Retrospective Blog 1/3 - Halloween

We planted the seeds, grew two impressively healthy pumpkins after a couple of false starts, hollowed them out and made tasty if rather surprisingly spicy soup. Then I managed to make this with the help of a template from the interwebs (you didn't think I was that artistic did you?).

 

Not bad for a couple of seeds!

Assassin's Trousers

We need to find a shop that sells Assassin's Trousers. It's amazing to discover just how noisy a normal pair of trousers can be. Jeans, chinos, it doesn't matter - they’re all equally loud.

If you don’t believe me, try the following experiment. Get a small 18 month old child that is teething (parents of young children might be able to see where this is going). Place said child in a cot where you hope desperately that it will spend an hour or two catching up on the sleep it is so sorely missing. Sit next to child making shushing noises, patting it fitfully and (if you're brave) singing old McDonald until you run out of sensible animals. For this purpose lions are quite normal farmyard animals. However I can't quite decide what noise a gnu makes so that’s where the line gets drawn.

At some point you should find you’re in the enviable position of sitting in silence next to a rumpled ball of sleeping toddler. At last! Enjoy the moment. Soak in the calm after the storm of tears and tantrums and cries of ‘teef’, ‘teef’ with one hand in a dribbly mouth (theirs, not yours).

Now try to stand up. In silence. Without waking the baby.

If your child is like ours, teething sleep is not deep. The slightest noise that suggests that Comforting Parent is about to leave will wake them instantly. Shushing, patting and Old McDonald’s entire menagerie will be required all over again. The fear can keep a sane parent rooted to the spot for hours, wondering if it might be easier to sleep right there next to the bed. Even though it's actually 10am. But no, it’s time to go and let them rest.

It’s only when you're praying for the absolutely silent exit to the safety of the front room (and a stiff drink, 10am be damned) that you’ll discover that everyday sorts of trousers are surprisingly, distressingly noisy. That first moment of straightening your legs in preparation for a tip-toed dance to the exit is a symphony of strange little noises that you never knew simple material could make. One hurried step could return you both back to square one.

That’s where assassin’s trousers come in. They must have them. Trousers for assassins. Surely the need to be able to creep around without a noise must have led to advances in silent trouser technology? Especially if your professional career (and indeed life) depend on it?

So where can I buy a pair? I’m only asking because I've been stuck here next to the cot for three days now and the supply of rusks has run out

Sunshine - in Spots

 

I've heard a few people comment on the 'terrible' summer we've had. The flowers, fruit, vegetables and (ahem) nettles disagree. So do I. It's certainly been unpredictable - the barbecues we promised never quite materialised. But in between the unscheduled showers it's been rather good. So long as we've been happy to take opportunities when they come, we've had some lovely days out and about in Cambridgeshire. From Milton Maize Maze to Wimpole Hall, from Denny Abbey to the Big Weekend Parker's Piece, the rain has held off and a good time (and ice-cream) has been had by all. That's ignoring the easy trips to the park, the local paddling pool and up to the river to watch the boats.

All in all, it's been rather a good summer. We could have done without a couple of colds and it would have nice to be building a house but it's hard to worry about these things when you're taking it easy outside.

 

Here are some late pickings from the garden - potatoes, plums, broccoli, raspberries and eggs. That's pretty much a meal all in itself.

Stud Locator

We're doing a little bit of re-organisation in the caravan. Will has been in a proper bed for some time and Becky is ready to do the same. They're on holiday with their mum and grandparents in Scotland right now, sharing a bedroom and loving it. They go to bed full of giggles and chatting to each other until sleep overtakes them.

I, on the other hand, am in the caravan with a bunch of 3x2", a saw and a couple of sheets of MDF. Whilst the rest of the family enjoy their holiday I'm moving bedrooms around so that the kids can share a room at home.

To help the job, and in the vague hope that I could avoid drilling through a mains cable, I bought a stud locator. So far with relatively thin caravan walls it appears to work well so I'm happy with my purchase.

Except...

Except when I got it I carefully put it away so the kids wouldn't find it and wreck it. Now I can't find it. I would see if I could buy a stud locator locator, but I'm afraid I might loose it.

Unrelated Note

We are just watching the Kaiser Chiefs playing T in the Park on TV, with the same stage set as we saw them last year. The small screen does live events like that no justice whatsoever, but is a fantastic reminder of what a stunning gig they played.

I suppose that's not really on topic for a house-builder, gardening, family blog - but staying on topic was never a strong point. Besides, variety is the spice of life.

Good Weather For...

..strawberries the size of cars! Seriously, they're huge.

If you're waiting for news about our latest planning application, so are we. We've gone past the eight week deadline with no news, which is disconcerting. It shouldn't really have any great significance other than giving us the automatic right to appeal if I understand the rule book correctly. Hopefully we'll find out what's happening next week.

Could This Be It?

Here's a quick impression of what our house could look like. It's drawn in Google's rather wonderful (and free) Sketchup software. The model is drawn from the plans we submitted to the planning department at the start of April. Now we must wait to see if these new plans are acceptable. We've put a fair amount of effort into discussing them with everyone and we're hopeful that we're on the right lines. Certainly we're pretty pleased with the response so far and we're very happy with the work of Michael, our architect, in turning our wish list into something that could become our home.

