New Year, New Start

Not only have the building works been severly disrupted by the harsh winter, but the blogging has been affected too by my posting to Hong Kong and the difficulties in accessing the blog site.

Although I got back onto the internet within a week of moving into our apartment, each time I log on to the blog site I get the instructions in Chinese, and I've only just worked out how to access the edit mode.

So now some catching up.  The builders had to stop work in early December once the freezing temperatures arrived, and have only just restarted this week.  Almost a month lost.  But during that time Misan has been really busy identifying a very interesting independent kitchen company and a local wardrobe fitter, so we made sure during my Christmas trip to UK that we visited them to help finalise our decisions on some of the finishings.

We also made time to visit the barn - twice.  Once when it was still buried under 10cm of snow, then a week later with Michael after the thaw.  There is good progress, with the first floor structure installed and the walls being raised, and with the roof off it's possible to get some good views of the inside of the barn - and some of our son scrambling over the scaffolding!

We also managed to deliver two trailer loads of our pot plants and window boxes to the barn, and to park our trailer there in readiness for our move out of the rented house and onto our temporary relocation to Hong Kong.  It's amazing that, these days, you can still keep in close contact with all aspects of the project even from 5000 miles away in a different time zone - since I arrived back in HK on Monday I've sorted details with the wardrobe company, clarified quotations with the removals and storage company and had two discussions with the builder about construction details.