Secrets of the Fireplace revealed (by sarah)

The Wood burner had to be removed for the holes behind it to be plugged up from the inside - the tunnel men have already repaired the holes in the tunnel. The wood burner also needed to be checked out for thinning from the rust.

Too our suprise lurking behind it is this buetiful cogg thing set into the wall - it looks like it was probably from the middle of one of the mill wheels or something. It seems such a shame that it is covered up by the fire - What I hope we will be able to do in future is replace the current wood burner with a smaller more effecient one with a glass door etc... which will be able to sit to one side of the cogg so that it gets seen - the builders have cleaned it out and it would make a nice little trinket shelf 🙂 Then the old preserving pan can sit the other side of it as our coal bucket etc... and it will look nice and rustic in a sarah and Al type of way 🙂 but for now it will have to go back into hiding.

A bit of a Catch up (by sarah)

As some of you may have noticed there hasn't been any blogging in Feburary - this was due to building work on the Bakery resulting in no power and no internet but I have been writing the posts off line - I have just sent them all live from the McDonalds in Stroud who turn out to have free Wiifi 🙂 I think I have just become a champion of drinking coffee very very slowely!

I will now endeverour to read about 1000 or so emials that have been waiting for me - also I abviously haven't been checking face book or anything. I have just a bit of work to catch up on here 🙂

Help Appreciated (by sarah)

Seth and Ella have been helping us clear out the upstairs of our house - unfortunatly becuase my back and pelvis started acting up as I tried to do a lot of the packing up and clearing myself at the weekend and stuff.

Also Alaric has had to work and so with me being stuck in bed for the first part of today not as much as could have been done was :/

Thanks anyway guys.

Bad News From the Electrician (by sarah)

Well the Electrician came along today and said that he can't just do the extra bits down stairs that I wanted - ie more power points etc... the lighting and everything is in a right mess as it is the old rubber insulated wires from the 50-60's so thats all the lighting and the upstairs of the house that have to be done 🙁 The whole lot obviously isnt covered by the insurance and comes too £2100 which I obviously dont have plus I'm not happy as I have no why of really varyfying all of this - he also said that the house isn't earthed properlly which is something had been suspected previously.

I only have £700 as well so if it does all need doing I'm not sure where I'm going to find the rest. The bedroom definatly needs doing though as the light has stopped working and kills any lightbulb thats put into it :/

Also upstairs is obviously pretty packed as it has all the things that where on shelves and stuff downstairs that where whisked upstairs and have since been turned over several times to find things - this all has to shift along with half the furniture :/ Not entirely sure how I'm going to organise all of this now.

edit: upon Als return home the electrician changed his mind about the office having to be touched as it was converted in the 1980's and so is sort of fine - this dropped the price by about half.

Kitchen Say Bye-Bye! (by sarah)

Over half the kitchen is now ripped out!

This means we get to see the stones and pipes that where previously hidden - some repointing is unfortunatly needed here as there is a bit of a crack and stuff here.

This is where the wall cupboards where ripped out and it was thick with black congelled cobwebs and others horrors that lurked in the strange little cavity we found!

The bottom step and half the kitchen still need to come out but we are definatly making progress here 🙂