And now the latest

well what has happened since we last updated this then!?

After we sent the letter we did receive a receipt from the local authority, this arrived about 2 days after we posted. So in our heads our 28 day deadline was up on the 23rd of November or thereabouts. We waited, and we waited and heard nothing; so what to assume eh? In our hearts we hoped that had resolved it, the barristers letter was so robust and strong there seemed no arguing against it, in our heads we were thinking 'have they even read it yet?'. So we sent another letter a week on after the deadline, basically saying as we haven't heard we assume that you have no issues with us continuing with the build. Still nothing. So on day 42 after that first letter was sent, our planning consultant gave them a call, just to see if it was all ok. On the 7th of December I came back to a furious James, we had discovered that they hadn't even read it, 42 days after receiving a letter and they had not bothered to look at it - or at least, that's what they said. In this time we had also heard that the department is being investigated by the Audit Commission because of the number of complaints, with this kind of attitude I am not surprised.

Incredibly, however, we did receive a letter the same week as the phone call, on the 10th of December we actually received something in writing, the first time we have since the start of this sorry saga. To our enormous relief they concede, in this letter, that they had given planning permission for almost all of the work we had done; however, to our consternation, they say that our planning consultant had said in a previous correspondence with them that we would retain approximately 10 square foot at the end of the building. Which he hadn't, having got a copy of this letter in front of us we were astounded that they could misinterpret this in this manner. Our consultant responded to them immediately pointing out the discrepancy between their understanding and the content of the letter. They say we should submit a Certificate of Lawful Development to test it's legality. Having spoken to a number of friends and experts in the planning world they say this is hogwash. Text of the letter follows:

"8th December 2009

Dear Sir and Madam

Thank you for your letter dated 30 January 2009 (sic) , with regard to which may I firstly apologise for the delay in this reply.

It is clear that the relevant permision is that granted in 2008, reference E/20195, and whilst it is agreed that the extent of the rebuilding work permitted may have exceeded that which the Authority would normally permit in the context of UDP policy H10, there appears to be a greater degree of rebuilding than was implied in the plannint permission. I note that the lower sections of wall in the south-west elevation shown to be retained in the J Evans Planning Ltd correspondence of the 16th July 2009, have been removed.

It is concluded that the only relevant process to formally establish whether the proposed works fall within the scope of planning permission E/20195 is by application for a Certificate of Lawfulness of a Proposed Use or Development (CLOPUD). The submission of such an application shall afford an opportunity fully examine the extent of the planning permission with due regard to the matter. The successful issue of the certificate would render your proposed development to be lawful in planning terms and immune from any enforcement action.

Whilst I appreciate that these observation may be of some disappointment to you, there is no alternative process other than the submission of a CLOPUD application to formally establish the lawful status of the proposed development.

Yours Faithfully

Mr Graham Noakes
Senior development control officer"

This is actually what Jason's letter of the 16 July says (he quotes the original engineer's survey):
".... the second represents the areas that the Structural Survey identified as being that which could possibly require building, but the extent to which was to be assessed once works had begun. Any poor stone work was to then be 'taken down to a level of sound and plumb stonework and rebuilt to match the existing' in each case."

Ok so am I reading this one wrong? How can this mean we were going to retain it?! We were following the recommendations of the structural survey which had highlighted this wall to be rubble and to remove to a sound and plumb level, and it collapsed! How sound and plumb could it have possibly been?

Finally for the real geeks amongst you here is the original letter with barristers opinion (not the full 13 pages mind - just the highlights!)


Your Ref / Eich Cyf: E/20195

Date / Dyddiad: 16th October 2009


Mr G Noakes
Directorate of Regeneration and Leisure
Civic Offices
Crescent Road
Llandeilo
Carmarthenshire
SA19 6HW


Dear Mr Noakes,

Re: Conversion of barn to residential unit at Sgubor Rhiannedd, Glanyrafon, Llansadwrn, Carmarthenshire (LPA Ref. No. E/20195)

As you are aware, J Evans Planning has recently been acting on our behalf in relation to ongoing discussions with the Authority about the above mentioned barn conversion.

Prior to a meeting we had with Mr Kevin Phillips and Mr Kevin Jones on July 16th, Mr Jason Evans prepared a document for the Authority to consider. That document clearly illustrated that works being undertaken are entirely within the scope of the planning permission.

It is understood that Mr Phillips passed consideration of that document to yourself and that you have subsequently consulted with the Head of Planning, Eifion Bowen. The conclusion of your discussions was emailed to Jason Evans on 5th October and reads,

“I have now had the opportunity to discuss this application with Eifion Bowen, Head of Planning, at which it was concluded that the extent of the building that remains is beyond that which was it was (sic) proposed to retain and that the implementation of the permission in respect of a conversion is no longer possible.

Your argument in respect of the amount of the original structure that was indicated to be demolished is noted, however, it is clear that the initial permission was granted in the context of a conversion, with the second informative note attached as a note to that permission advising as such.”

We crucially note that our argument about the approved demolition and rebuilding of the original structure is not disputed. We therefore remain unclear how the planning permission cannot be implemented.

