Toys for boys
May 25, 2009 | 2 Comments |
Last week Thursday they arrived: the Hitachi Excavator 7.5 tonne and a 5 tonne Dumper truck. I bought them from a company in Lancashire and Wednesday evening I got a phone call from the truck driver that he expected to be in Glendale by Thursday 9am.
Initially we had doubts that he would be able to bring them up all the way up the Holmisdale road as it is narrow and winding but Woody the lorry driver was fearless and drove the lot all the way up. Off loading them was a breeze and around 10pm Woody was on his way home again.
Today we gave them a good spin. They work great. The trench for the water pipe was back filled, the parking space was leveled, and we started cleaning up on the right hand side of the cottage.
Golden Loch
May 12, 2009 | 4 Comments |
After some pretty wild weather high pressure has reached Scotland and we’re enjoying Skye Spring. Blue skies, mild sea breeze and no midges - yet! Specially for Alan, this shot of Loch Dunvegan as it was yesterday evening. Wow! The skies were so clear, it looked like the outer isles were only just on the other side of the loch. What an amazing view…
On the practical side: we make good progress in Glendale but have now reached a point where we’re waiting for the digger to arrive to clean up the site and get the back of the house slated. All the block work for the aft extension is nearly finished. Once the roof is finished we can start work on the inside. Bad planning actually, as weather is now improving.
Update
May 4, 2009 | 8 Comments |
An update from Skinidin. We’ve been maneuvering through some pretty nasty weather over the past days so Skye Spring is not fully there - yet.
Anyway, that did not keep us from making progress at Holmisdale. The back wall of the annex is now complete (all brick work done) so this week we’ll start to finish off the roof. Finally, as I’m getting tired of the rain pouring through the un-slated part of the roof. The heavy showers of late keep on turning the inside into a full featured swimming pool. Very annoying!
Our latest acquisition - a ‘93 Mitsubishi Pajero - had problems over the weekend. Saturday, after helping Claire with the change over, I wanted to go to Holmisdale only to find it dead. Battery completely drained. I was 99.9% sure I did not leave any lights or other electrics on. Anyway, as I did not have any urgent business with it over the weekend I decided to leave it until today. And today Raymond helped out with a battery pack. But in vain… dead as door nail!!
Off to Kenny’s Garage to borrow jump leads and see whether I could jump start it with our VW Golf. No success either. Batteries totally dead! I phoned Kenny and asked them to help out. They managed to get it going and while at it the mechanic found a loose plug dangling near the alternator. Apparently a chain of events occurred. The alternator was unplugged. This stopped the battery from charging, eventually draining the battery completely. While at Kenny’s a quick test showed that, although the alternator was now charging, the battery was well past its prime and hardly charged at all. Kenny fitted a new battery and M2 Motors where we bought the Pajero is picking up the bill. Great!
Another exciting thing worth mentioning: as we have a huge amount of landscaping and excavating work to do in the upcoming months, we decided to buy a digger / dumper combination in stead of hiring them.
After some careful research we opted for a 7.5 tonne Hitachi excavator - a good general purpose machine - and a 5 tonne dumper truck. If all goes well the machines will be delivered next week from Lancashire where they are now. Raymond is a proficient and licensed operator, so he’ll be handling the big machines. Who knows, I might have a little go on them as well….
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Latest music...
Hair (1968, Original Broadway recording). Some naughty lyrics for that time!!
An Rathad a Bhatarsaigh, by the Vatersay Boys