36. We have a bath

The last couple of months have been extremely busy, we've had lots of visitors. We didn't manage to get the new gas cooker working. Even though we'd explained the logistics of getting here etc we were assured a gas engineer would visit. We had a telephone call from the gas engineer himself to say that no way would that happen. So because of that Rich decided to push forward with the Rayburn. He worked really hard, we ended up having to remove a large brick from the chimney wall in the kitchen to allow us to get the right angle on the flue to connect it to the chimney on the Rayburn.

We bought a new bath and put it in a temporary position upstairs in the house. A few days ago I lit the Rayburn in order to heat water to have a bath. So as not to waste the heat I cooked pasta, tomato soup and a loaf of bread while I was waiting. After about 4 hours I'd got the heat up enough to have a bath. What a heavenly moment, it's been a dream for so long. Rich had secretly bought me a jasmine bath bomb from Lush which was a lovely surprise. Lying in the warm bath, hearing the wind blowing outside and the rain hitting the roof lights was a momentous experience. It was worth the wait (almost!)

We've also got the solar panels up and running, they've been fantastic and we can't believe the difference they've made to the amount of electricity we get in. We've been amazed, as soon as its light they start working and in no time at all they're dumping. Our next move is to get them to dump the excess power into the hot water tank, that way we'll have even more hot water.

I've continued weeding the garden and polytunnel. The onions and potatoes are ready to be lifted, hopefully we'll find time over the next week. The shallots are also ready and I've got 2 big bottles of vinegar to pickle them in. Rich is planning on making some rowan jelly, we've an abundance of berries as there's so many rowan trees.
It does feel that we're finally starting to get somewhere, being able to have a bath has really helped. Once our last visitors have left we aim to go full speed ahead with the cabin. We need to get as much done as we can in the autumn before winter arrives.We also need to get a lot more wood put away.