Since the Authority were first made aware of the partial collapse and subsequent rebuilding embarked upon back in March, we have always maintained that works being undertaken are in accordance with the planning permission. Subsequent correspondence with the architect, planning consultant and the engineer who wrote the initial structural survey all corroborate that position. In over six months the Authority have not provided a credible argument to the contrary and yet, without providing an adequate reason, still seems to be insisting that works cannot continue.
The Summary of Grounds in support of the existing and proposed works being authorised are outlined below:

1. The relevant permission is the 2008 permission, E/20195. This is a new permission replacing the 2007 permission.
2. Condition 2 of the permission identifies the authorised works by reference to 2008 revised plans. These clearly prevail over earlier proposals (whether in the 2007 survey or otherwise).
3. If there is any ambiguity extrinsic materials can be referred to. It is on this basis that the 2007 survey may assist but there is also the 2008 Design Statement which clearly stated that additional building/re-building work is necessary. Were there no departure from the 2007 survey involved there would have been no need for the 2008 application.
4. The fact that the development was conversion of a barn does not exclude, or limit the scope of, re-building. Primarily conversion refers to change of use. It was always clear that re-building would be required.
5. The extent of reconstruction could be relevant under UDP policy H10 but the works now involved (post collapse) are still within the policy.
6. The test is whether the additional rebuilding is a material change to the approved scheme and a material variation of the amount of building which is involved (see eg Amber Valley BC, Sec of State for Communities and Local Government v Northcott [2009] EWHC 80 (Admin). The reasons given to date by the LPA fail to address this. There is no evidence that the building when finished would be different in size, scale or appearance from that approved and therefore it is materially the same. Reliance on a notional restriction on the scope of rebuilding by reliance on the word “conversion” is wrong.
7. The fact that the re building is within the scope of works approved and included in the 2007 survey (even were that the only test) has been demonstrated in correspondence. There has been no reply refuting the factual basis there contained.
8. Enforcement action could not be justified within TAN 9. In particular there is no harm to public amenity. Leaving the building unfinished is clearly a greater harm.
9. There are no grounds which could justify the refusal of planning permission and the re-building meets relevant policy.

After a more than reasonable attempt to consider the Authority’s views, we have sought a legal opinion in order to identify an appropriate way forward. We first contacted our solicitor, Mr Ian Williamson of Williamson & Soden, who is a member of the Law Society’s Planning Panel, who then instructed a barrister, Graham Walters of Civitas Law, Cardiff.

The Summary of Grounds in support of the existing and proposed works being authorised are outlined below:

1. The relevant permission is the 2008 permission, E/20195. This is a new permission replacing the 2007 permission.
2. Condition 2 of the permission identifies the authorised works by reference to 2008 revised plans. These clearly prevail over earlier proposals (whether in the 2007 survey or otherwise).
3. If there is any ambiguity extrinsic materials can be referred to. It is on this basis that the 2007 survey may assist but there is also the 2008 Design Statement which clearly stated that additional building/re-building work is necessary. Were there no departure from the 2007 survey involved there would have been no need for the 2008 application.
4. The fact that the development was conversion of a barn does not exclude, or limit the scope of, re-building. Primarily conversion refers to change of use. It was always clear that re-building would be required.
5. The extent of reconstruction could be relevant under UDP policy H10 but the works now involved (post collapse) are still within the policy.
6. The test is whether the additional rebuilding is a material change to the approved scheme and a material variation of the amount of building which is involved (see eg Amber Valley BC, Sec of State for Communities and Local Government v Northcott [2009] EWHC 80 (Admin). The reasons given to date by the LPA fail to address this. There is no evidence that the building when finished would be different in size, scale or appearance from that approved and therefore it is materially the same. Reliance on a notional restriction on the scope of rebuilding by reliance on the word “conversion” is wrong.
7. The fact that the re building is within the scope of works approved and included in the 2007 survey (even were that the only test) has been demonstrated in correspondence. There has been no reply refuting the factual basis there contained.
8. Enforcement action could not be justified within TAN 9. In particular there is no harm to public amenity. Leaving the building unfinished is clearly a greater harm.
9. There are no grounds which could justify the refusal of planning permission and the re-building meets relevant policy.


As you will see, the legal opinion is categorical in its support of our case. In particular, the argument about the “context of a conversion” appears to be irrelevant.
Mr Walters has suggested that, as a final step, we should make a final effort to persuade you that the works are within the permission, though we are not sure this is necessary, as you have not disputed the arguments already outlined, nor are we clear what we can add that our professional agents have not already expressed. Nevertheless, in addition to and to reinforce the reasons previously outlined, we offer the following points that further strengthen our position.

1. The level of rebuilding indicated in the 2007 survey was always open-ended. It was not able to state conclusively where the structure was sufficiently sound and would not be taken down and where rebuilding was necessary. As well as specific references, the survey also contains references to the need for walls to be “rebuilt as necessary”.
2. The modifications to the original permission approved by the new permission clearly indicated additional demolition and rebuilding, most notably the two brick built extensions on the northwest and southeast flank walls and the creation of large openings in the original stone structure in both the south-eastern wall and south-western gable end. These approved alterations alone represent a significant proportion of works being undertaken, and are in addition to those proposed by the 2007 survey.
3. Despite the additional structural alterations proposed in the new permission, no new engineer’s survey was required. No consideration was therefore required by the Authority on the existing structure’s ability to sustain the new alterations. Furthermore, as advised by the barrister, the note in the permission referring to the 2007 survey cannot cut down on works shown on the approved new plans mentioned in Condition 2 of the permission.
4. It is still the intention to “convert” the building from an agricultural barn to a residence.
5. The finished building will not differ in appearance from the approved plans.

We are aware that in the absence of any official response, one option open to us is to simply continue with the development and risk that the Authority takes enforcement action. It has always been our intention to not appear so deliberately defiant and this is the reason why we have given considerable opportunity for the Authority to clearly express their views.

Given the significant delay and anguish this has caused to both my wife and myself, we are now reluctant to extend the courtesy much longer.

Mr Walters has also advised on the Authority’s potential grounds for taking enforcement action and as you will see, he is unequivocal that there are no such grounds; the argument being that there has been no breach as works are not a material departure from the permission and that completion accords with planning policy.

