The duvet is now covered up and the roof is all felted and battened, ready for the slates. We now have a new friend in Steve, Hugh's roofer - in only 2 days he made massive progress with the roof, doing the tricky bit over the stairs (a technical term, but I call it 'the hat'), and a big chunk of the north side of the house. Looks like it will be done by next week, if we don't get washed away or lost in the fog which is bring promised for tomorrow by the weatherman....

Inside, Warren has been up to his usual mischief and the internal walls are all pretty much done now - (over 250 pieces of 2by4 used so far, and more to go!). The downside of having vaulted ceilings mean that the walls have to go up twice as far as where there is a normal ceiling height - but at least we won't ever bang our heads or need to duck ;-)

We are also collecting a pile of floor samples as Hugh and I scour the internet for the right colour ceramic wood planks. We also met Jim today to go over the final design of the staircase which will be 15 steps of American walnut loveliness.... But only once all the building work is done, and there won't be any stilettos allowed upstairs...

As the weather continues to degrade into winter, the roof layers continue to arrive and be fixed onto the rafters. The left hand side of the house is now all wrapped up in the layers of foil, fibre and brown paper which should keep the heat in during the winter and out during the summer months. The next step is more familiar and less space age, with roofing felt and batons being applied before the slates go on - each one nailed into position! . The slates have arrived in crates, with the curved ridge to sit on the top also in grey to match the roof. We spent last weekend driving round looking at the ridges in houses to decide if we wanted it in red or grey! That was a decision I hadn't expected to have to make....

So by next week the crates should be empty, and the slates on the roof which brings us one step closer to being water tight!

After spending months (or was that years?) surrounded by brick samples, cavity insulation statistics, window designs and finishes and driveway catalogs, we have new piles of catalogs and web pages saved to favourites... This can only mean one thing - we are progressing to the next phase!

As the final roof rafters go on next week, the roof slates will quickly follow and then we shall be water tight (fingers crossed the September weather holds and countryfile has got it right!). Being water tight means a whole new set of decisions are required - toilets, sinks, bidets, showers and the bath need to be finalized and chosen. Our initial choices which we made for budget processes are now over a year old so we need to start again - after all, no one wants to sit on a toilet in 2015 that is based on a 2013 design! Hugh keeps throwing me a few curve balls (I mean, who would ever think that we needed to choose the design of the roof ridge? And whether the chimney should be corbled or not...?) which will require some of the 'outside' decisions to be made, but they should be smaller in number than the interior ones... Let's see!

One set of catalogs is now moved to one side and replaced with sinks, toilets and floor tiles.. Random samples turn up on site and sometimes it's hard to keep track of what they were for!

On the plus side we are very close to joining the 21st century again as Dan has got the telephone and wireless rigged up to go to the caravan. The blog next week might be sent to you from site!

We also had a number of visitors to site this week - Tony and Liz came down from Scotland to check our progress, with Chris, Marina, Frankie & Maddy also visiting site. They are either all being polite and wanting to secure a dinner or B&B invite or they genuinely liked our house - which is always a plus and has given us a confidence boost - after all there isn't much point in building a house no one wants to visit!

Now that the rafters are nearly all on, there is too much to blog about, so this weekend I paid more attention to the main website than the blog... So have a nosey around and enjoy!

As the girl human is to busy to entertain you with fun and frolics, I think I need to pick up the mantle!   All they seem to do is talk talk talk - about walls, bathrooms, house name plaques (whatever that is about, who gives a house a name? I have a name as I am living and breathing, something that house will never do.. I think I need to work out how to break the news to them... gently!), stone bands etc etc. Not once have I heard them talk about fun things like mice, fish, dinner, scratch posts or toys... I hope this phase is part of them growing up and that is passes soon as they are becoming quite dull. They must be dull because no one comes to visit anymore... We are used to laps of all different shapes and sizes that come and go - since we moved house, no one comes round so I have to make do with the girl humans lap every night..

Hope my fans are all well - I am doing ok, had a couple of fits recently but they pass quickly. Charlie is being nice to me at the moment which is fun - he chased me all the way up the stairs this morning so I freaked him out by playing dead when we got onto the bed! He totally freaked out!Ha ha!

Stay cool and keep having fun - till next time!

Lots of love Bobby x x

Just the really difficult bit to go now.. The rafters over our bedroom... And then we have to work out how we will get the cobwebs down from the top of the 5mtr wall... Vaulted ceilings sound great and look great, but only if you have a great cleaner with very very long arms...!

Last night we had a rare evening of sunlight after a thick fog in the morning.... We will never see sunlight through the rafters like this again... Once the roof is on, we will watch the sunsets through the sky lights, which will look lovely in a different way...