Now we know we have moved

Pete and Mike are in the house

The pace of these builders is hectic

Two days in and already they have erected five sections of a site security fence. They must be exhausted.

Sorting out postal redirection Irish style

We decided that we would not change our postal address. Too much hazzle and sure isn’t our post box only at the other side of the village. It will give us a good reason to walk up to the house each day and keep an eye on the building work.

As the postman was delivering post to a neighbour at our new location himself says “oh shall I catch him and tell him that we are now living here?”. Great idea says I and so off he goes to catch the postman.

No problem says postie, sure don’t I know where you are now, and I’ll be more than happy to drop off your post here in future.

Postal redirection sorted Irish style, no need to fill in pages and pages of forms.

Signed a contract with a builder!

Sheila writes...

Crazy or what but we’ve signed a contract with a builder. Although not crazy because we did actually want to sign a contract and get the work started. So, on Friday 12th October we met with our preferred builder and the architect and spent two hours working through a contract, called a Blue Form. There are 40 clauses in the contract – who knew – but all seemed reasonable. We negotiated over a few of them but no major stumbling blocks.

One interesting element was that there is a penalty clause if he doesn’t finish on time. However, the finishing date is 30th August. Quite a long build and to quote one local who we told it was taking 45 weeks replied with “bloody hell, what are you building?”. The builder seems a nice enough chap but sure we are only in week 1 of the project, plenty of time and opportunity to fall out.

Now onto phase two of the project which is interiors. Our next task is to make decisions on colour of walls, type and colour of flooring, what style and make of windows we would like and on and on and on. So much so that a white board has come into play.

Location of the rental

The white board is proudly sitting in the kitchen full of decision that we need to make in a timely manner, so the builder can keep to the schedule. If we delay him and the project is delayed the penalty clauses will not be applicable.

Another upside to the long build is that the rental house is so big we feel we are in luxury accommodation. That’s not to say it is very glam or anything, but it is officially classified & marketed as a five-bedroom house with two bathrooms. So much room in fact that himself and myself can spend hours apart and still be in the same house.

No 6 Tithe Saoire Na Cluanite

Project flit

Today we vacate Carrigeen in preparation for handing over the site to the builder tomorrow who is going to transform our home.

So, a little over two years since getting possession of the house and moving all our stuff from France, we are emptying it out and may well be gone for a year.

The builder has a 45 week schedule, and even though the schedule includes a handsome contingency for bad weather, we'd be optimistic to believe it will happen to plan.

The "flit" is just 1km to a house we have rented at the other end of Ballyferriter. In this way we will keep some continuity with our engagement with the local community and be handy to keep an eye on the works.

Watch this space.

The day we shook hands with our builder.

The project to renovate and extend our house in Ballyferriter reaches another milestone. David, our architect, has been working on and preparing the tender pack for our project for the past 6 weeks. We have worked through an enormous amount of detail on the layout, what tiles we will put up, what sanitary ware, where the sockets & lights will be situated, the windows and much more to produce a complete tender pack for builders.

The tender pack stretched to over 40 pages of detail and was sent to 7 builders. Four local builders, one in Tralee and two in Castlegregory. It’s a sign of the times on the Dingle peninsula that all four local builders were too busy. We did get three quotes for the job and after a little discussion between ourselves and David we entered an exclusive conversation with one builder.

Several meetings between “us and them” followed in which we came to understand the implications of a high-water table, external and internal insulation, concrete beams and so on. We indicated that the first quote was way off the mark and so was the second quote…. And yesterday we trashed out more detail and squeezed the project just inside our budget line. And we shook hands on the deal.

Two years after buying Carrigeen we embark on the renovation work. In truth we never imagined this project when we bought the house but then we never imagined a yes vote for Brexit. So here we are with an amazingly exciting 48 weeks to come. Yup, 48 weeks 45 weeks is the timescale of the project (although that includes 12 weeks for weather contingency and based on the storm Helene that went through last night is sensible) and getting a start in three weeks’ time.