So while, as we have learned, the planning permission that has been granted in this situation may have approved more rebuilding than the Authority is comfortable with, there appears to be no legitimate argument against or further justification for impeding this development.

It would clearly be better all round if we could reach a mutual understanding about the progress of this development and so a final opportunity is being granted for the Authority to accept the facts as presented or provide a lawful explanation as to why the development cannot proceed.

A three-month response time, as occurred following our previous letter, is not acceptable. If we have not had an adequate response, in writing and not via email, within 21 days of this letter, it will be assumed that the Authority has no further objections and we shall proceed with the building works as per the plans approved in 2008."

A timeline of all that has happened

 March 2008 we purchase a barn with planning permission to convert to a 3 bedroom dwelling.
 July 2008 new plans drawn up to improve on previous and informal comment sought from the planning department, this included the rebuilding of 2 brick lean tos and a large number of openings being made.
 August 2008 a formal full planning application is hand delivered to the Planning Department in Llandeilo.
 October 2008 a phone call is made to the department as we had heard nothing, this phone call identified the paper work had been lost.
 October 2008 a second copy of the full application is submitted to the Local Planning Authority. This time it is acknowledged, no request is made for a new structural engineers report even though a substantial amount of structural alteration was being proposed. (Though we didn’t realise the importance of this until later)
 Planning permission was given in December 2008, signed by Graham Noakes, senior development control officer.
 24th February 2009 building starts and the Building Inspector makes his first visit to the property, he states at this time that he had not looked at the plans and also demands to see the new structural engineers report, we explain that we only have the original and that no other report was requested.
 26th February, substantial collapse of barn gable occurred. The collapsed wall was removed along with other areas of wall that were identified in the original structural engineers report as being suspect and needing to be removed and rebuilt or were specified in the planning permission to be removed to create openings.
 2nd March Building Inspector turns up after the weekend with camera, he informs us that we do not have planning permission for the works and we understand that he had phoned the planning department to inform them we had gone outside the scope of our planning permission.
 4th March Local Planning Authority say on the phone that we require a new planning application, they told us at this stage they would not support it, our architect sends them a full report of what had happened and why it was all within the scope of our planning permission.
 6h March Building Inspector turns up but refuses to speak with us, he informs our builder that our 300 year old barn had concrete underpinning and that our architect was telling “porkies”.
 10th March, we receive an email from the planning officer stating that we had gone outside the planning permission and that a new planning application would go outside the scope of the Local Authority’s planning policy.
 15th March our architect sends a further email trying to arrange a meeting and explaining all the elements of both the structural engineers report and the planning permission and therefore why we had not breached our original planning permission.
 16th March we receive a terse reply which ignores both our request for a meeting and assistance.
 March 2009, after this second email from the planning department, we phone our local councillor who agrees to meet us, he takes away all the paperwork and recommends a planning consultant.
 By the end of March we have entered into a contract with the planning consultant who spends the next 3 months grappling with the complexities of the case. He talks at length with the original structural engineer, who fully supports all that we have done as being in accordance with his report, and the architect who provides him with the plans which also demonstrates that nothing we have done goes outside the obtained planning permission.
 15th July, we meet with the Local Planning Authority (LPA), we went through our case and it was clear that they had not looked at the paperwork. This was identified by the fact that they told us we should never have knocked the brick lean to down, once it was pointed out that this had been given permission for in the latest planning a serious amount of paper shuffling went on. At the start of the meeting we were told that the LPA do not give permission for people to rebuild half of their barn, by the end of the meeting those present seemed to accept this case was exceptional, and had started to suggest appropriate ways forward.
 Subsequent correspondence between the structural engineer, the planning consultant and the LPA resulted in a general agreement that we had not gone outside the planning permission and that what had come down was all identified either within the new planning permission or within the original structural report.
 The planning officer felt he needed some guidance on proceeding forward and so had to refer the case upwards, on the 5th of October we receive this email “I have now had the opportunity to discuss this application with Eifion Bowen, Head of Planning, at which it was concluded that the extent of the building that remains is beyond that which was it was (sic) proposed to retain and that the implementation of the permission in respect of a conversion is no longer possible.

Your argument in respect of the amount of the original structure that was indicated to be demolished is noted, however, it is clear that the initial permission was granted in the context of a conversion, with the second informative note attached as a note to that permission advising as such.”
 So three months later and we receive a reply which is nonsensical at best, they also do not disagree with our arguments which leaves us wondering why we cannot implement our planning permission and it refers to the initial permission and not the subsequent one which overwrites the original.
 So finally we are so distraught and upset we seek legal advice and secure the services of a barrister. The response we get is 13 pages listing why the local authority is wrong and that there are no legal grounds whereby we should not continue with our development.
 On the 26th of October we hand deliver another letter to the LPA which gives them 28 days to provide us with a reasonable response and should we receive nothing then we will assume that works may continue unimpeded.
 On the 30th October we post all the relevant correspondence to our local councillor.

The end??!

a bit of an update

Ok we've had an email from the LA, it seems to contradict itself and doesn't make sense. So we are still in the dark. We have confirmation that we are legally in the right so we are still hanging on in there.

So we had a stunning spring and reasonable summer and now we seem to be entering a pleasant autumn, other than the fact that we have been in a living hell at times it's all tickety boo!

The gardens are coming along, the pond is looking great, damselflies, dragonflies, broad bodied chasers, diving beetles and whirly gigs have taken over. The heron makes a regular visit and I guess is munching on frogs. The swallows and bats love the pond with the swallows dipping into the water over the summer months. It's a fascinating thing watching it all develop.

