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!