Lake house progress, and Septic tank drama

The Lake house is benefiting from the injection of means through the sale of the house in Krumlov (see blog below) - which is a great relief as we were really frustrated by the slow progress there. So now there's much fevered activity planning the next stages of the reconstruction, and builders have started getting the main living room and the future kitchen into shape - first having to demolish some recent partitions and then bringing the water, waste and heating pipes in. The 'sitting room' has beautiful wide floorboards, totally woodworm-ridden, but we aim to try and conserve them and then re-lay them (fingers crossed). The kitchen floor now has old concrete that will be ripped out and replaced by brick/old timber combination, laid into a bed of shingle and sand with 'breathing channels' around walls (no cellars here).

We had a small drama with the septic tank - having had it made to measure, it was sitting in its maker's yard as the ground at Lake house is frozen, so there was no point in taking it over there. Then a fevered phonecall from one of our buiders: 'quick, we must get the tank over NOW! The guy who made it died yesterday so we need to avoid having it locked in his yard until his estate is sorted out'! OK. So having got over the shock of the nice guy's sudden death, we phone the janitor of the area where the dead man's yard is, to let us come and collect the tank. 'Can't do that', is the answer. So what now??? I tell this story to another of my builders who puts on a 'knight on a white charge expression', picks up the phone and rings. 'We are coming tomorrow with a pick-up. It'll be around 8am so make sure you are having your breakfast then'. 'OK', says the janitor. What the eye doesn't see...' And so we went and stole our own property off another's property and now it sits at the Lake house. Such are ways you can do business simply, in this country :-) Thank goodness.
And good news - our builders managed to save the vaulted ceiling that looked like it'd have to be demolished. It is looking great now:


Meanwhile the small forest road that is our access there is a challenge nowadays, as it is a veritable skating rink, but once there, the place oozes its charm as always.

The lake is still covered in thick ice that is sheer pleasure to walk out to, and so each visit to see the progress and to plan the next steps is like a holiday outing :-)