We have laid out a lot of beds and we are just getting them planted up with garlic, onions and various brassicas. Our rasberries, donated by our lovely neighbours across the river, have romped away giving us a lovely and unexpected crop.

We have two ducks now, Poly and Pato, and love them they lay two eggs a day regular as you like. Sadly Gloria the chicken died, don't know what happened...

Hope to be updating this with something positive soon.

On hold

Hi all - it's been a long time since our last up date and we are in a bit of a strange position at the moment. The planners felt we had gone outside our planning permission and had therefore negated it. All quite horrific really! We had a meeting about 3 weeks ago where they seemed to realise that they had given permission for all that had happened, it just happened a bit more dramatically than we had hoped and we weren't able to save as much of the barn as we would have wished. However we have heard nothing since. So at the moment James and I are on tenterhooks waiting to find out whether we have lost it all or if they agree that everything which has happened was within our planning permission. Our hopes are relatively high as our case is a strong one, for example in the meeting they referred back to the original planning which was to convert the old brick lean to into a kitchen and said we should not have knocked that down, however in our application that was to come down and be replaced, it was interesting seeing the realisation cross their faces. So keep your fingers crossed for us... and I hope that people are still checking this occasionally. I can only apologise that I haven't updated this, all I can say is I didn't have the heart to, as I was feeling pretty down about it all.

So I promise I will work on this soon and put up photos and stories of our Spring and Summer, which has been both glorious and horrendous.

Getting to know the neighbours via their bathrooms and, er - where's the barn?

People are quite curious about your cleaning habits when you live in a yurt, and are not in possession of a bathroom. Rather wonderfully, we have a number of neighbours who are very generous with their facilities. Brendan and Della, who look down on us from the Bron, are generous shower offerers; we do have to time our ablutions with them on a non school night though, because of the wine intake. We popped up there the other night and Della just happened to cook enough food for all of us. Showers with extras, how cool is that?Brendan also happens to be a plumber, and it looks like he's coming on board with the build which is exciting.

Pat and John live across the river and again they are fantastic about us nipping over for a shower, it's a very sociable affair, normally with a cup of tea or a pint of bitter. John has been an electrician and has also offered to help out where he can. He also knows all the wildlife in the area and is just an incredible fount of information. He also used to garden and we've already had rhubarb, yellow flag iris and rasberry canes from him. They are extremely kind people.

Helen and Simon live up on the bog and again are a very sociable bath experience. Helen was once heard to say, in the local shop, that as her water had stopped running she needed 6 bottles of wine... Simon also happens to be a carpenter! As a consequence of using their bathroom, we are now going to their wedding which sounds more like a mini festival.

Then Liz and Dudley at the local B and B in the village itself have always said that their water is hot should we need a shower/bath.

So there you all go - that's how we keep clean, and how we've been getting to know the neighbours.

How many different questions can you answer in a day? Well it would seem an almost infinite variety when you are building your own home.

As we mentioned in our brief last blog, it's all gone a bit busy. The builders have started! It's led to some rather dramatic consequences. As the floor was being dug out the south wall began to show some rather large stress fractures. This wall was always coming down anyhow. It's where the sun room is and the top is made of poor brickwork and bodged stonework. So we were pretty cool about that, until we noticed some more stress fractures in the two walls leading off from that.

Anyhow to cut a long story short... well, we only have a little bit of the barn left, large areas just fell away. So shockingly the direction of our barn has changed somewhat, instead of: repair work, insulating internally, limecrete floors and extreme steels in the roof, it looks like we'll be: starting from scratch in parts of the barn, using durasol blocks (which will give us all our insulation), possibly different flooring (limecrete is suddenly an extremely expensive option with the extra we would now need), and different engineering requirements. We were tormented by the limecrete floor as we felt it was particularly necessary with underfloor heating, but apparently not.

So, to ensure that we can afford solar water heating and a stove with a back boiler on it, we have opted for .... concrete flooring. It's shocking to a green fascist like me that we have gone down this route but to not could have cost us 6-8k instead of a 2k - that difference is the solar panel and the stove . Difficult choices, which are sometimes made for you. On the bright side we shouldn't need any new stones as we have plenty.

Oh and builders do seem great. Woodsy is a character; we were somewhat disturbed to hear him shriek "here's Jonny" as he smashed, rather redundantly now, through a blocked up door way. Neil is a more traditional builder but has a fairly broad mind and may be amused by our eccentric little ways. They have also got that we are not "straight lines" people, in that we want rugged walls with little holes and ledges - it's great for birds, bats, insects and lichens you see. Neatness is never good for wildlife.



We have also had thrown at us the coldest winter in years. A spectacular month of frosts in which we were both horrendously ill; then there was a week of snow, which trapped us in. Fantastic! However now spring is definitely peeking round the skirts of winter. Everything is giving a good old stretch. Owls are shrieking again, different message this time - it's more "oiy come over 'ere luv". Birds are definitely warming up, it's getting noisy in the morning. Buds are emerging on trees. Bumble bees have been sighted. The honey bees are out, pooing apparently. The celandines are in flower. I even saw a marsh marigold flouncing around down by the river.

In the polytunnel we have: broad beans coming into flower, peas a good 5 inches above the ground, rhubarb looking rather delightful, rocket out of your ears, spinach a go go, chinese veg, cabbage, strawberries starting to flower, lettuces and sweet peas. Outside the garlic is looking great, the huge orchard is looking exciting (thanks mom, Charlie and Julian), vegetable beds are being dug, the purple sprouting is just starting to show its' flowers, the secret garden has snowdrops and daffs by the hundred, plus all the wild daffodils, wild tulips and ransoms, I planted last year, are looking very exciting, with the ransoms just starting to produce flower heads. The "shrubbery" is starting to grow. Thanks to Christmas presents from Tim, Lisa, Tamsin, Sharon and Peter we now have many crab apples, cherry plums, rowan, dog woods and hornbeam.



