Well it finally happened. The studio got built. It’s much bigger than I thought. More like a wooden cathedral really. It needs painting inside and out now which will be quite a job before we can put all of Dawn’s materials in there which are all in boxes all over the house. The grass at the front has also sprouted in this week’s sun.along with the wild flowers we interspersed it with.
But I think the soil we’ve used at the back is sub soil and as such. very poor. I think it needs a long term attention to get it really fertile with coir, soil improver (free from the local council) and compost. It’s so sandy that water just drains away. It needs some water-retaining fibre.Can’t hurry these things though. It’ll take at least a couple of seasons.
Dawn is planning a patio, a tree, creating pathways around the garden and some raised beds which I can access but she’s got all the painting to do first. I wish I could do more.
We got a really good joiner to put the studio up and we were lucky in that respect. It makes such a difference when you get someone who really knows their craft. That’s why we were careful not to get anyone on the cheap. It saves money in the long run. The trouble is there’s so many people who just try to bluff their way through and you end up with it being done shoddily.
Establishing a network of good people is an important part of life, especially in a small town. You often find that all the good people know each other and recommend each other. The Scottish Water guy recommended the best company to unblock a difficult drain. So we’re building a network, we’ve got to get the MOT and car serviced next month so we’ll find the best for that. The joiner recommended a painter and an electrician. Once you get along with one, lots of others follow.
I have to dissuade Dawn from doing everything.’I can do that,’ she says when we were discussing getting the house painted. Obviously she could but it's all a lot of effort for a 64 year old woman to have to make. She’s slow to accept her limitations. The only thing she won’t touch is electrics and electricity because you’ve got to know what you’re doing, you can’t just busk it, which is her usual mode.
The hot weather hasn’t been too bad here. It got to 24 in midweek but nothing too extreme. The winds off the sea often take the edge of the heat. It just feels like a normal summer. We feel very separate from the south-east of Eng;and which feels like a foreign country in many ways
