It's all about the floor...with a walk thrown in
Well, here we are in October; there's a definite change in the air - the leaves are falling, the days are shortening and Christmas seems to have appeared in all the supermarkets!!
We are still enjoying some lovely warm, sunny days and with the recent rain the fields are looking lush and green; it's hard to believe how quickly things have recovered from the summer drought when everything looked utterly parched only weeks ago.
Since my last post, our plasterer has now finished all he can do for now, which is great. The exterior door has been blocked up in the bathroom as well as part of the old window space - a smaller window has been installed here to create more wall space for the shower cubicle.
Jason has had the challenging task of making holes through some of the walls to make way for new electric cables and water pipes at floor level downstairs so that they can be in place before we finalise the floor.
We have both been busy tackling the floor level as per my last post, and we now have the levels down and have started laying sand before we can install the membrane and layer of insulation. We can't wait for the floor to be finished, but some jobs can't be rushed and this is certainly one of those! Teamwork makes the dream work and it's always very satisfying when the bubble sits bang on in the middle on the spirit level!
Saturday working means we treat ourselves to a mid morning coffee break in the sunshine with a cheeky biscuit!
The floor will continue to be our focus for now as we can't move forward with everything else that needs doing inside until that's completed - like installing the stairs!
My stack of Vinted purchases is growing with some lovely curtains and cushion covers - I'd quite like these for our own house!
If you read my last blog post, I mentioned we had missed out on a church pew for the new porch. Well we found another on Facebook Marketplace which is in good condition and only requires a little bit of TLC. We hotfooted it to Falmouth one evening after hitching up the horsebox for transportation - negotiating some narrow one way streets towing the horsebox was an interesting, breath holding experience! However, we were really pleased with it and it's now sitting in our own hallway for the moment until we get a bit more time to give it some attention. It will offer a nice place to ‘take a pew’ (sorry!) under the window in the porch to take off/put on your shoes.
A Walk to Sancreed Beacon...
Sundays are a bit sacred for making sure we get off the farm and away from the cottage in some way and try not to talk about building works for a day! Last Sunday offered us fine weather, and whilst Jason took off on his bike for a long ride I drove over to Sancreed, near Penzance, for a nice circular walk that gave me historic sites, wonderful far reaching views and quite wet feet walking through the fields!
I set off from Sancreed Beacon across fields and explored the three holy wells along the way - beside the wells there are often 'cloutie trees' which have pieces of ribbon or fabric tied to the branches which is a tradition that dates back to pre-Christian times. It is thought that the fabric dipped in the well and hung on the sacred tree would heal an ailment; as the fabric rots away so the illness would disappear.
The route of my walk also visited Carn Euny which is the site of the remains of an ancient village. The village is thought to have been occupied from the Iron Age until late Roman times, although there is evidence from excavations that there was activity here during the Neolithic period. Managed by the Cornwall Heritage Trust, it's a great place to explore and imagine how it would have looked with the stone houses. There is a 'fogou' which is a drystone underground passage that you can walk through - it's thought this may have been used for food storage or ceremonial purposes.
There were lots of stiles along this walk, some more designed for people with longer legs than me! As the walk climbed up through the fields the surrounding views were fabulous on such a clear day - you could see across to St Michael's Mount in one direction and to Ding Dong Mine in the other. The heather was all finished, but would have looked stunning in full bloom perhaps a month or two ago.
It was a lovely, peaceful walk - hardly saw a soul and stopped for quite some time near Caer Bran to watch and listen to a pair of nearby choughs. You often hear them before you see them with their distinct cry, but to observe them quietly close by was a real treat. Thankfully choughs are now a common sight on our walks, particularly along the coastline - always good to see a conservation project be so successful.
(Image credit: RSPB)
My walk ended going over the top of Sancreed Beacon where two bronze age barrows sit on the summit. The “beacon”, a fire lit on the hill to send a message to the next beacon and so on to London, would have been lit as a warning of invasion, for example during the Napoleonic wars.
Overall a most enjoyable walk in the October sunshine. I followed a route on the iWalkCornwall app, which I would recommend for lots of great circular walks in Cornwall. The app prompts you around the walk via your phone and also gives you interesting information along the way - to date it has never let us down or got us lost!
I hope you've enjoyed joining me on my walk and if you've got this far thanks for reading!
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Until next time you'll probably find us working on the floor!
Best wishes
Tanya