Sunday 25 October 2015

Autumn Longevity

We've had a weekend of not doing a lot, which has been pleasant, while Jenny and Philip visited. The garden, which we had a chance to wander round without task, is holding up really well to autumn: I think more so this year than many, as a lot of things are later, and unstressed by a cool damp summer and mild autumn. It's nice, though.

Thursday 22 October 2015

Leafmould

A day off for me, and along list of bits done. I've repaired the latch on the door into the utility room (wasn't staying shut); got to the bottom of the inaccessible CCTV (I hope); fixed a problem on the LAN (invisible switch due to mismatched subnet address, which seems to have been causing access points to drop out); constructed a threshold step into the preservatory, now that we're more certain about plans to enclose the porch (more on that later); and plasterboarded above the windows on the front wall of the preservatory (including some roof-space insulation). These last two tasks should make the room considerably less draughty, which is important as the autumn proceeds.

On my way home from taking Liz to work, I also collected five big bags of leaves, which will get stowed away somewhere for a year or two, to become lovely, marvellous leafmould.

Sunday 18 October 2015

Pictures, Plastering, Planning

I've had a three-day weekend (Liz was working on Friday), although in some ways it's not been the most productive, for being longer. Friday was a rather unsatisfactory day, as I struggled to make progress with one of the main planned jobs—getting the CCTV up and running properly. The external camera system's not been working quite as intended. The footage is recorded (a little too zealously, so I could do with tweaking the motion sensitivity), and I can monitor it from anywhere in the world via the wonders of the internet. However, I can't see previously recorded footage, only live: which isn't much good for when I want to know why the house alarm's gone off. Anyway, I've got not further with that, and am still only able to see recorded footage locally.

However, I did get further with other things. I've made a trip to the tip/scrap metal place with a load of rubbish, which has improved the situation on the drive and in the preservatory. Our new bike rack has arrived, so I've assembled it and attached it to the car. I've also finally got round to installing the network switch, which means that all the ethernet sockets are now live. That, in turn, has meant I've been able to install the two IP cameras, meaning I can check in on the cats while away from the house...well, that's one benefit.

Saturday was a long, but much more satisfactory day. I've sorted out the satellite cable where it comes into the sitting room, wiring it into the same patch socket as the three data sockets behind the TV unit, which is much neater. I've also gun foamed all the gaps and holes in the plasterboard in the sitting room and dining room, which has meant Liz has been able to finish plastering them both.

While she did so, I tidied up the kitchen plasterboard: tweaking how it's sat behind the radiator, filling holes and gaps with more foam, and preparing the tricky area between the doors where the light-switches go. We've then plastered the room, between us: Liz getting it onto the wall, and I've gone along behind her, smoothing it to match the other plaster in the room. It looks comparable, actually, which is a relief.

Marmite was deeply unimpressed, but I added some pawprints: she, like Domino and Chess, is now immortalized on the wall.

Today's been easier-going. We went to Samuel's christening, which took us out until mid-afternoon. When we got home, I racked the wine into demijohns, and have barrelled the batch of beer I started in July. It's meant to only take ten days, or so, to ferment...but it always takes more like ten weeks. Never mind. It's now in a barrel, in the cellar, and should be ready to drink in a week or two.

The last task has been planning our long-intended curtain for the gable end of the dining room. The wall's a nice stone wall, against which one of our mirrors looks good, and we didn't want to lose this when we insulated. Instead, the insulation is, technically, removable, so in theory every spring we can take it down and have a stone wall once more. Whether we bother remains to be seen. However, for the months where the insulation is up, we want to hang a curtain, and we've come up with an ivy-leaf design we plan to make. Just need to order some fabric, and we can give it a try in a couple of weeks.

Sunday 11 October 2015

Late Cuttings

The newly repaired intelligent water heater arrived back this morning from its circuit board transplant. We got it reinstalled as early as we could, and it was up and running again by lunchtime. Not clear, yet, what went wrong with it, but hopefully the manufacturer will get to the bottom of that after testing.

The accumulator tank's lost heat, obviously, in a week of not being heated, but will hopefully be back up to operating temperatures within a few days.

We've spent a lot of the rest of the weekend in the garden, keeping it looking as good as possible for the rest of the season. I've mown and edged the lawn: it's growing really slowly, now, but still looks neater after it's mown. There was less than one hopper full of clippings, whereas it can be nearly five when it's growing at full speed—that's for a weekly cut. Liz has managed to weed practically the entire garden this weekend, another testament to how much slower things grow (and germinate) at this point in the year. I've taken a large number of cuttings: lots of achillea (the Cassis mix, the white, Inca Gold, and Lemon from the colour wheel and herb garden), more Verbena bonariensis
, another clutch of agryanthemum stems (which root in water, before potting them up), sage, box, and fuchsias—the unnamed ones in the front garden and in the long border, as well as Army Nurse, Hawkshead, and Delta's Sarah. I'm trying to get some layers of the Virginia Creeper (in full, fiery splendour at the moment, over the front of the house) to take, as well, though they're a slow affair. I've also divided a number of perennials, ready to pass on to a friend of Liz's who has a new border to fill: the variegated Gardener's Garters grass, the Golden Alexander lysimachia, three heucheras, and (these are seedlings potted up) sweet rocket, aquilegia, catananche, gaura, and wild strawberries. They await collection next week, with some cuttings, and spring-divided perennials, to follow next year.
Liz has spent some of this afternoon plastering the front wall of the sitting room, which looks much better. We're trying to get all of the downstairs plastering finished in the next few weeks, so we can also paint before the Christmas decorations go up. That's partly so it looks better for the six weeks the house will be decorated...and partly because we then won't be able to do any plastering or painting downstairs until mid January.

In between things, I also collected as many elderberries as I could—which isn't many. It doesn't look like a great year for them: most of the corymbs didn't have a high proportion of set berries, and they weren't as plump as they often are. Still: I bulked them (1.8kg) up to 3kg of fruit with some frozen blackberries, and have set off a 2 gallon batch of wine: fruit, boiling water, nutrient. Pectolase before I go to bed, and then yeast tomorrow. On Thursday (or maybe Friday), I'll strain onto sugar in two demijohns.

Sunday 4 October 2015

Tidying

I spent a fair bit of this morning trying to get to the bottom of why our intelligent solar-PV diverting water heater doesn't appear to be working. It seems to be a hardware fault, after a lot of diagnosing, and it'll have to go back to the manufacturer this Monday for repair. A real pain, but the company's been excellent in trying to resolve it, and the unit's under three years of parts & labour warranty, so it'll all be fine soon enough, I hope. And then we'll be back to having lots of hot water.

We're reinsulated the accumulator tank, which hasn't been properly returned to order since we installed the heating elements. That's meant reshaping the outer casing, and replacing the foam insulation I had to carve away in order to access the blanking plugs with expanding polyurethane foam. While I was messing around with the equipment, I've also cleaned (and fixed, in fact) the chimney exhaust fan, and swept the biomass chimney, as well as the sitting room chimney. The former needed it—the latter less so, but it's good to do every few months.

Having got the cables to the right position, and leading all the way back to the control unit on Wednesday, we've now mounted the external CCTV cameras, and positioned them to give us a good view of the outside of the house. I think they might need slight tweaking, but they seem about right.

Liz has undertaken a massive tidy-up while I've been so occupied, weeding all the fruit beds and cutting back the raspberries, cleaning the house, and weeding some of the ornamental beds. The garden's looking really good, even though it's October: so much so that actually there was no envy when we managed to get to Harlow Carr this afternoon. Our much smaller garden is, I think, stacking up well.