it past planning too.” So I tried to runContinue reading “And building control said…”

This time only brief nature notes, then the building. Neither of us has had the opportunity to pick sea buckthorn berries before, but for a couple of months we’ve had our eyes on these bushes and, after picking an exploratory few with Richard, went picking in earnest last weekend. The almost luminous orange berries haveContinue reading “Advancing slowly on several fronts”

If you are less interested in the nature observations please skip ahead (fear not, I shan’t stop building yet and will continue to record my progress). To my complete surprise I’ve been told that some folk are not so excited by screw (impact) drivers, copper pipe, larch boards and ring shank nails and have neverContinue reading “Nature first”