Progress Report - 11 Months to the Day...

Today marks day 336 since we broke ground on the building project, and things are coming along nicely...

Above: A view across the lake to the building site.

Below: The same view 11 months ago.

Below: The view of the front side of the manor...

Below: View of the colonnade and developing carriage house. The columns are being cast for this side of the colonnade at the moment. You may notice the iron reinforcing bars sticking up from the outside of the colonnade curve, waiting for each column to arrive. The windows for the colonnade should arrive before the end of the winter..

During a lull in the block work the team started on the retaining wall for the raised cocktail lawn...

It gives balance to the composition, as seen below with the manor centre, the colonnades extending forwards  (right) and the raised lawn extending back (left).

Above and below: The footings of the wall being poured.

Below: view of lawn and footing from upstairs balcony.

Meanwhile inside the plasterers are hard at it putting a good inch of solid base plaster on all the upstairs walls...

You can see from the picture below, even the wooden framed internal walls upstairs have got at least 25mm of solid plaster over the top of the insulated timber framing, so far giving the walls a thickness of about 6 inches, prior to the top coat of plaster and paint going on...

Outside the park is looking decidedly wintery. The storms and rain have come, bringing a deluge - luckily most of the foundation work has been completed.

Above: The Bluebell Walk with the silver birches starting to thicken up in the trunks.

Below: There is a wealth of fungi around the park at the moment. I'm not sure what this type is, but it reminds me that we should get on and create our stumpery/mushroomery soon.

Above: The Nymphaeum from afar.

Below: The almonds in the Bois de Marie.

Below: The trench for the stormwater pipe from the courtyard to the site where the bridge will cross over the brook

Craggy Range Winery and our Hawkes Bay Mini-break...

When I was home Peter and I took a mini-break down to the Hawke's Bay. It is a lovely part of New Zealand, where I spent six months as a registrar in a large rural hospital in the middle of amazing wine country. I stayed in Havelock North, a very nice township, just 5 minutes down the road from several wineries, including  Craggy Range. It transpires that it was our builder who built Craggy Range winery! Here are some pictures of the winery...

Peter and I stayed with friends that run a B&B down there, and collected four wine barrels from The Mission Estate  winery to bring home for use at Willowbrook. There are a few ornamental uses we have thought of for them...

Peter also got a one-on-one lesson on how to prune our vines this winter from an expert who prunes the vines for Villa Maria, Church Road, and Esk Valley Estates among other prominent NZ Vineyards...

There are many methods for pruning a grapewine, but the method we will use and which Peter had lessons on is known as spur pruning. This allows one to have a permanent cordon (main vine). This is the traditional French style of pruning. It allows you to grow a nice thick, visually pleasing vine and simply prune back the newly grown spurs to this cordon each year. This is in contrast to cane renewal pruning, in which the best cane left on the trunk at the end of the season is selected to become the new cordon for the following year.

Above: Vines grown with a permanent cordon.

First you select the cane you wish to become your main cordon, prune it and tie it to your main wire...

We did this last year, and so this winter we will now start to spur prune. You need to trim the cordon so that it has about seven spurs on it (at most ten)... 

Each spur is pruned back to 2 buds above the main cordon...

Too many spurs = too many bunches of grapes, which dilutes the flavour and vigour of each bunch. Each spur should be about a hand space apart...

The finished product: a trunk with a permanent cordon going each way along the wire, each side having 7-10 spurs, 2 buds long... 

Update 29 June: putting Peter's pruning lesson into practice!

Above: Vineyard prior to pruning.

Below: After.

Finished product: a beautiful cordon... 

Deadwood...

The Dubbo Chronicles No. 15

Above: An old water pump on the outskirts of Dubbo.

The end of this month marks the half-way point of my exile to Dubbo. The experience so far has brought huge learning opportunities, unforeseen responsibilities and has forced growth as an emergency physician. At the same time it has expedited the progress of WBP.

I am flying home tomorrow to check on construction again, and to start on the first of two winter gardening projects to get the last of the planting for the park completed before spring. There is a little bit of tree transplantation to be done, and we have more trees and shrubs yet to arrive.

Peter has resigned his job at the Cathedral, and will be working full time at Willowbrook from the end of July. There will be much to do in late winter / early spring to get the estate ready for a summer opening; and until we are up and running and employing a small staff, it will keep him fully occupied.

The lighting arrived from the UK last week, so we will finally be able to position the fittings exactly on the walls, and to see them for the first time (having purchased everything on the internet, and not being exactly sure of how closely the delivered products will resemble the photographs (I am always a little nervous about buying things online).

We are starting to source the smaller items for the project, such as towels, bed linen, and bath robes, and having them monogrammed, along with leather folders and stationery, for the rooms.

Peter and Darin, our technical consultant, have already sourced the telephones and PABX system, and are looking into the security cameras, intercoms etc. The brief was 'unobtrusive state of the art'.

Meanwhile I have sourced all the remaining whiteware and small appliances including televisions, soundbars, and in-room espresso machines in Australia. I have shipped them back to NZ (where inexplicably the same items are 2-3 times the price).

One of the most pleasing finds recently was a set of three large cut glass urns with taps that will make splendid juice dispensers for the breakfast buffet or for functions. They blend modern function with period aesthetic...

I look forward to taking lots of photos this weekend which I will share on my return soon.

Spending a [Pretty] Penny...

One of the not so romantic but essential choices when building is the choice of lavatory. 

We looked at hundreds before settling on the Balterly Majestic (above). Unfortunately it was no longer in production, but luckily we managed to source seven in the UK and have them shipped to NZ. 

We had of course done the rounds at our local home depot store and the likes, and all the local plumbing suppliers, and could not find anything in NZ which fitted the bill. It had to be something which was classic without being dated,  but which would also appeal to guests with modern tastes. We searched a myriad of European manufacturers before narrowing our search down to:

1. The Canova Royale by Italian firm Catalano...

both the exposed option (above) and skirted BTW option (below)

2. The Retro Nouveau by English company Bagno Designs...

but decided the third option, The Balterley Majestic was was the one for us. 

We chose the back to wall pan with concealed cistern, and white soft close seat...

and have paired it with satin finish circular flush buttons on a rectangular plate...

 the other options for the flush system were raised buttons on rectangular plate...

separate buttons...

or rectangular buttons...

The satin finish has the option of having the plates powder coated in any colour we wish (so we will be able to co-ordinate with the gold and nickel bathrooms. 

 Above: Schematic of in-wall cisterns.

Below: Cisterns at WBP waiting to be covered over.