Journey Map

A little bit from the mill... We had to back-burner it a little after the critical repairs were done, and while we were focusing on the house, but there has been a little movement. The upstairs floor has now been reinstated giving us vital storage area not only for things that are currently crammed into the caravan, but also for mountains of crap that will survive the purge when we move house. The preparations for that are currently underway and my next post will be about the

... and watching it dry... You voted, and we listened... here's the first small batch of the Red Ochre you asked for! But let me back up... Now that we are in the "painting and decorating" phase of the house refurbishment, it's only fair that we talk about paint. You may have seen from photos that we've limewashed the internal walls (and the exterior of the mill). Limewash is essentially lime and water and it's a very traditional finish for stonework, internally and externall

So we just spent all of Saturday pulling flax. It was only a small field, 10 x 10m I reckon. Flax has to be pulled by hand, roots and all. I didn’t think it would take as long as it did although I was prepared for it, knowing everything seems to take longer than I anticipate… We were pretty shattered by the end of it and my knuckles are still pretty sore today, Monday... For a couple of days, my body was in that stiff state that comes after one has spent a day doing something

Are you ready to hear our sob story? Typo intended... It has been nearly three years since the inception of this little project. Back in 2023 when we were putting the wetland in place, we asked the digger man to make a little rectangular dip in the ground for our foundation (in hindsight it ended up a little too deep). Then nothing happened for almost a year. It was our intention to hold a cob workshop at the first SPAB party but as no teacher was found at the time, this idea

Oh look! The yearly post!!! Sorry about the hiatus... We’ve been so busy with the refurbishment of our cottage and generally adulting at last, that I simply didn't have the time to post, put videos together or any of the stuff that I had originally resolved to do religiously. We dropped just about everything, including gardening, my original pastime while we were waiting for solicitors during the conveyancing era... the geodesic dome "gone with the wind" (storm Darragh follow

... since my last blog post. Ever since we embarked on the restoration of the house, it has been like working two full time jobs. I'm not...

What do we get up to during the break in the works, you ask? Well, before we even had time to recover from the works, we had a group of...

It's been nearly three weeks since last real construction work took place. We've just about recovered. But we can now report that the front wall is finished!!! The wall is actually a fairly complicated piece of construction. It contains two doors, a window and a bunch of holes for the joists to slot into, in time... it wouldn't be a stretch to say that there was a moment when those holes nearly didn't go in... And the cornerstones!!! I heard a lot of cornerstone jokes, corner

It's all about planning this week. As you know, we received our planning permission (another week before it's official) and we just sent...

Today marks two years since our very first visit to our mill (before it was our mill). I still remember the day so clearly! We knew there was a mill at the back of the site, but we could not see it and we could not visit on the day we first spoke to the then owner (he had a poorly animal at the back and didn't want to upset it). We chatted to him about our hunt for a mill to purchase and ambitions for restoring one. We asked if we could see it as we were, at the time, traveli

The boys and I have been coping well with van life. There are a few glitches along the way, like our running water stopped running,...

It's been an incredibly busy few weeks and our site is undergoing some significant changes. We have been able to move along with the...

It seems like it's news after news after news right now. Or am I just getting too excitable about everything??? But this news is better...

I may have mentioned I was making a post box one or two times on here. Well, it has been a 10 week undertaking, and it's not 100% but...

Look what we found at the mill! A stone bearing!!! We have it on good authority (Dr. Colin Rynne) that it is the only one known in...

Just wrapping up on the season's vegetation clearance. Over the course of February we did a little more ivy clearance in the kiln. There...

So we had a wonderful week with our visitors and we got lots done. But we also started to feel like spring was upon us because it had...

We’ve been a little quiet for a few weeks. Not because we haven’t been working, but because we’ve been working so hard getting ready for...

Last weekend was Chris' birthday weekend! So we decided to go to the mill for a change! Hahahahahaha! Nah, we're too predictable! We went...

We're bringing you a backlog video! It's very special to us! The achievement is on par with the prop building. Something we never thought...