Photo-shooting the house!

Just thought I would show you how we are getting on with our home. Or rather, how the builders are getting on. And here is the toilet and shower. OK! So actually toiletless and showerless at the moment, but the outlet holes have been made through the thick walls so that's a start. Have decided on separate loo and shower room downstairs, mostly because Lester has a man's fantasy of being able to sit on the loo doing jobbies without anyone else being present.

I think it is the chats on the two porta potties which have encouraged this requirement. I think it is very chummy for one of us to be sitting on the number one's loo and the other to be sitting on the number two's loo, having a conversation throughout our individual loo-sessions. Our two porta potties are in the same toilet compartment of the bedroom caravan, by the way.

I think he is fed up with lack of contemplation space. I think he is pining for loo-privacy. I think he deserves to be given the reward for his efforts in getting our house into shape by receiving the pleasure of solo loo-ings in the future.

Of course a wall will have to be built to enclose the loo and shower. Because as one sits on the loo this is the view one will have if the builders do not finish the floors, or get the roof on.

But Johnathen is getting a move on with the ceiling of the half barn and it is half way to being finished.

There was some discussion as to whether or not to put a wall mid-way along the space, but I stamped quite heavily on the idea, thinking that the space needs to be kept clear because we don't know what the long term use is to be of this space. But it is coming along at a goodly pace.

Which cannot be said for my oven at this particular moment. For some reason it has gone on a go-slow. A new gas bottle has been inserted, but no. It is taking hours to get dinner cooked, and we are starving, it being nearly two hours past lunch time. So I am off to see if it is still unwilling to work on a Sunday, and am repeating to myself lots of the Hope word: I hope the builders manage to get here this week, I hope that we get some more rain after having had a few bucketfulls already today but we could do with a few bucketfulls more, I hope that my dinner gets cooked sometime soon because the vino that Christian donated to me a few days ago and which Lester has just given me a glass of just now has started to go to my head it being a fifteen percent proof vino and is absoloooooootly delicious and like drinking nectar from the Gods not that I have even drunk nectar from the Gods but you know what I mean and my tummy is outraged that the fuel it has been given today is two pieces of toast, a piece or two of shop-bought cake because I went on strike with cake baking, one cup of tea, one cup of coffee, a couple of sips of water and a goodly slug of 15% Spanish vino.

I am now going to see if I am going to be fed today. I hope I will be. The wine is definitely having odd reactions on me........ tottering away to the kitchen, I send you blessings of the day.

I didn't sleep very well last night...

Now I am supposed to be filling you in about the latest development with the rotovator. However, on a trip to the porta-potti, upon edging myself down on the low, open receptacle making sure I was aiming my posterior spot on ( there are no margins of error with a porta-potti. You are either on it, or off it and falling onto the floor), meanwhile trying to make the plastic lid stay up so it doesn't interefere with my landing, flashing into my head came this blog title.

Now this has happened to me before: for instance,a few days ago it was 'Pas Francais. Espagnol!' And the funny thing is, that they arrive in my head at exactly the same moment, which is like thus: Urge To Go To The Loo arrives. Hurry to the bedroom caravan hoping Lester hasn't locked the door. Things can get a bit desperate if I have to go hunt him down, and get the key off him to unlock the door. So, into caravan. Through washroom door. Into smaller space now. Bearing in mind that we are still in thermals and wearing layers, although not so many, it takes a while to get to the underwear. Time is pressing on. I am meanwhile turning myself round so I can position everything in readiness. To do this, I hold on the door frame of the washroom with my right hand, while the other hand tries to keep the lid of the porta potti up, and any item of clothing out of the way.

And Boing! THAT is when the ideas spring into my mind. Of all the moments when it would be best that they didn't, that is the moment they do! Why is that? Because it is such an awkward moment, there is no room to sit and write while performing the necessary ablutions, all I can do is ponder as to why I get inspiration at that particular moment. Yesterday, I distinctly got an idea about The Psychic Toolbox, which is my second book. It had been grumbling along, nearly done I thought, but then into my mind popped an idea about how to organise the early chapters which suddenly made the book come alive. I had, quite frankly, been getting bored with it and this would probably have reflected in the way in which someone read it.

And momentous life changes and decisions have also been sprung into my head when on the loo; proper loos, with proper toilet seats so I can lean my head against the wall and have a think, or write down my thoughts on the handily placed writing pad. (It is difficult to write on loo roll by the way, so don't try it. The loo paper goes all scrunchy and you can't read what you have written, this I found out after having been inspired to spill out a load of words early on morning, but used the loo roll because no writing pad was to hand. Also no pen, so used a lipstick. Not a good idea all round. The lipstick seemed to get everywhere, I couldn't read what I had written anyway because the paper went scrunchy and I would have been better off enjoying the physical moment of being on the loo rather than trying to write reams of words which were never going to be understood when I tried to read them later on!).

Ok, so I am receiving of inspiring thoughts on the loo. So WHY didn't I sleep very well last night?
Well, it had been a good day. Plenty of interesting things to do, and the sun shone until 8.30 which meant we were outside until 9. Then into the office to do some writing, then a bit of You-Tubing, then shut-down PC, time for bed.
"Have a look at this" says Happy Chappy Lester. "You will find this interesting....."
"Oh but Lester, it is nearly 11 and we need to get to bed." I say, trying to head towards the door.
"Just have a look at this before you go. It's about composting toilets."
My heart sinks. This one of his self sufficiency projects: having a compost toilet. Now I don't mind one outside, in the woods. And I don't mind wandering off down to the woods when I need to avail myself of the composting toilet facilities. But I have a problem with having one in the house. Apparently we could have a box downstairs, (a 'thunder box' is a term which is often used for these things) then use the loo upstairs. Down the chute into the box everything would go, there to sit for months, if not years, until it had composted down. The thing is, I DON'T want it in the house. Outside, yes. Inside, no. So my compromise is to have a composting toilet outside, down in the woods so no-one knows it is there, which we would use when it is sunny and warm, and then when the weather is otherwise, we would use the indoor toilet from which everything would go into the fosse septique, and disappear from view and my mind. Like what happens in the UK, with the normal sewerage system. You go. You flush. You shut the lid. Done. No worries. Off your contribution goes, into the sewerage system, without so much as a thought on your part as to where it is going to fetch up. That is not so here. What we recycle goes onto our land. Into the woods at the moment.

But Lester has been rigorously You-Tubing for compost toilets. And he had come up with " the best idea yet": Worm compost-toilet. What you have is a tub of worms in compost, into which one deposits ones doings, then the worms do the breaking down process, and hey presto, after a few months, wondrous compost to spread about the garden, as could be seen on the You-Tube video.

And the reason I didn't sleep very well last night was because the discussion about the viability of a worm compost toilet system carried on for ages afterwards, so that when I tried to finally go to sleep quite some time afterwards, all I could see was a pot of worms into which I was looing. It really does not work for me at all. I could do worm composting as Denise over at Much Malarkey Manor is doing. No problem with that.

But sitting on a tub of worms is absolutely not do-able. Lester said that they wouldn't get out because they would be busy eating things. Lester said that they don't bite, or want to eat me, because they just don't do such things. Lester said that we would be off-grid with the toilet, which we are anyway because there is no sewerage system here so he lost that argument. Lester said that John Seymour (we are fans of this wonderful man) would have had one. Lester said that I was being silly and squeamish. Lester said "ouch" when I rolled over to go to sleep and inadvertantly kneed him in a sensitive place. (Not meant, I assure you!)

And if you ever visited, how could I say to you, "There is the toilet. You have to put sawdust in when you have been. And don't mind the worms, they're friendly!"