Thorough Repurposing

 

We had a shed (one of many), about 6' x 4' tucked into a corner by the outside toilet. It had clearly been there a few years and was happily rotting away, roofless and sagging in the bottom.

Today's weather has been fantastic, so I've been busy with a saw and my handy bucket of nails. The shed is a shed no longer, and we have a coldframe to get our seeds off to a good start for the summer. The lid is a door from an old server cabinet. Putting it together was quicker and easier than going out and buying a shiny new one, and a lot more satisfying. If I could conjour up a greenhouse as well I'd be a happy man.

Now we've got to get on with some planting.

William Loves to do Jigsaws

Though he gets a little distracted by Balamory (at 1min 5sec), which was on in the background to keep Becky amused whilst he was being busy. The editing is a bit basic, but we love this video.

The Appeal Decision

After a very long wait (fourteen months from first submitting our appeal), we have an answer.

Not a good answer.

We cannot build the house as designed - it's as simple as that. Whilst we were braced for bad news, our internal optimists were hoping that this would be the point that we could actually start actually building a house. It would have been a cause for much celebration but instead we had a week of upset, stress and (just to keep us busy) teething and colds for the children. It really was a low point, not only for our self-build but also in our lives.

Still, we're not ones for wallowing in misery, snot and calpol for very long, so now it's time to put all that we've learned into fresh plans.

We've always said that the main goal of the appeal was to clarify where we stood. Even a refusal would leave us with a set of clear and consistent guidelines for planning a house. Getting such guidelines from the local planning department is difficult because as a lone self-builder your project has a very low priority and details get forgotten between the sporadic meetings you can arrange with the planning officer. Our experience was that in having pre-planning meetings we would submit a design, the planner would suggest a change, we'd make the change and submit it, they'd suggest another change and so on. The design became ever more complicated without actually getting to a point where it was likely to receive permission. The lessons learned are that meetings must be regular to keep the end goal fresh in everyone's mind and that if a design has to be changed it must remain simple or change completely rather than accumulating 'tweaks'.

The actual ruling lists twelve points where the appeals officer felt that the concerns of the planners were justified. In the last few years, we've had plenty of time to think about what we wanted from a home and that has changed a little more since we've had children. Living on the site has also given us an insight into how this location works, from light and seasonal weather to views and access. So, we've taken all of these things and re-written our requirements. The end result is two sides of A4 listing the bare minimum we need, things that would be nice to have, things that we want to avoid and some aims to ensure that the new design might get approval.

We'll be taking those requirements to our architect and giving him free reign to come up with a home for us. Suddenly it's exciting again.

The Appeal

The memory of our appeal that will probably stick with me the longest occurred when we were all standing on site in the rough place the house would be built. My parents had come round for the day to look after the children and when we arrived for the site visit, had spirited them away to look at the boats and throw small objects at the ducks. The inspection took ages, so they returned just as we were positioning ourselves to work out where the house would sit. William staggered directly towards us, his woolly hat pulled down so low over his head that only his nose and enormous grin showed. With his arms out wide so he wouldn't bump into anything, he joyfully shouted out "Daddy!", gave me a big hug, shook our planning consultant's hand and staggered on to the caravan for a juice. After a long morning of earnest discussion, it was a bright ray of sunlight.

The meeting itself was hard to judge. It started at 10am at the council offices with the usual suspects - the inspector, our planning advisor and architect, the council planner, 'Ness and I in attendance. Surprising by their absence were the actual planning officer who has been in charge of the case, and the conservation officer who can (and did) object to our plans as they are in the curtilage of the barn (never get involved in listed buildings if you want quick results). Surprising by their presence were one of our neighbours who had completely independently decided to come along and support us, and our local councillor who said he wanted to present the case of the parish council (who've basically echoed the planners' objections to our designs).

The meeting lasted three hours, then we spent two and a half hours wandering round the countryside looking at the site from various vantage points. The inspector took reams of notes and then called an end to proceedings. We feel we made a solid case and came across as professional and sincere in our aims. After the event, it's hard not to think of various points we should have made, but that's how these things go. Unfortunately, however good our arguments may have been, it comes down to the interpretation of the local and national Planning Policy documents, and specifically whether the appeals officer thinks our house would 'harm the character of the area'. It'll also depend how critically he considers the various arguments made as the planner was adamant that our house would cause catastrophic damage to the countryside. We will apparently find out in five weeks' time from the meeting, so mid January. The inspector was completely poker faced (as he's meant to be) so we have no idea whether we'll 'win' or not.

In fact, as we've explained to various family and friends, we are not dependent on having the appeal upheld. Our aim has always been to produce a house that best suits the plot and whilst we're fairly convinced that the design we've produced is an excellent match, it's certainly not the only house that would work very well on the plot. So why appeal? Why not just submit a different design if the planners aren't keen on this one? The issue is that we have been told so many things that the planning department don't want to see that it's hard to imagine what they would approve. We have very little confidence that we could come up with any alternative design that would receive any more favour than the current one. We hope that even if the appeal is rejected, we shall at least come away with a set of concrete guidelines that we can use to inform a new design. An appeal should at the very least clear the tables and allow us to come up with a new plan that suits everyone's needs.