Decorating in Time for the Carpeting

I had thought of decorating the place myself but the more I have thought about it the less it has seemed sensible so we decided to have it painted by a proper painter - if one was available before 11th March when the carpets are due to be laid!  A tall order but a self inflicted situation.

The answer nowadays lies with local social media - Facebook and Twitter - on which I posted the following at 9am:

Is there a Settle area painter out there who could emulsion newly plastered (but fully dry)walls and ceilings of our extension before carpets go down on March 11th?

 — looking for recommendations

Within minutes suggestions and recommendations were being posted and I made a couple of phone calls.  One was a message left on a machine and the other was a real live but crackly voice.  Turned out he was on 'the tops' between Settle and Malham but the bottom line was "Be with you in 20 minutes".  He came, he saw, he quoted a very reasonable price and he has got the job.  Starts next Saturday!

If all goes to plan therefore we shall have the place decorated and carpeted within a fortnight.  Many a slip etc but the experience does show the huge usefulness of the internet at this late stage.

A weekend of clearing the decks beckons.

A Vital Ribblehead Lifeline

The Leeds-Settle-Carlisle railway 'boasts some of the least used and remote railway stations in the country - and the highest.  Its trains are sometimes overcrowded and at other times empty - or so it may seem.

Today snow-plough driver Thomas Beresford was at remote Ribblehead station at 0713 and filmed the two passengers boarding the train.  The train will be a life line for them, the only link to the outside world and employment probably.   By the time it gets to its destination, Leeds, it will be packed.  Be sure to turn your sound on and to shiver.

first train of the day at Ribblehead southbound

Note that the second passenger has just arrived by car and has to run for the train.  Fear not though the train waits for its scheduled departure time before moving off.  Trains can only run on time or late - never, ever, early.

Steel Subframe for the Wendy House Deck

Dealing with the weed and shrub strewn 'un-gardenable' embankment below the Wendy House meant that the existing decking that surrounded it had to go temporarily.  Now it is time to replace it with something more mechanically sound and attractive.  We hit on the idea of using the component parts of a very high but now redundant scaffolding tower which has served us well but has been replaced by a much lighter tower for occasional use only.

The idea is to set a row of 5 x 4ft long tower panels in a 20 ft line along the embankment into six concrete foundations and build upwards from that to form a deck level at approximately Wendy House floor level.

Given a break in the weather today I have been able to construct a temporary assemblage from which we can get accurate centres for the foundations and here it is:

The deck will rest on the second horizontal rail from the bottom.  Above that will be a 3.5m long Building Regs compliant* set of steel railings located above the 3.5m long wooden lath in the picture with scaffold tower 'wings' at each end which will embrace Wendy on three sides at the top of the embankment.

The scaffolding tower will be painted black probably to camouflage it somewhat.  Climbing plants will eventually hide it altogether.

* Building Regs as such do not apply to the Wendy House because of its size but for safety's sake it is good to take heed in view of the height involved.

Problems, Problems, Solutions, Solutions and Peace of Mind

The pressing needs of a nearing-completion building and Pat out of commission with her post-operation foot have meant that quite a list of serious, diagnosed, but unsolved problems has been building up.  None immense in the great scheme of things but cumulatively a big worry.  In order of occurrence:

1. THE RAINWATER HARVESTING (RWH) SYSTEM HAD STOPPED WORKING.  I have waxed eloquent here before about our disastrous choice of rainwater system - the Kingspan Envireau.  I ripped out and scrapped the Kingspan controls and replaced them with a far simpler system which had worked reliably until recently but then just stopped.  Particularly frustrating as the WC in the new extension was plumbed for harvested rainwater just as the wretched system broke so we re-plumbed it for mains water OR RWH water to enable it to work either way.  The symptoms and the gurglings suggested to me that a filter was blocked and sure enough that was it.  Filter unscrewed, cleared out of an awaful lot of gloop, re-assembled and voila!  Water bills halved once more.

