The summer has come and gone and, with it, the 4x4s, crowded lanes, supermarket delivery vans and restaurants with waiting lists. At a blink, we head into the second half of our first year in Cornwall and I must admit to no small sense of trepidation. The next 6 months will see Delamere really take shape but I am very conscious that this also means the likely chaos of multiple tradespeople working across each other as kitchen & bathroom fitters, heating engineers, tilers, plasterers and decorators all trip over one another!
We’ve spent much of the last 2 months visiting the family, starting with my Mum’s 90th birthday celebrations in N Ireland and finishing up with a lovely weekend with the girls in London, sampling all the joys of life in the “big city”. Must say, I feel a certain pang of nostalgia for the ease at which we used to be able to get together. There’s no doubt that the move to Cornwall with only a summer schedule of flights from Newquay is going to make it harder. Oh how I miss the frequency of flights from Liverpool or Manchester – and trains from Crewe!
As soon as we got back, we headed for Sennen, excited to see what had been happening on site. When we left, the blockwork was well out of the ground with a solid concrete base marking out the floors. Progress has been slower that we’d expected, however. The lag times for materials, combined with labour shortages and rising prices is starting to bite.
- Concrete lintels that were due to be delivered mid-August still haven’t arrived.
- The budget for steels has gone up 50% and the timber we need for the first floor and roof trusses is in short supply.
- The high water table continues to cause much scratching of heads. How will we get rid of the overflow from any potential “once in a century” downpour if the ground can’t soak up any more? (Recognising the very real issues of climate change, we have to presume those downpours WILL happen and much more frequently than once a century.)
But we have clear walls, emerging apertures for doors and windows and I was even able to lie down on our new bedroom floor to prove that what appears to be a tiny space will, indeed, accommodate a double bed with room to spare!
So …. slow progress it may be but progress is progress nonetheless.
31st August 2021
Building 'Delamere' 