James saw the frogs all at it on the 24th of Feb; no surprise then when we saw our first frog spawn in our pond on the 25th Feb! There's loads of it.

Anyhow there are more photos of the barn on the website www.themaidensbarn.co.uk/imagegalleries.html. We'll try and keep it all up to date .. now where's the valium?

Er, (Belated) Happy New Year

Forgive me father it has been so long since my last confession, I mean, blog! This must be because the builders are about to start, so we've had our head in spreadsheets trying to make the budget work and generally clearing the decks, etc, etc.

We have created a new website, which will focus more on aspects of the build. It has more structure and so will hopefully be easier to navigate than this blog. The aim is for the site to be a useful resource for other people interested in environmentally friendly building, so it will contain information about the products and techniques we are using, as well as photos of the ongoing work. Do check it out: www.themaidensbarn.co.uk

We will continue to use this blog as the diary that it appears to be developing into.

p.s. James has also developed a new website this month for his dad's kitchen business: www.malvernkitchens.co.uk

Late Autumn into Christmas

And after that small advertisement here's an update on the last six or so weeks.

We've planted up our orchard now and have a number of local and old varieties. These include

Pig yr Wydd - which translates as the Head of the Goose, it's an old local variety of cooking apple (early season)

Tin yr Wydd - which translates as Arse of the Goose! and is reference to the fact that this is a later cooking apple.

Marged Nicolas - are "Mature standard trees of this dual purpose variety, with their characteristic fountain shaped habit, grow in several farm orchards in Dinefwr. The yellow apples, speckled with russet markings, are ripe in late October and will keep until early Spring. The variety is hardy and disease resistant." (Dinefwr is where my offices are, just 15 minutes down the road)

Ashmeads Kernel - is "an old English winter russet, medium size, golden-brown skin with a crisp nutty snap, exploding with champagne-sherbet juice infused with a lingering scent of orange blossom. Flesh is dense, sugary and aromatic with intense flavor." Many of the descriptions say it's like pear drops - which is vaguely perverse in an apple.

Stoke Red - "is a traditional West Country medium bittersharp cider apple." (Yes we have ambitions to make cider.)

Yarlington Mill - is a traditional Somerset cider apple producing a medium bittersweet cider. (Lots of cider)

We have plums, pears and cherry as well - so we are looking forward to an excess of fruit in a few autumns time. One of our friends has very kindly contributed to the orchard, which is a lovely present thank you Julian, and for Christmas I know we are getting some native plants and trees to plant up our "shrrrubbbbbery!" from other friends and family, so thank you in anticipation.

The exciting news is that we have planning permission for the additions on the barn, which is great, and we have a builder. Yes we have a builder!! He is keen to work with us to do the lime rendering, flooring, working with Welsh sheeps wool insulation, he has worked with Ty Mawr before and I have been involved with them through Rounded Developments. Work should start at the beginning of Feb and we will be rolling up our sleeves and getting on with some building work (which also means we should be putting up some photos of the barn in various states of change which will be exciting).

It will also be a continuous list of questions, we have already changed our mind a couple of times about the underfloor heating. We have met some other neighbours who have got us back onto the underfloor heating now because we have witnessed theirs in action. These neighbours are the people whose house is on the hill in direct line of sight from the yurt. They were kind enough to offer us a shower as when they were building their place they used to bath out in the front garden! They said they couldn't see anyone else go through that. However when we did go up go for a shower the other week the wine came out, and they are generous hosts! We finally left at 2 in the morning and staggered down the hill after a lovely and funny evening.

Anyhow the last month has been a beautiful one, the weather has been spectacular and created some very magical sights. Perfect for the yurt and the range we have bought! However we have seen the inside of the yurt a little too much over the last few days, we have both had this bug, for those of you who have had it.. how horrible was that!? James is still in bed, we're missing Christmas eve at one set of parents, hopefully I will be able to put enough whisky down him so he doesn't care tomorrow.

So finally - we wish you a happy Christmas / Nadolig Llawen from our yurt in the corner of a field in Carmarthenshire. Hope you all have a fabulous one and thank you for all your cards.

New Business

James has established a new business to enable him to continue working from home. It's called Seren-IT, which is a name that works in English and Welsh and on a number of levels.

Seren-IT designs and distributes funky email newsletters, creates websites, and produces documents for printing, amongst other things.

Check out the new website: www.seren-it.co.uk

James's brother, Tim, has also recently set up a business. He's just received his first delivery of sofas to sell: www.door2doorsofas.com

A chilly start to November

I love frosty cold mornings and we have had some beautiful ones. James and I have to get up very early for work sometimes, however the last couple of weeks I really haven't minded. When driving down to the village we have watched the sun rise over the snow covered Carmarthen Fans and enjoyed the hoar frosts. Beautiful!




So a quick wildlife update. The stag has been staking out his territory over the last couple of weeks, the roars have been heard up and down the valley (I am not sure he's had any competition). The swallows left last month - amazing they simply went, not a goodbye, no last chirrup beforehand. The local tawny owls have also been staking out their territory, two tussled for the tree next to the yurt, one outyelled the other and so we now have a shouty owl in residence. I love hearing them, especially when they start calling up and down the valley, I often wonder what they are telling each other... "nice voles over here".. "Get out of my tree".. who knows? We also spotted fish jumping up the weir, we couldn't tell what they were it seems a bit early for salmon. No more otter sightings of late (but I haven't been down there as early as that particular day).