2, THE FISHER AND PAYKEL FRIDGE FREEZER RE-INSTALLATION  WE had been given this amazing machine when Well House was sold and it has been 'stored' here in the open air for more than two years, suffering two freezing winters unused.  These F&P machines are horribly expensive and complicated.  Plugging it in produced and un-Googleable Fault Code F31 on the screen. Would it work?  How to re-install it?  Did we actually want it in view of its running costs in filters especially?  Meantime darling daughter Lorna had actually bought a new one for her kitchen in Gerrards (every other car's a BMW or above) Cross?  F&Ps are made in Australia or NZ and we wondered if there was a UK technician to be had. No problem it turned out.  Len from Halifax did the job in no time.  F31 was a new one even for Len - turned out to be a broken wire in a door hinge, soon soldered and insulated.  "How's your water here?" asked Len. "The very best" I replied. "No need for filters then" and he plumbed it in for direct supply for the ice maker and chilled water thingy.  F&P B.A.A.F. (see earlier posts) up and running perfectly.

3. THE TVS NEEDING RE-TUNING  Settle lies right on a local TV area boundary*.  Ours comes from Winter Hill in Lancashire so we cannot get Look North Yorkshire but we have come to terms with that.  Trouble is that the Winter Hill transmitter has just been reconfigured so retunes of every TV are needed.  Recent TVs (of which we have two) re-tune themselves but our kitchen TV is a 15 year old Samsung which would not have it,  Much Googling, YouTube-ing and swappings of remotes between Samsungs today cracked the problem.  Result.

4.  THE DUCKING FOG'S FOOT  Poor Bess, as reported here, has been wearing one of those comical conical collars to stop her disturbing her right rear foot to enable it to heal.  Today was C-Day for Bess.  Collar removed and dog very, very happy indeed.  No longer does she bump into things with a head twice as wide as it was.

* No real problem local news-wise as Sweet Fanny Adams newsworthy happens here most of the time.  An exception was last weekend when Settle was cut off by road because of the floods, which made it to the national news anyway.  Slightly annoying as the railway did not close, the Victorians knowing a thing or two about rivers and floods.

Settle Flooding Overnight

Settle's river Ribble did its worst from about 1030 last night with record high level at nearby Penny Bridge

The water tower is way above the river and we, like the railway line, were high and dry.  Trains this morning are running as normal.

Below is a video of Penny bridge last night - normally the Ribble here is very low indeed - water meandering around riverbed rocks in dry times.

https://www.facebook.com/JD1988/videos/10163236770690714/

Normal Service

  All these posts about sick dogs and handrails will have limited appeal so below is a stunning picture from Facebook today of Britain's newest (for now) steam locomotive Tornado at Selside with mount Pen y Ghent in the background competing for attention.  Mankind and the Lord Almighty in splendid juxtaposition.

A Very Pleasant Re-union and a Shower Rail

Pat's temporary limited mobility means that for safety we needed an extra grab-rail in the main shower room, courtesy of the NHS.  The actual fitting of the rail is done by a contractor and this morning fitter Melvin Clark came to fit it;

Got chatting to Melvin and it turned out we had a lot in common.  He had lived for a while at Crossgates in Leeds where I grew up.  He too had broken his neck as a result of a roof fall in a coal mine.  We exchanged war stories about broken necks and our respective survivals and conversation drifted to the subjects of coal mining - and policing of the coal miners strike.  

The police and miners found themselves in daily (or nightly) confrontations ranging from noisy stand-offs to outright bloody conflict.  Melvin had been a 100% striking miner.  My locus vivendi had been at various times most of the pits around West Yorkshire and one or two in  Nottinghamshire.  As the strike dragged on we then Superintendents gravitated to allocated pits and mine, week in week out, was Nostell.  This meant that you got to know 'your' pit, its facilities and problems.  In the case of Nostell it was a large brickworks right alongside the mine - a ready and fearsome source of ammunition.  Mercifully we were able to keep the lid on things and bricks were never thrown.  (They were though used to build a very fine wall across the pit's main entrance road (below) overnight one night, built by miners and demolished by police officers before the strike-breakers arrived for their shift in their armoured bus).

Would you believe it, Melvin too had been among the pickets at Nostell Colliery!  

We had a lengthy natter about those really bad days and nights - and ended up having a good old laugh - and a shaking of hands.

Funny old world.

Dog Bess is on the Sick List too

To add to the general medical woes Bess, the ducking fog, had the misfortune to rip off a rear right claw, which must be quite painful.  Off to the Dalehead Vets today to have the wallet lightened, examination, prescription of pills and a brand new hat for the d.f.:

She doesn't seem Besst pleased about it all.

