The Trouble with Rodents

A Renovation Journal

It’s been a couple of weeks since I wrote this journal. Not too much has happened so I’ll be able to smush it all into one post fairly easily. Basically, I’ve had a cold so I haven’t been feeling like doing much of anything!

I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. - J.R.R Tolkien, LOTR

Mice and Squirrels

It feels like we’re fighting a bit of a battle against the rodent population. We have mice under the floorboards and while the cat does a pretty good job of catching them when they show themselves he can’t get at them a lot of the time. I’ve been hearing one under our bedroom floor for weeks now but recently it found a hole up into the corner cupboard by my bed. There it proceeded to attack a bottle of hair oil and roll it around the floor of the cupboard all night. It sounded like someone was moving furniture! I put out a trap and caught that one but I can now hear its friend who will shortly be going the same way!

Apparently, this is their preferred brand of hair oil.

Last Wednesday BT came to fix our internet which has been playing up for the last few weeks. They ended up replacing the line to the telegraph pole because squirrels had chewed it. Honestly, not content with digging up all my tulip bulbs they’re after the internet too! They also gallop about in the roof over Emma’s bedroom and run about on the scaffolding which I’m sure they think we put there just for them. They’re a menace and there’s a huge population of them around here but they’re difficult to control. For now, we’ll be cutting back the tree so they can’t reach the phone line and blocking up holes so they can’t get into the roof.

The chewed phone line

Plastering the Estate Office Kitchen

The plasterer has been and the estate office kitchen now has a lovely new ceiling and all the walls are patched. The hardest bit for us was clearing everything out of the way so that he could get to work. Plastering is messy so you don’t want anything left out that can get splattered and we needed to get this done before the floors go down. I haven’t yet tried plastering myself. It seems quite tricky and not something I’m desperate to learn how to do. We’ve also found a plasterer who seems very reasonable and is available with a week or so notice. It seems much more efficient to just let him do his thing.

I’m getting excited about this space now. Just a couple more boring things to do like insulating under the floor and then we can get on with the fun stuff like painting and kitchen fitting.

Wisteria and Roses

When the rain finally stopped last week we had a few good days in the garden. It’s still very wet underfoot but when the sun shines it’s perfect pruning weather. And there’s always lots of that to do! I’ve taken loads of the rambling rose out of the mulberry tree where it was starting to strangle its host. It won’t flower now this year but at least I’ll be able to see what’s what with the mulberry tree and I’m sure it will recover in time. I was left with a huge pile of giant thorny branches that I spent a long time chopping up and stacking into neat piles. I might make a dry hedge with it if I can find a suitable spot.

We then went to work on the wisteria. This huge monster had pretty much devoured the gazebo and was quickly heading for the roof over Emma’s bedroom. It’s now all neat and back against the wall although this did involve me climbing a huge ladder. It’s very satisfying to have it done though and I spend a couple of minutes looking at it every day! We still have to uncover the gazebo but at least that’s not as high. Then of course I now have loads of wisteria trimmings to tidy up!

Before, during and after. We took off the right-hand side as it was running under the downpipe.

Last year. It was completely beautiful but there is a sitting area under there somewhere!

Rain and Where Does It Go

My goodness we’ve had some rain lately! James thinks I’m ridiculous because I worry so much about flooding. I like to monitor the level of the stream although, as he points out, it would have to rise by about 10 meters to reach the house!

The stream in the paddock needs careful monitoring ;-)

Whenever it rains here though there is always the slightly unnerving sound of running water. The gutters are mostly to blame and we’re working our way through those. We were up on the scaffolding the other day when the heavens opened and we got caught in the rain. Despite getting wet it was loads of fun to watch our new guttering work and see all the water head in the right direction. Very satisfying!

The other thing that causes loads of noise in the house though is the single-paned roof lights and velux-style windows. How these don’t leak is a mystery to me as they really look like they should but I keep checking and so far we’re all dry. I bought a moisture meter so I can check for damp bits and apart from the leak in the estate office (which is hopefully now fixed and drying out) we’re all good. We’ve started gradually replacing all the windows. It’s an expensive business and will take us quite some time but eventually, we will get there.

One window down, eleventy billion to go!

So, not a huge amount accomplished in two weeks but baby steps. I did also manage a lovely lunch in Whitchurch with my Mum and sister. I haven’t been out for lunch in ages so that was a real treat. Wishing you all a lovely dry week and I’ll be back with more news soon. I’ve got some plans and drawings back for the barn conversion so I’ll be sharing those with my paid subscribers very soon.

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