I say! They’ve finally cracked it…

Priceless!

Cold

It’s half dark, it’s freezing cold, the forecast’s for snow…

and we’re full.

Four folk from Iowa, two Germans and our usual quota of deep frozen workmen. That’s 11 in all which would be good for a weekend in summer, and pretty amazing for a Tuesday in November.

I have a cold. My patent rememdy of Green Chartreuse, Tio Pepe and Kalamata olives (not all at once) appears to be doing some good and I’m off to have a nice hot bath and feel sorry for myself.

Under pressure

The plasterboard’s been removed in the pend below the function room and some acroprops have been inserted.
’scuse these pictures being the wrong size. I will sort that later.
The five big beams holding up the wall above are under colossal strain

This one has cracked right through, and the crack is not old.

So now we know where we stand (not under here anyway) we can get some remedial work done. The quick fix (which isn’t really either of these things) involves inserting steel beams between the stone walls of the pend and building up brickwork beneath the wall. With the current supports in such an unsafe condition we are more than a wee bit nervous about this.

The better solution involves propping up the bedroom floors with more acroprops, removing the brick wall completely, and building a new lightweight steel structure. Since it’s going to be messy and expensive anyway we may as well have the job done properly.

What might have happened

If we hadn’t bought the Spread Eagle, there were several other propeties for sale at the same time that looked interesting. One of those was the Leadburn Inn. It was much nearer to Edinburgh, had good turnover and wasn’t too expensive.

Then, yesterday…
Well, you’d better have a look at this

Getting plastered

Part of the bathroom wall in R4 has been a bit cracked since we moved in and, this morning, it fell down. The area involved is about 50cm square, but needs a fair bit of plastering. So we’ve removed the crumbly stuff and will be down to Dorricott’s tomorrow to get some plaster.

Unfortunately (or should that be fortunately) the room’s booked out tomorrow. So we need to get it done asap.

Skyhooks

The planning officer from Borders council was here yesterday with our architect. She was shown the precarious wall (postings passim/ad nauseum) and agreed that it would have to come down.

There’s a temporary fix which involves inserting skewer beams (whatever the hell they are) beneath the wall and insterting packing between them and the old floorboards. A more permanent fix involves removing the wall completely and inserting structural steelwork to support the bedrooms above. We’re pressing for the permanent solution since a lot of the money will be workmen’s time. We also want a door between the two rooms to give a function suite.

This will be a big job.

Beer today…

It’s been a while since I posted here. We have some workmen staying with us until January at least and possibly March. This is a good booking because it’s a quiet time of year and they are staying from Monday to Friday which leaves the rooms free for the weekend when we might concievable have other guests.

Meanwhile our German beer supplier is off the Christmas card list since he was supposed to contact us at the weekend to arrange a meeting (in Edinburgh - we’re not important enough for him to come here) and he forgot. So we’re going with a Glasgow company called beergo who sound reasonably good. We’ll be stocking Andechs beer which is from the Benedictine monastery in the Bavarian town of the same name. They were founded in 1450 which is about the same time as we were.

The Scottish Borders Council planning officer was here today. But maybe that should go in the other blog…