And an update on the land; we have put in a pond.. or mini lake, we really want to attract as much wildlife as possible and as we saw a lot of dragonflies over the summer, we are excited to be able to provide them with somewhere to breed. We also want to plant it up with local species and then extend the planting out into the boggier areas. This particular spot had very few plants other than reeds, however on some of the other boggy areas around we have seen flag iris, marsh marigold, cuckoo flowers and ragged robin so we hope that some of them will move into the bog as well as anything else we plant. We have also started the orchard, we went to an apple day at the Botanic Gardens and got the details of a local man who knows everything about apples.. and pears.. and cherries etc. He is getting us trees that have been grown locally for hundreds of years so we know that they should do well here.


The chucks seem to be doing ok, they are providing a steady supply of eggs and are enjoying a varied diet of scraps, corn and layer pellets. They make particularly contented noises when they find a piece of bread (and even more contented if one finds it ahead of the others!)

On the building front the full plans are in and we are starting to talk to builders. We have found some potential carpenters and Dave has found us a possible person to do the underfloor heating, linking into a wood burner. The same company do grey water systems and solar panels for water, so it could be that we can get one company to fit the whole system. So the next couple of weeks will see a number of visits from a variety of people and hopefully we will find some people to take the build forward.

And finally it's the one year anniversary of finding the place. What a mad twelve months!

Autumnal developments

Well apologies all - I haven't updated this in a while, and in fact thought no one was reading it until I received a few complaints that we were still in August, the shame! So we had some good weather and both of us have been busy with work which is my excuse for not doing anything on this.

Autumn has arrived and with it some lovely weather, a real season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. The trees are starting to turn, the berries are getting riper now, the pumpkins are looking good and the air smells of autumn.

We have some positive news on the planning now. We chased up our preplanning submission as it had been six weeks since we put it in, it turns out that it had been lost. So after some cursing we got a new application in, the planner was extremely apologetic, after two weeks we felt we needed to check what was happening. Dave kindly phoned for us this time and it turns out that the person it had been handed over to had gone off to work on something else. This has been a bit frustrating, however the end result is that the planner looked at it the same afternoon and has said that he is supportive of the changes we are putting forward. So now we have to put in a full planning application which Dave is working on at the moment. I am so glad that we have a comfortable yurt to live in and a brand new 7 kilowatt stove to heat us and cook on!

So now the world is going into economic meltdown we are thinking about starting the build! Strange times indeed. Unfortunately James is down to two days a week for work, that's the joy of working in the voluntary sector. On a positive he seems to have been turned into the god of newsletters as more and more organisations are keen to get him to compile theirs, I know I am biassed but he is very good. Plus he has been doing a report of civil engagement in the democratic process, all of which has helped a bit. James is going to put a bit more time on the build as it starts, which should save money for us and of course many builders are struggling at the moment so we may be able to find a competitive rate.

We continue to work on the land, the drive is fixed after the incident with the lorry, we have also increased the width of the car parking area to make absolutely sure no one does it again.

We walk the land most days which has allowed us to spot many of the errant balsalm plants. We shall see how many seeds germinate next year but I feel confident that we have broken the back of it. The two areas pictured below were absolutely full of the stuff, so that's hundreds of thousands of plants less for next year! Also the woodland plants are starting to show themselves now which would have been suppressed by the balsalm over the years. We have been busy on the tractor, it's been great having it, moving stones, moving wood, moving grass, cutting the grass and so on. Without it we really would have struggled. It's fun to drive unless you hit deep ruts and then it's more like being on a bucking bronco... you are left holding on and praying to any passing deity.

On the subject of wildlife we have put up a few birdfeeders now, along with a few more nest boxes and we are getting a huge variety of birds visiting: Woodpeckers; Chaffinches; Wrens; Long Tailed Tits; Great Tits; Willow Tits; Blue Tits etc etc. It can be a bit distracting when we are working in the caravan, especially when the Nuthatch comes to visit as he is a complete vandal and thrashes the seed holders, emptying most of the contents onto the floor.

The other morning James and I were walking around the land and as we were walking back up the river I noticed a great cufuffle in the water. I stopped and could see a Brown Trout throwing itself about and then a beautiful Otter swam down the river and swooshed back up in pursuit of the fish. I knew we had an Otter living on the river but this was the first time we had actually seen him so it was a very special moment. Next month the Salmon will be coming up the river to spawn and the Otter is meant to become extremely active, I will be sat by the river with my camera until I get a good photo of him!


Another time when we were walking down in the hollow we noticed the deer footprints and an area of ground which had been gouged and scraped. We initially were very confused and then we realised that it's rutting season and deer decorate their antlers with moss and grass... to make them look hard presumably!!?

We did a bit more exploring on James' birthday. We found a lovely walk which takes you up to the largest iron age fort in Wales, it's stunning and it's just across the valley from us. Garn Goch is a very special place and yet so few people have heard of it. In a very agricultural valley you can stand on a wild blasted hill and look into the past at this astonishing and massive human creation. Whilst we were up there we met the farmer who looks after the place for Brecon Beacons National Park, Nick Somerfield and he is a fantastic individual. Very chatty and enthusiastic to share information about the place. What was odd is that after a long chat with him it turns out that he knows one of our closest friends in Cardiff as Nick had been very active in the anti GM campaign and is a keen supporter of the green movement.

Finally we went to the village show, realised we should have entered the tallest nettle competition as we would have won easily, got drunk in the pub with a few people we have met here (and a few new people) and James, under the influence of cwrw, ended up on the cricket team. The fact he hasn't played since he was 16 was swept aside as an irrelevance, so next season I look forward to bringing you pictures in his whites playing for Llansadwrn cricket team. Everyone round here has been so friendly, people seem to be very relaxed and welcoming, we are constantly amazed about how long it takes us to do things, if you bump into someone who knows you vaguely or has even just heard of you, you end up in a conversation which can last a good long time. Anyhow I had better get off and do some digging and I'll try to make it less than a month next time.

