Little barn

Another photo in an occasional series of images of my house, to have in my journal after we have moved.  (Update on that: Our buyer had to pull out just as we were signing contracts because he was made redundant and had his mortgage offer withdrawn.  They felt sorry for us, we felt sorry for them.  Either way we are back to square one with the house on the market.)

This is the building we always call the little barn.  It has three rooms, each with its own external door and not interconnected inside.  We use one as a fuel store, one as a bike store, and one for garden tools and equipment.  The garden store room was originally the wash-house, and still has the big copper wash-pot as well as a fireplace and chimney.  The building has an owl-hole on the upper right of the gable end, currently obscured by ivy. (Yes, I know the ivy needs trimming back, thank you, it's on 'the list'.) We always hoped owls would come and use it, but a few years ago we had to block it up to stop the jackdaws filling the place with twigs.  They are extremely persistent, however, and after about five years they still come and try to force an entry every spring, as they are doing now.

There used to be a stack of logs piled up against the rear gable.  One year we watched a weasel move her kits from a nest in the woodpile to a hole in the back of the big barn.  We tend to keep that end permanently overgrown with cotoneaster, honeysuckle and other shrubby stuff to provide refuge for insects, small birds and animals.

Every year we have swallows and wrens nesting in the bike store - they make mess but what can you do.  Swifts come and nest under the roof slates - another reason to trim the ivy before they arrive.  They are last to arrive and first to leave each year.  If something else nests in their space, as some house sparrows did one year, they are unceremoniously ejected by the swifts.  Last year we had five swift nests, which is the most we have had in eighteen years. Their nests are on top of the gable wall, which is about two feet thick.  I would say 60cm but it was built in feet and inches before centimetres were invented.