Denis Dowling Construction is the builder and our hope is that we are still talking to him at the end of the 48 weeks. He plans to begin work on 9^th October or rather we hand the house over to him on the 9^th. Sometime September 2019 we may move back to Ballyferriter West and our newly renovated home, time and weather permitting.

We move out into rented accommodation in Ballyferriter “East” on Monday 8^th. The rental house, “No 6” as we have christened it, is a bigger house then we have now and probably will have! Another upside is that we can stay there for as long as we want, and we can fit all our furniture for storage into it.

And having shook hands with the builder we are now off on holidays to France today.

The letterbox saga

Well drilling extra holes in did not make any real difference and so...

Things are moving on as we have found a builder and one who can start next month. A bit of haggling to do before we sign the contract but we are pretty much there. Also, we have found a house to rent while the work is being done. It is pretty much the same distance from the centre of Ballyferriter, on the Dingle side, as we are on the Dunquin side.
("Centre" being defined as the door to Murphy's pub.)

When did you last think about your letterbox?

Assuming you are in the UK and within an urban / suburban area, it is in your front door, right? Perhaps it is in the centre midway, perhaps near the bottom, sometimes it has turned 90 degrees and is in the side of the door, but it is there, and you make use of it without even thinking about it. A truly taken for granted part of urban life in the UK.

Not so in rural Kerry, leastways not in our bit of the Kingdom. The house we bought, now our main residence does not have a letterbox in the front door, nor the back door – not anywhere. The suggestion that came from the local Post Office was to leave a window open so that the postal delivery person could pop the mail through it. This felt very wrong to our London urban sensibilities and so we opted to buy a post box and mount it on the gate post.

Stainless steel in place

Cleverly (we thought) we bought a stainless-steel model as we recognised that it would be contending with the wet, windy, westerlies that form a key part of the Kerry climate. Our smugness soon vanished, right after the first period of heavy rain. Sufficient rain found its way in to the box to sodden everything in it.

This week we enjoyed that latest episode of sodden mail and decided to do something about it so off we went to the (very good) local hardware store to get a replacement. They had two models on offer, so I asked an assistant if either of them was weatherproof.

Once he had finished chuckling at the very idea he admitted that neither of them would contend with West Kerry’s driving rain and he recommended that we drill holes in the bottom of the one we had to let the water out. Another customer of the shop, waiting to ask the self-same assistant for help with paint, added that she had taken this course and it worked for her.

Back home, drill out. Slightly surprised to see that the box already has two holes in its base… it now has six. I have my doubts if it will make a difference. (Note to self – make sure the new front door has a letterbox.)

Progress report: creating a new home

Planners of Kerry

Any local council has to manage the development and redevelopment of the housing stock. It is an essential component of modern living. A trip along many rural roads in Ireland will find a landscape littered with "pre-planning regime" bungalows that do little to acknowledge their context or their neighbours.

When those rural roads are in an area of outstanding beauty and topographical importance and the need to control development becomes an even higher priority.
Certainly in our part of West Kerry, diligent planning officers work hard to make sure that any development complies with the comprehensive guidelines created by the county council.

Although there are a few stunning examples to the contrary, the guidelines push design toward a very conservative, regional vernacular style. Our first planning application was refused and knocked back to us with reference to its design and scale  being inappropriate to the location and existing house.
In preparing our second application we downsized the proposal and removed the offending design elements, e.g. a first floor terrace, and added a couple of vernacular flourishes. It was clear that any idea of making a radical architectural statement was not on the cards. The decisions for the second application focused on defining the inside of the house. We  were looking to create rooms we would enjoy living in that also fitted the way we live now and anticipated our future needs and expectations.

From the outset the key element in the new layout was to locate the bedrooms on the ground floor and the "living" rooms  on the first floor. This arrangement "reveals" the view across Smerwick Harbour and, by introducing windows to the east side of the house, a view of Mount Brandon.