So that was the summer

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Now playing: Brett Dennen - Billie Jean
via FoxyTunes

Well what a damp old summer that was! Amusingly our cat is insistent on going out, even in the worst of it. Looking back I said he would never become a true country cat, well I retract that completely, sadly he is catching everything from field mice to moles and romping in puddles with the best of them.





Thankfully the yurt has stood up to all the weather that the Atlantic could throw at it and to ensure that we have a cosy and dry Autumn we have indulgently bought a Nordica/Brosley Rosa woodburning range... plenty of room for roasting veg, yorkshire puds, James' homemade pizzas.

With respect to the barn we have submitted preplanning documents and await to hear whether the council are happy with them, whilst we have outline planning permission we want to green it up a little. We are also going on the advice of our structural engineer who recommends that, as it's an old cruck barn, the walls were not made to carry the full weight of a roof. Now that it does carry the weight of a rodf it's pushed the walls out slightly, the current planning stipulates that there has to be a concrete ring around the top, we have come across a better approach where the weight of the roof is taken by a frame inside removing the need to put any weight on the structure at all. We shall see.

We also took a little bit of a break. One weekend was spent going to the fabulous Small Nations Festival just up the lane in Cilycwm, a stunning place for a festival and a great event if you are ever in the area. We got to do a few walks, had friends and family visit and went the National Botanic Gardens just down the road. Friends also came to visit us and managed to time it perfectly on the weather front, it seems that when people come to see us the sun comes out...

James' mom and I cleared out the old garden which was very satisfying and our friend Ian and James cleared out the old orchard.. discovering two cars in the process! James' dad built lots of things and James' brother came down and chopped up lots of wood for us.. Hoorah for friends and family.

We have also had fun with our new tractor.. yes we ended up buying a tractor because it was becoming an impossible task to keep on top of everything. It's a suitably sized one, in other words it's quite dinky. Unfortunately the lorry driver who delivered it also drove off the edge of the drive and did a significant amount of damage to it trying to get it out... the air was somewhat blue around me! However the tractor has been a fantastic addition and we are able to do more tasks as a consequence.

Brambles, Balsalm, Bracken and Building Regs

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Listening to: Son Of Dave - Leave Without Runnin'
via FoxyTunes
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Listening to: Ludovico Einaudi & Ballaké Sissoko - Chameaux
via FoxyTunes
Well another month has just flown past, sometimes it scares me how quickly the year is slipping by. As usual we have been busy, poor James has cleared about an acre of Himalayan balsalm - and that is no mean feat!












It's hard! The plant itself is feeble, or so it seems. The wretched thing can be hanging on by a thread, it looks dead at the cut and then you look up, healthy leaves and an enthusiastic flower bud. Now I hear you cry what do you have against Himalayan Balsalm? It's pretty, it's great for bees and the seed pods are fun to burst! Well it takes over, everything! Of course it's used to a more challenging environment, you can get that from the name, so it has an exuberant seed strategy. It produces a lot! Each plant can produce 800 seeds! So the bottom valley is full of the stuff, we knew it was bad, but as the year has gone on we have realised how much this problem has been neglected.

We have a lot of bracken and brambles down there as well and whilst both are good local plants you don't want them taking over. Bracken is phenomenal, it has so many tricks up it's sleeve it's amazing that the whole planet is not covered in the stuff. It releases a toxin from it's roots which kills off other competing plants, it's carconogenic to grazing animals, it's spores have been implicated as being carconogenic, it releases a sugary substance at it's base which guarantees it an ant army who will fight any insects trying to attack the plant and you can see why it's very succesful. So whilst we want some we don't want 2 or 3 acres. Onto the brambles, well I love them in many respects, free autumn food for me and the birds, but it's also extremely invasive and is a bit of a pioneer species for woodlands. Now I also love woodlands but I think a mix of habitats is important, so we will be managing the brambles to acceptable levels.


With regards to the barn, our poor architect was broken into and all his stuff was stolen, so poor Dave was left with a massive headache of sorting out insurance claims, computers etc, he has still managed to provide us with drawings which are the precursors for our building reg application. He's also going to be speaking to some builders for us so we will hopefully be able to report some progress on the barn in the coming months.


We have moved on in the luxury stakes, we have a solar panel on our yurt which will be able to power a lamp, a laptop, our radio and more to boot! We're also on the grid at the caravan which means we have a fridge, we've managed ok till now but moving on into the summer months (however chilly they feel at the moment) is proving more of a challenge. We also have water in the yurt! Yes the tap in the sink works...

Our meadow also continues to develop - as James and I try to fathom out how to manage it in the best possible way. Meadows are very complex habitats which have developed over thousands of years, starting out as clearings in a wood man has developed them, woodlands eventually turning into the field margins of hedgerows, the plants that develop in the clearing have a very complicated relationship. As 98% of meadows have been lost since the 2nd world war we are keen to ensure we preserve this one.

Water, polytunnel, chickens and foxes!

Well it has been a non stop few weeks since we last updated the blog! Every waking minute of when we aren't working has pretty much been spent on putting up our polytunnel. The plastic is now on and we have 3 lovely large beds to work with, much to the relief of our seedlings which had been suffering terribly with just being in pots and shoved in sheds!

