YouTube video not in email

I have put another video on the blog and I don't think you will be able to get to it via the email you receive. So please go to http://nealsoutter.blogspot.com/ if you would like to see it.

The link to the online blog Station Road can also be found at the bottom of all the emails you receive.

Liam using Potters wheel

I finally finished making the potters wheel today! Liam and Ispent some time this afternoon making more clay from the clay we dug out the front lawn. Then Liam made a few bowls on the wheel.

Since this picture was taken we have added a lot of lead (from the flashing on the chimney we took down) to the underside of the foot wheel to give it some weight.

Take a look at the video on YouTube.

Clay, clay and more clay.....

Considering we have so much clay, we decided to try and make something out of the clay. Liam and I spent time at the end of the day soaking some of the clay we dug out the ground and getting it into a usable state.

We then made a bowl each, as you can see they are beautiful works of art ;-)

Gas Tank arrived

The 2400 litre gas tank arrived today and was installed by a really nice guy!

Alison and I spent the afternoon filling in the trench. Tomorrow we have to tackle the hole!!!

Lead-go

We got talking about melting lead at the dinner table for some reason so the boys asked if we could try. We had some lead flashing from the chimney we took down but didn't know what to cast.

We finally ended up trying to make a lead lego piece but it didn't work too well. Perhaps we will try again sometime.

Hole in lawn

Some pictures of our 'poor' front garden. The trench goes all the way to the house and is 750mm deep. The main hole is 1.6m deep and more than 3m x 2m. It is huge!!! You can just see the little dumper in this top picture which they took away a bunch of soil / clay in. Else there woundn't have been enough space on the lawn.

The boys loved playing in the clay / mud, but it stressed Alison a bit.

The gas tank arrives tomorrow......hopefully!

Loft insulation (air filters)

I spent a long time in the loft moving the air filters that were in one big pile and spreading them out over the passage and boys room. I figure they can't hurt as an extra layer of insulation. They are two deep and packed in nice and tight as you can see in the picture.

Boys floor

We decided to take a look at the damp issue at the front wall of the boys room. When I lifted the chipboard replacement floor boards the previous bloke had used (they are like cheap loft board and will fall apart with the first sniff of moisture) I found they had put plastic under the them, I am guessing they did this to stop the chipboard getting wet. The wall on the left is full of mildew all the way up to about 2 metres high. When we bought the house a company came in and told us we had rising damp but with a bit of research we found it is probably not that at all, it seems to be condensation causing all the damp problems.

In this picture you can see the water dripping off the bottom of the plastic it was so wet.

We cleaned out the only air brick into the floor in boys room and I installed two computer fans (in a block of pink insulation) on a spare car battery so now it runs all the time under the floor moving out the damp air and it seems to be working. When ever we open the floor it is never dripping wet, but we need to insulate the out side walls in order to stop the condensation forming in the first place!

Zip wire (foofy slide)

I built a zip wire for the kids. After seeing it at Wayne's house they nagged me enough to get me to make one. It needs a few safety features added so it doesn't fall off the line and knock the kids out :-)