Footnote*: after nearly a week Bess has come to terms with the fact that her head is about a foot wider than normal so she now bumps into fewer things. 
* or should that be Necknote?

Kitchen Finished

Key day yesterday with the kitchen tiling finished by wizard kitchen fitter Andy Escriett

Not only that the b.a.a.f., which had been in store for a couple of years was reinstalled by Fisher and Paykel engineer Len from Halifax.  I had worried that being stabled outdoors through two winters may have damaged it.  Anyway it is now fully installed and working with a couple of faults found and cleared.  Not only that, Len was able to arrange things so that water filters were eliminated from the iced water supply and the ice maker systems.  Our water in Settle is crystal clear and it is just not sensible to have filters in the system which will over time clog up with gunge through which drinking water must pass!

These fantastic fridge freezers and their filters are a bit like printers and their ink cartridges . . . expensive and short lived!

Storm Dennis is due this weekend.  Son-in-law Alan is flying in from New York overnight - or not as the case may be.  Once here he and the boys James and Ben are travelling here by train amidst the storm and pestilence.  Maybe.

A priority is to get the extension's furniture, which has been stored in various nooks and crannies round and about the tower, in place in the extension.

Electrics Finished. Fiat Lux

Electrician Steve Dinsdale was able to energise all eleven? electrical circuits this morning thanks to the modest excellence of my installation of lights, fire alarms and such.  And, of course the  thoroughness of his first-fix wiring.

I am about half way through installing the light fittings and jolly good they look too.  Quite deliberately we chose 600 mm square 48Watt LED ceiling panels for the main bright lights rather than those holes-in-the ceiling spotlights which would compromise the air tightness of the rooms.

So far the lounge, kitchen and one bedroom are lit.  Hopefully, the rest tomorrow.

The visual effect of these ceiling lights is like that of skylights shining a daylight-like light from above:

The wall lights and seated level lighting will have warm wavelengths and the bright ceiling lights have off-switches!

Oh yes, and bedroom #1 now has its sliding glass window wall:

Forgive the ton bags etc outside.  Temporary I assure you.

Storm Ciera

Storm Ciera has been with us all night but we have not heard a thing, low down and triple glazed behind the immense stone wall of the water tower but the driving rain is giving us a stern test.  No rain penetration anywhere happily.

The river Ribble on which Settle sits is prone to rapid risen and falls given its immense catchment area of the Yorkshire Dales.  The Met Office has just issued flood warnings for the Ribble through Settle, especially the area around Settle Bridge:

Fingers crossed for the people who live in that area, and at Mearbeck by the by-pass.  That by-pass, a boon to Settle in that much traffic was diverted, created a huge dam at Mearbeck, seen at the bottom of the map.  That leads to occasional flooding - today almost certainly.

This is Settle's Millennium Bridge this morning.  Queens Rock is well covered:

https://www.facebook.com/philip.lord2/videos/10221231156998229/

Just taken the ducking fog* for walkies (she obliged promptly) and returned home soaked.  Called by the station.  Northern did bravely attempt a normal service today but first train north had to turn back at Skipton.  Seems like local roads are impassable so Settle is in effect cut off just now.

*ducking fog - n. term of affection for canine companion.  Feline equivalent is cooking fat.

Is That Schuco?

We took delivery of the long awaited (our fault) sliding door/window for the main bedroom on Friday.  It will be fitted tomorrow, Monday, when we shall be fully and finally glazed and airtight.

The door was delivered by a three man team from Aire Valley Glass.  One of the men was older than the other two and he had tears in his eyes as he looked towards the south facing glazed screen wall of the original tower.  "Is that Schuco?" he asked.  I was bewildered and tempted to reply "No it's a water tower" but restrained myself.  He was meaning the actual glazing system of that screen wall. "Schuco!" he declared again. "That's Schuco glazing that is".

This was news to me but I was in no position to argue with him on that.  "If it is Schuco is that good or bad?" I asked.

"Good, good!" he exclaimed.  "The best!  You only see that on big posh buildings, skyscrapers and such" he said.

There we left it but I was intrigued so I later Googled Schuco and sure enough there it was - a very commercial glazing system indeed.  Hardly surprising perhaps having been supplied and fitted by 'Commercial' Systems International of Hull.  For completeness, Schuco has an umlaut over the u but Blogger and me don't do umlauts.  All that told me was that there is a Schuco glazing system out there but was ours Schuco?

