Drains and paths

Today we've been out on the kayaks on a perfect, flat calm, November day. It wasn't like that yesterday when Angus was digging out paths and drainways around the outside of the extension.
It was cold, sleety and windy all day - and all day he worked alone, with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Rather him than me. At the gable end of the building he was working less than a metre away from the stump of a big Sitka, down in the mud cutting through massive roots with a handsaw.

Having dug it all out, he connected up some rainwater drains and began to fill it in again with hardcore. The next stage is to cover all that with a layer of concrete and then grey Indian Sandstone slabs bedded in mortar.

For the first time we can begin to see how the building will sit in its surroundings.  The levels and layout near the main gate are still unclear (or, more accurately, they are clear to the builder, clear to us and clear to the architect, but with three different clarities...) Nonetheless, we expect that to be resolved at a site meeting on Tuesday.

Progress indoors has been slow over the past few days for a variety of reasons. Once again, we are told that next week will be all action. There's certainly going to be plenty of exciting stuff coming up sometime soon.