The Island - April 2025
Since the start of the year I’ve been trying to get over to the island, but my timetable, the tides and in particular the weather conspired to make sure it didn’t happen, until two weeks ago at the start of the school Easter holidays.
The timing wasn’t great in that the start of the trip coincided with the end of a fortnight of very settled weather. However, as it happens, the weather was lovely for the first 4 days, sunny and quite warm. Meanwhile the east coast was very wet, with flooding and rain warnings.
Last November we cleared the tiles from one side of the final section of the roof over the loft. Before we left we covered the exposed section with a tarp. A short while later we had a number of storms, including the record-breaking Storm Éowyn. Given the power of that storm and the fact that much of the roof wasn’t properly covered I was very concerned. Happily, the roof managed very well, one sheet of corrugated was blown off, but that was minor damage considering.
You can see the gap left by the sheet of clear corrugated in the top right
The goal of the trip was, as ever, to make progress on the roof. Before each trip I write up some detailed notes about what I want to achieve and break it down into steps, including estimates on how long each step should take. The estimates are usually way off; they tend to reflect the best-case scenario and don’t take into account any complications or problems.
But this trip, for the first time, things progressed as planned, and by Wednesday evening the roof was 95% done. All that remains is to put up the final sections of corrugated sheeting and metalwork on the barges and ridge, which should be relatively straightforward.
Monday evening I shored up the base of the wall plate and the barge with concrete on the southside of the roof
Tueday morning I got the membrane and battens on
Tuesday afternoon I stripped back the northside, replaced a rotten rafther in the gable end and shored up the wallplate and barge with concrete
By Wednesday evening I had the roof almost fully battened, I ran out of 2×1 so couldn’t get it fully finished
Need to feed the troops well to get the most out of them!
A distant shower at sunset
The idea to cover the south side of the roof of the main room with clear plastic was a bit of a reaction to how dark the room was previously. As you can see in the above photos it now gets tonnes of light, filtered through the leaves of the ash tree to the south at this time of year and day.
It’s a beautiful space to be in. Effectively feeling like being outside, you can see the stars through the plastic. As to how robust and weatherproof it is – time will tell – but for me it was a small risk well worth taking.
Having the loft floor and the scaffolding on the gable made the final section of the re-roofing a lot easier
The poor old wheelbarrow took some heavy hits during the removal of the barge
The house as viewed from the lane. It looks like a bit of a kip currently, but once the roof is finished there will be plenty of time for the smaller projects.