It was frustrating to have the second application also refused. Our reading of the given reasons, alongside the response of our architect, encouraged us to appeal the decision at national level.

Lodging the appeal in early March we were told not to expect a decision until September and that fewer than four out of ten appeals succeed. We were delighted to hear in late June that the appeal had been heard and we had been given permission to proceed, as submitted.

Now in early August we have a pack of documents ready to put the construction job out to tender. Let's hope we find a contractor who can offer a quote in the vicinity of our budget and who can start this year. Builders apply now!

Carrigeen as it is now

The front elevation of the permitted development

A ten day road trip that marks a beginning.

The recently acquired Audi earned its "rite de passage" with a road trip of close to 3,000km (see how european we are) with the car fully laden, including a stacked roof rack, almost every step of the way. The last time we owned an Audi we did barely 3,00km in a year.

Journey one, Saturday July 21st - Dublin to Beckenham via Holyhead.

Overall the trip was to oversee the removal of furniture from The Knoll and to complete the sale of the house. The first step was to get ourselves and our fancy "van" over to the UK. Before hopping on the boat to Holyhead on Saturday we had a fantastic Friday night with Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor and Paul Simon no less. Not a bad way to kick start a crazy ten days.

Once in Beckenham we identified everything we wanted to transport to Ireland, what would go in to store, and what we would dispose of. The "immediate transport" pile proved to be more than we could cram in the car, even with a roof rack, so we boxed things up and had them collected by TNT to deliver to Ballyferriter.

The removals firm arrived first thing on Tuesday and by 17.00 (how very european) the contents of the house was on its way to storage, most likely not to be seen again for 12 months. All in all a very smooth removal of furniture although... It's about 5pm and Sheila is resting on one of the beds we are leaving behind when I ask "did you empty the wash basket before the movers packed it up?" When she answers "No" we both have a good laugh as we try to remember what clothes (dirty) are now packed away for a year...

Tuesday evening sees us left with one sofa, two beds, a lamp, no dirty clothes and enough cleaning material to open our own Molly Maid franchise. 

Journey two, Wednesday July 25th - Beckenham to Fishguard.

Then, fully laden, we chose to return via the late night Fishguard to Rosslare ferry. We took our time to drive the 420km to the ferry terminal as we were booked on the 23.45 departure. 

Departing Beckenham three hours before schedule, and a clear M4/A40 to Fishguard means we are in Pembrokeshire early afternoon and 5 hours to kill. We treated ourselves to a super meal in St David's at a restaurant called St David's kitchen. If you ever find yourself at a loose end in that area we recommend a visit.

A fascinating addition to a cycle lane near the port at Fishguard. Investigating this further we decided that the photograph includes the full length of the designated cycle lane. No wonder they need a bench to rest on.

Journey three, Thursday July 26th - Rosslare to Ballyferriter.

The short, overnight trip docks at 04.00 and by 04.20 we were rolling along the highway at the start of the 340km trip to Ballyferriter. We fondly imagined stopping along the way for a leisurely breakfast but, with a fair day and nothing on the roads we found that we just kept rolling along. With little more than a fuel stop, we pulled in the drive of Carrigeen just five hours later. But that was not the end of our travels.

Journey four, Monday July 30th - Ballyferriter to Dublin.

Some of the "immediate transport" stuff was destined for Dublin, so off we went, car still packed, but not quite so full as before. The trip was not solely a delivery run as we had tickets see (and listen to) Graham Nash at the National Concert Hall on Thursday. This turned out to be the final gig os a six week tour and was a pleasant celebration of all things GN - the Hollies, CSN&Y and his solo work. Needless to say that the demographic of the audience meant that at the interval there was the unusual sight of a long queue for the men's toilets and none for the women's.

Journey five, Wednesday August 1st - return to Ballyferriter.

No roof rack, rear seats upright, we conclude the road trip. Along the way we hear that the sale has completed and we are done. We have moved from England to Ireland. Our life in England as we know it is over and a new adventure begins.

Carrigeen, Ballyferriter West - before...