All Clear

Well as exciting as I thought it would be...last Friday I came back from dropping the boys off at school to find the track to the house packed with wagons! Well, two of them. Leading the way was the waste man, sharply followed by the drain company that I have held in such high esteem since deciding they were the saviours of our loo.

The fun and games commenced. We may have found one manhole cover, but it soon became obvious that this was not the cess pit. The truck was ready to pump out the poo, but where was the way in?

J was out armed with the petrol strimmer and taking out the cormer of the garden covered in brambles, these were deemed to be covering the way in to the mess below. After about 20 mins and the cutting demise of the blackberry bushes for next year, we found the illusive manhole cover. There is was right underneath where everyone was standing and just outside of the shed. The broken moped we have in the back of the garden was lying right on top of it.

The cess pit draining man was wonderful. In went the hose, on went the truck and 10 mins later goodbye went 1,000 litres of waste!

The drainage guys then went to work. The good news is that the pit is really well built, if not a bit small - but it can be turned efficiently - in both time and money- into a fully modern sceptic tank. We will eventually end up putting clean water back into the surrounding land and waterway once it has passed through the system they can put in.

This is all brand new to me. I am so used to using a loo or running water and not thinking about what happens to the waste product. We are also looking into rainwater capture that would mean we could use this for our grey water in the washing machine etc. There is so much you can do when you are not so connected to the rest of the town.

Fencing and driveway are now the next mission. Fencing as you know has been chosen, and we have now sourced broken tarmac that we can use to make the driveway and somewhere to turn the cars round. At the moment we can go no farther than 10m from the house without hitting quagmire and getting the car stuck. All well and happy and flushing the loo for england without worrying about the consequences!

Is Canada reading?

Are the outlaws looking at this? If you are here you can keep up to date with the excitement and adventure of Meadowcot as we muddle our way through the mud, cesspit, animals and children!

The thing I am most looking forward to this week is a company are coming to clear out the drainage and actually tell us what we have here. We have been told it is a cesspit and have found a man hole cover, but for the life of us we cannot tell where it all leads to. They are coming to enlighten us...and something has taken hold of me as I can't wait!

The decision has to be taken as to what kind of fencing we have - rurally knarled wood to make us look like we have always been here, or more grand iron railings like they have round estates - so J's laird of the manor outfit (tweedy jacket, checked shirt and jeans - all bought for £20!) can be worn with pride as he surveys his ground.

Managed to get the boys to play in the den. Have a sneeking suspicion I may have built it for me rather than them. Packed them off with binoculars, walky talkies and food and a total bribe in the shape of a can of coke. They played for about 15 minutes - or actually as long as it took them to share the can of coke in a rather grand and grown up manner - and then they came in. I am thinking through new tactics...

pigs,chickens and dens

well the rain never came! we waited and waited, watching every looming cloud for the torrential downpour that was promised, but the trenches weren't tested and the house remains warm and more importantly dry. I suppose that there is a small feeling of disappointment that all of J's hardwork with a spade has not been challenged by the elements and we will have to live and learn another day.

We have made the boys a den in the back garden, complete with chairs and area to keep the footballs. You have to have a password to enter and sitting out there last night with the torches was a wonderful game. J had to persuade them to come out and play with me in it as I was getting rather upset sitting in my masterpiece alone. We have walls, door and a shelf area. I was deperate to put in a table and even found myself picking up and old framed picture to put on the 'walls' (tree) until I remembered that I was building this for small men and the titivating would not be needed when the den became a war camp in the battle against the baddies in the back garden. Armed with torches and twigs for guns sure enough we managed to protect the den and fought our way back to the back door.

J has been hunting out pigs and chickens for us to keep and I naively thought that the fact he was leaving the web pages open by accident for me to spot was just that. It turns out he knows me rather too well and knew that I could not resist the chance to look - the choices are Kune Kune pigs and Brahma chickens...

Brahmas as I rather like to look of the Abba esque flairs they have round their feet and Kune Kune because they look like bulldogs - who says there is anything scientific in this.

Will the rain come again?

Have now looked up over 7 different weather sites all of which announce that there will be more rain around this afternoon...We have dug trenches around the house - happily known as 'the shed' for the fact that it is reminincent of a 1970 scout hut - red wooded walls and green felt roof. After the down pours of Tuesday, which nearly floated us away, we are now waiting to see whether our attempts to make us less of an ark and more of a house will work.

The problem seems to be that when you stand in the garden you would be convinced that the land slips away from the house. Only when J started digging could he really start seeing where the lower points of the land are.

Anyway, all of this I am putting down to an adventure, the boys and the dogs seem totally unfazed and the fire is on! Warm, cosy...but dry??