Yesterday architect Stuart Green called round to see the near finished extension in all its glory so I asked him.  Was our glazing in that southern wall, roof room etc. Schuco?

It was.

Let There be Light - and Plants

A busy Saturday here in the run-up to storm Ciara tonight and tomorrow.  During the still before the storm our new embankment was planted with carefully chosen planting by no less than Andrew Lay of Settle's super-garden-centre lay of the Land.  Here is Andrew getting his hands dirty:

Above is the completed planting - inevitably unimpressive just yet but just wait.   Barely visible but definitely there are tiny rockery plants between some of the large boulders, including aubretia that will cascade downwards.  This really is an outward and visible sign of finishing touches.

Indoors was another milestone - the near completion of the second-fix electrics by electrician Steve Dinsdale.  Poor Steve has been off work for many weeks following a serious foot injury.  Bless, him he gave up his Saturday for a pre-return to full time work to get our electrics finished.  I had spent much of the past week fitting sockets and lights for Steve to inspect and test before anything could be made live.   Happy to report in all due modesty that my wiring was fine.  Excellent indeed.  All the power sockets are now live, so too the lighting circuits:

To cap it all, the second steam special of the season flew through Settle at 1608, bang on time with the Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express London Euston - Carlisle - London Euston, hauled by Royal Scot locomotive Scots Guardsman, seen here earlier in the afternoon near Armathwaite, just south of Carlisle:

See the real Scots guards in the link below parading through the streets of Glasgow after a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

https://youtu.be/JVxb2dXCXTY

So sad that such a large police presence, some no doubt armed, is required for soldiers on ceremonial occasions like this.  A stirring spectacle nonetheless.

What's It Like Near You? Now, Here's a Glorious Answer

People from 'away' often ask what the world looks like here in the Yorkshire Dales.  This superbly filmed video by the Yorkshire Dales National Park shows you.  Click on the link and enjoy

https://youtu.be/nT2sTUv2QmQ

The mountain shown in summer and winter at around 2 minutes is Pen y Ghent and we have super views of it from the water tower.

Somebody seems to have got a drone for Christmas but boy, have they put it to spectacularly good use!

I particularly like the very final scene of course.

Stairs Completed - and Look Spectacular

The lads from the Keighley firm of stair-manufacturers JRFabs Ltd paid a final visit today to do a few tail-end jobs on the external stairway such as making good the welds between sections of handrails and drilling five holes on the landing by the top entrance door so that water can drain away.

They certainly go the extra mile to make sure things look and are properly finished.  In this case they shifted the pile of stones that came out of the retaining wall below the stairs a) to get rid of the unsightly pile and b) to arrange them back loosely onto the retaining wall top so that builders Hopleys can cement them in place later.  Those handrails were in four or five pieces each welded together on site.  You simply cannot see or even feel the welded joints.  The stairs, landings and supports are complicated enough but those handrails are spectacularly impressive.  The dry stone wall backdrop really makes the picture complete.

Here then is the finished stairway - and mighty fine it all looks too:

When the rain-screen cladding is eventually in place this end of the building will be quite spectacular without being unduly showy.  Indeed it will look deliberately functional, as befits an adjunct to a water tower.

http://www.metalfabs.co.uk

Kitchen Installed and Bathroom Almost - and a Big Bunch of Flowers

The bathroom is bigger than the picture suggests and it is nearly there:

 I cannot get a picture of the entire kitchen but below is the south end of it, awaiting flooring, tiles and equipment but you begin to get the idea. there are two more windows to the right out of shot, one of full height:

 Here is the north end with the BAAF (see earlier post) on the left, then a pull-out tall unit, oven, cupboards and induction hob and hood.  No handles anywhere.  Ceiling wires await lights and heat alarm:

 This is the nearest we can get to a kitchen panorama, form the entry door:

 This lovely window overlooks the towers entrance lobby and then right through the tower towards the station.   It should make for a stunning visual centrepiece for the lounge:

Pat is still laid up as her foot mends.  Below is a beautiful vase of flowers that arrived by post from FoSCL people Douglas and Margaret Hodgins and Andrew and Rachel Griffiths, collectively on the accompanying good-wishes card "Your friends in the north":