And We're Off...

Above: Peter ceremonially turning the first sod before the diggers got to work...

The diggers arrived yesterday and were poised to commence digging as soon as the building permit came through and the bank rubber stamped the contract. So, all was good and today, after 3 and a half years of preparation, we finally broke ground.

Addendum 1:

Here are some photos and videos after the excavation has been completed, and filled in with compacted building sand ready for piling and concreting. The pad for the manor house is 36m x 22m. The pads for the carriage house and chapel are being excavated in a few weeks.

Addendum 2: 

The digger with a large auger boring holes for the piles to go into...

All the piles placed in the holes...

The piles all sawn off at the same levels...

Addendum 3: Concrete poured around edge of site ready to start constructing the concrete and iron foundations...

 

Willowbrook Winter...

Sorry about the silence, but I have been back home in NZ enjoying time with Peter and looking over the changes at WBP. It definitely was a change in clime going from Dubbo, wear I am still wearing shorts and a T-shirt to Hamilton, where I was rugged up with multiple shirts, vests, jerseys and coats! Winter had arrived well ahead of me, and with it some glorious frosty photos...

 Above: A weeping birch on the banks of the lake

Below: A frosted hillock behind the lake

These were taken at 10am, and the frost still had not melted!

Below: The Dietes grandiflora waiting to be planted alongside the well overgrown brook. You can't even see the water for the long grass...

Below: The orchard, still with some morning frost.

  Which cleared over the course of the morning...

Below: Looking towards the hedge we planted two years ago.

The first half of the vineyard...

The last rose of Summer on a background of Winter Hornbeam...

Below: The Bluebell Walk down towards the lake. The Silver Birch have grown from three feet high three years ago to almost twelve feet. The bluebells and hyacinths have yet to come up through the mulch. Something to look forward to in October/September.

 
The view from the carriage house site (where they have already put the power on ready start construction in the next week or two)...

The gate with signage to the farm, where the leiland hedge is doing well. We are not going to let it grow any taller than it is at present. There is a clump of daffodils which comes up around the base of the sign each spring.

So, all poised to finally begin. I will believe it once the first sod has been turned as we have had so many set backs over the past two years with red tape, professional exams, and weather. However, it has turned out for the best, as we have had time to tweak plans, find the best builders and craftsmen, and let the gardens become established so as not to have a large house on a bare plot of land. I now wait with baited breath for the diggers to roll on in.

Patience is a Virtue..

Titian - Sisyphus

Some days I don't know why I bother to get out of bed. It seems obvious that my day will be spent, much like Sisyphus, struggling uphill with a metaphorical bolder (which is just as burdensome as a literal one) only to have it roll down again. Do you ever feel like you are struggling uphill, and what adds insult to exasperation, is that commonsense appears to ironically scarce?

I am reminded of an incident a year or two ago, when I went in to a bank in St Ives in Cornwall with a friend. We were on holiday and wished to withdraw some ready money. My friend handed over his passbook and a correctly completed withdrawal form, but the teller was insistent that he could not withdraw any money because the computer said that his passbook was still in the post. The fact that said book was on the counter in front of her did not seem to matter, because the computer was telling her that it ought not to have arrived yet! This is the level of frustrating absurdity that One is having to trudge through at present with resource consents, building permits, environmental assessment reports, traffic analyses, geotechnical disagreements, and cruelest of all: budget over runs.

Having [hopefully] sold our house, we now have four months in which to get these problems solved. If not the build will need to be postponed further. Sadly, I fear the latter may be the most likely situation.

Still, one tries to remain cheerful. At least the gardens are coming along nicely and the animals don't seem to give a tinker's. My task for this week is to install the irrigation system in the potager garden (update to follow), and to build a farrowing pen for our sows, all three of which appear to be well gravid.

Alexandre Denis Abel de Pujol - Sisyphus