Day 22 - A little bit of help....please.

Tuesday 22nd January
Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous! Hope you have all had a good day. We have all had a very busy day working on a very exciting project that I feel slightly guilty about. Our beloved Katy (chicken) used to have a summer house on the land as her night time home. The plan was to fence that off and bring a new flock on for spring. I am sorry to declare that the new chickens have been moved out before they even arrived. They will now be housed in the old duck pen but will be compensated by having a new bespoke house built for them. I am quite sure my regular readers will have already guessed what we are going to use Katy's old home for....my new studio. I would take credit for this piece of inspired thinking but I know my mother reads this blog and it was, in fact, her idea!

So today has seen the family begin the conversion. Now I need you to use your imagination a bit here because it didn't look much like a studio when we began the project this morning.

After our lovely Katy died Pete got in there quick and dumped a whole load of 'man stuff' in it. So all that had to come out and put somewhere else. Once cleared we still had a shameful amount of sawdust to clean out and some of the biggest cobwebs in the world to destroy (having carefully relocated the biggest spiders in the world). By this time I could start to see it changing for a chicken house to a studio. At one point the front of it had been laid with garden fabric and covered with gravel but for various reasons that had all disappeared, or had it? The boys scraped away at the weeds and found the gravel lurking below while Pete began clearing the brambles. You might be wondering what I was doing? I was not standing watching with a cup of tea I was, in fact, down on my hands and knees with a scrubbing brush removing dried on chicken poo. This project was shaping up to be a labour of love. Some hours later we all stood back to admire our work and half shut our eyes to help us imagine a studio. That worked quite well because we all agreed progress had been made.

Having measured the roof for new felt we went down to the DIY shop in the village and purchased the required felt and the paint for the outside. We are now ready to repair the roof and paint the outside tomorrow assuming it remains dry. I, of course, now don't want it to snow! There is no pleasing some folk. I can't wait until the inside is white washed so I can start making it look like a studio. In time I shall get a small wood burner in there but a little gas fire might have to do to start with. While I am making it look like a studio the boys will be clearing my view.

'What view I hear you cry?' 'Exactly' I answer. The current view is of a rather large area of brambles but the question is 'what lies behind those brambles?' The answer is a veiw of the sea! A much more desirable view will be revealed by my lovely boys. Come the spring I will be sat on my dainty little porch drinking that cup of tea looking out to sea in search of creative inspiration.

Speaking of inspiration this is where you guys come in. I have promised to reward the son who comes up with the best name for my new studio. I don't want to appear lacking in confidence in their abilities but I have heard some of the suggestions and it could be a long wait for the right name. So I am throwing it open to you guys. If one of you can come up with a better suggestion than any of the boys I will return the favour with a little gift 'with love from Arran.' Just write it in the comments with your name. Don't worry if you can't see the comment on the screen as I moderate all comments before publishing. But, I promise to publish all suggestions!

So, you might have gathered that our studies in home school on the EU have been put on a hold for a couple of days as we take advantage of the dry weather. The children have always got involved in all the work on the smallholding and we are lucky we had four! Molly is also lucky to be away at university at this time! It will be lovely for the boys to see it completed and Max took full advantage by asking if his dad could build him a treehouse. Might be a fair trade off in the end.

It might have been dry but it was very cold and we were all driven in before dark. I was down on the beach as the sun was beginning to set and took this photo on my phone for you all to see. I dedicate this lovely image to my very special Donna who has a birthday today. Happy Birthday Donna.

Don't forget I need a name for my studio. Eternally grateful Fiona xx