We had to rake out and point the wall in the room above the wood burner. We've left a section of the brick wall unpointed, this will need to be dismantled and rebuilt, incorporating the flexible chimney. After that we have to build the brick chimney up. The original foundations still exist so that shouldn't be too horrendous. The main issue is waiting for a few non-rainy days. Tomorrow is rain. We've built the scaffold up in anticipation though. The Wood Burner has been put into position and the chimney pipe attached to the wall.

The wind whistling through the roof tiles has become more icelike as the weather's cooled. So it's been a rush, not only to sort out the wood burner, but also to get the roof insulated. We've put in Rockwool between the wooden roof struts and over all that a layer of quilted insulation. The place resembles the set of 2001, very pod-like. We've got another three rooms to go, but at least we've developed some kind of a technique.

We now have a fully functioning bathroom. The windows have been sealed in and the stone sides built and pointed. The bath and sink now work wonderfully well although we still need to tile the lower walls. The sink is on a temporary stand and I'm finding Breezeblock works for me.

Although this has been pretty low priority of late, we did want to do a few things before the winter sets in. We've seeded the lawn in the front to fill up the bare patches and we created a new area near the front of the house. We've temporarily surrounded it with rocks to remind ourselves not to walk on it. We'll reshape that in the spring when, hopefully, we'll have something resembling a lawn. Out the back we've planted a row of Laurel bushes which we've been growing in pots for the last year.

Chris has signaled his approval of the insulated room by sleeping in it for a few days. This is in contrast to his latest hideyhole in one of the packing cases.