Our neighbour has just given us these photos - this is the caravan being delivered - observe the tree branches in the way.....


... hence R up a tree - he had a good time, really


The digger fighting a tree stump and looking like it was losing.


We are now living in our caravan! No electricity as yet, except what we borrowed from next door. But it is very warm and cosy with just one electric heater going and a gas fire when we need it. And it faces due east. What more do we need? Maybe we won't bother with the house and just stay in our three bedroomed caravan..... Save a lot of fuss and bother.

I think that we are now at the stage when we can start our foundations - that it to say, I can't think of anything else we need to do before we can start. We are planning for the Vedic foundation stone to be laid during March if there is a suitable time, and then the foundations can go ahead straight afterwards. We'll have electricity in by Tuesday, and that completes the services, there is a bloke (another bloke - actually not another bloke, the same one who did the trenches for the water main) coming tomorrow to remove a) The Tree Stumps and b) a whole load of soil, to put down about 100 square metres of hardstanding. Then we have somewhere or the lorries to park while unloading.

The sad news is that we think we can't afford Hemcrete - it needs a complete timber frame as well as the stuff spraying around it. So we are settling for concrete blocks. It sounds terribly non-eco, but:

1. I was part of a meeting with one of the main architects for the Centre for Alternative Technology a couple of years back and he said that if you want to do your bit to save the planet, energy efficiency is the key. In other words, better to have a bigger thickness of mineral wool (cheap) than a lesser thickness of sheep's wool - wonderful but expensive, and it's not like we'll see it anyway.

2. Hopefully we will be building a house which will get other people thinking, 'we could afford this' and so more will be built like it.

A word about timber frame houses - they are probably the best way of getting a lot of insulation into a smaller thickness of wall. They go up quickly. They have a lot of wood, which is a Good Thing. There are two reasons we settled for masonry:

1. We like a wall which when you thump it, it gives a solid 'thock', not a more hollow sound, and:

2. We want thermal mass in the house - that is, walls which are solid and heavy and so absorb the sun's heat during the daytime and then let it out slowly at night. This will make it easier to have a zero heating house, ie a house with no central heating.

That's not to say we won't have any heating: there are two woodburing stoves. Plus solar panels on the roof to pre-heat the hot water. And the idea of a super-insulated house is that even just living in it you create enough heat from cookers, appliances, human bodies, which does not then get dissipated through the walls.

That's the theory!!

Tomorrow I start pinning down builders for prices - we have sent out drawings and specs to four. Also we might get the results of the soil survey. And sending to the Jyotishis for an appropriate time to lay the foundation stone. And making sure the hardstanding goes in the right place. And researching which type of blocks to use. No chance of getting bored.