Visitors to Happy Valley will have noticed that a few small trees have been carefully cut down around the house. This is to allow the builders access to the gable ends, roof and chimneys for their work to restore the building in a traditional style, under Listed Building Consent. Work has not started before as we had to wait for a mother chaffinch and her chick to vacate their nest before some of trees could be taken down.

A few trees have been removed to allow access for scaffolding. We hope work to the site will begin this week.

We hope the work to repair the chimneys, re-flag the roof and to re-build the gable walls which are beginning to bow out will start up this week. This work was a high priority for the Friends of Happy Valley, who are strong guardians of the site and its special character, so we will all be very pleased to see it begin.

A long time ago there used to be some faeries at the bottom of the garden. They sat next to a tree stump and were quite an attraction. However, months ago some of them went on holiday and only one faery remained. It seemed as if she was destined to be alone forever but when we were there yesterday I was delighted to see that she had a friend and the friend has brought a mobile home. How wonderful – I am sure that now we will see many more faeries move in.

So, now on to more serious information. Some of the steps were in a bit of a wobbly condition and were not very safe so Magnus Johnstone has made some new ones and has added a hand rail.  He has also ‘shored’ up and re-built part of the stone dyke at the bottom of the burn. Magnus does a lot of work for us as he does a really good job as you can see from the photos here.

The steps have been replaced and a hand rail secured.

A really lovely job.

The valley is looking really good just now, very dense with lots of flowers out. If you are planning a visit it would be better to go now before the builders get in and if you have young chidren or grandchildren make sure they ‘discover’ the new faery and her home. 

(c) Dean Holmes