Hi to anyone who has found my latest blog, entitled Newbuild4, which is exactly what it is.  We did our first self build during the hot summer of 1976.  Our second in 1983. Our  third in 2014, when we came back from 18 years in Spain.  And now we are about to embark on our fourth.  Are you totally mad I hear you say.  Quite possibly.  

We have owned the land we are about to build on for almost 40 years - it was the garden of new build number 2, which we kept when we sold the house to make our move to Spain, as an insurance policy for when we eventually came back to England.  The plot has a really nice piece of woodland attached to it, which is the main reason why we are staying here rather than move somewhere else.  We have shared this space with badgers, foxes, rabbits, squirrels and many varieties of birds etc.  We couldn’t bear the thought of a developer bulldozing everything down to make way for housing.  

Two years ago we obtained planning permission to build a house on the old garden plot.  If we’d have known then what we know about how stressful those 2 years would be, we might have thought twice about the whole project.  But here we are, and ground has been broken at last

One of our main problems, if you can call it that, has been the huge walnut tree in what will be the front garden of the house.  We were advised by the architect to apply to remove it, but we knew that was never going to happen.  It has been responsible for a large part of the hold up, but we have been determined to keep it.  With the help of Lawrence - the brilliant tree officer - we worked out a way to at least give it a fighting chance.  Walnut trees take up an incredible amount of water and when we trimmed it back a little it was as if it was raining from its branches, almost as if it were crying 😢 To help save it we - David actually - has had to dig around the roots by hand, cleanly cut them back and then bind them with hessian.

So, welcome to the tale of Walnut Tree House.  I’ll be keeping you updated on progress and you can follow our slide into madness