We also had (and please note the had) some lovely hens, they were the most friendly and ridiculous creatures who followed you round the whole time. We had just started to see them all laying eggs at about 1 each a day when sadly all apart from 1 were taken by a fox. Unfortunately it is that time of year when foxes have cubs and so are that little bit braver - 1 hen was taken about 20 yards from our yurt and I was sat out side at the time! I can't be angry at the fox for doing something natural we are just both angry at ourselves for not taking better precautions with them. Anyhow we start again, we were left with the 1 lonesome chuck and we asked a neighbour for a companion which they happily helped with. With the addition of 2 Black stars as well we are rebuilding our flock.

We have water - we feel ludicrously posh at the moment - live for four months without running water and you get used to it! Now we have a tap which gushes forth very enthusiastically and we can even have lovely solar showers in this hot weather.

Our meadow is developing, we have found common spotted orchids, oxeye daisies, yellow rattle (good sign of an older meadow) and possibly some whorled caraway (which is quite rare and needs to be confirmed).



We have even found the time to do a bit of adventuring out in the area, we drove up to Llyn Brianne the other evening. The views on the way up are really beautiful and the countryside just begs to be explored.

The actual barn and a bit of an update on the goings on

So of course this is all about the barn, not just our lives here. Our fantastic friend Dave is our architect (DW Enterprises Splott Road Cardiff) and as both Mags and he are so special the design work is our house warming present, there is probably no way we can thank them enough! We have the final designs and Dave is now working them up so that we can go to building regs to get all the final agreements. We are going to ask for a couple of small additions through planning permission but hopefully nothing that will freak the planners out. Inside is beautiful with the downstairs middle room open to the roof and a fantastic bridge between the two upstairs bedrooms. It's becoming easier to visualise the whole place as time goes on.

I also have my dream of having a larder included in the design. When I was a little girl my nan from Yorkshire had a pantry, she was such a fantastic cook and she really inspired me to enjoy eating and cooking good food. So I want a cool larder where I can store all our home grown produce.

Talking of which we have also been busy digging beds and preparing the ground for a polytunnel whilst at the same time desperately trying to keep hundreds of seedlings alive!

The land is all coming to life around us and it's such a different place now, all the different greens are quite breathtaking and exciting.

We have also met our other neighbours across the river and again we are so lucky to have such nice people living here. They have very kindly offered their shower and as they have it set up downstairs in their lobby we can use it whenever we need it. John and Pat have lived here 20 years and so have a fantastic understanding of the local wildlife. They have seen over their time here, an otter every autumn who follows the salmon up when they do their run up the river, dippers nest all along the river, pied fly catchers swoop up and down the valley and will nest in boxes put up for them, woodpeckers thrive as does the local gosshawk (especially on the local chickens!)

Finally on the matter of chickens we have 12 new inhabitants who are getting to live in our barn before us.. and I am already getting a sense that they are very naughty.. After escaping the one area we hoped to confine them to one managed to kick over a paint pot, she is now called Blue Foot.. still haven't found out how you get paint off chickens!

The Maidens go exploring

Whilst we are waiting to get stuck into the barn we have been busy - no slacking for us! With over 400 trees to plant (of local provenance) we had our work cut out. We intend to have a good supply of fuel for the future so have planted a short rotation coppice, including willow, hazel and ash all of which grow on the land already and there is evidence of previous coppicing, so we carry on a tradition. Our drive is also finished now so there should be no more vans stuck in the mud! So all in all a busy old week, and we're still working.

Our cat is also getting used to the place - he's been a city cat all his life and an indoor cat largely, so the big outdoors is an exciting experience for him. Initially he was so entranced by the scenery and explosion on his senses that he wouldn't pay attention to where he was walking and fell off the deck a number of times as a consequence, much to our amusement. I wouldn't say he's ever going to be a truly out door cat, especially as he follows you like a dog, however he's certainly had his horizons expanded.


Oh and our bluebells are coming out!


We've also been meeting some of the neighbours. Whilst planting all our trees a robust elderly man pulled up in his car and got out to introduce himself - turns out he's the father of one of our nearest neighbours. His family have been in the area since 1780 so he has some pretty interesting stories to tell. He was able to tell us that where we were planting our hazel was known as fools corner, reason being that in during the second world war the very steep hill had to be ploughed for grain... if you have seen this hill you would understand the name.. we got the impression he thought our approach was a lot more sensible.

Also we have discovered another neighbour - a rather impressive stag who has obviously been living in our woods.







Oh yes and as a final word we really do need to thank Tamsin, who housed all three of us for 2 months for free with barely a grumble. Without her we would have had to found somewhere to rent which would have tied us in for 6 months.. in fact we would have been really very stuck... so thank you my dear - free holidays in a tent for you ;-)

The first two weeks of living on site

or how to build a fabulous temporary home

So this is our new home for the year - we have a small mobile caravan as well - however the yurt is a more pleasant alternative as it has a woodburning stove and is significantly warmer with it's thick wool walls. Another bonus of living away from the main building site itself is that we have seen a lot of wildlife, so far the list includes a male red deer (about 6 years old with impressive antlers), red kite, green finch (and lots of other birds of which I am ignorant), have heard curlews, nightingale, cuckoo and woodpeckers.

We have been working too and in our first two weeks we have created the yurt and yurt decking, the compost loo, a rain water collection system for washing us and our plates, knocked down the brick wall which had to come down according to our planning permission and we've employed someone to sort out the drainage on the drive and the drive itself. The site looks different already.

After a farce with BT we are no longer bothering with a landline which is frustrating but not as frustrating as spending our lives explaining that we don't have a house number, getting lost on the line and finally being told that we can't have internet after all as the line is too old and BT aren't going to invest in the work which is needed!

In short being able to live and work in this place is blissful, even with issues about communication and we are already enjoying having people dropping by, so we get to proudly show the place off again and again.