Living in a caravan with an outside loo is nothing compared to my new challenges

telegraph.co.uk:

squirrel invasion in the attic, the bad cooking, the freezing cold house and the panicking over bills, the work on my cottage continues.

Now, if I could go back to when I was living in my caravan, muttering complaints about the outside loo, I’d grab myself by the shoulders and scream: “Enjoy it while you can!”When it comes to the big jobs, those far beyond my skill set – the damp-proofing, the plumbing, climbing up on the roof to check just how rotten the fascia are and where the squirrels are getting in – I get a professional to do it.

But otherwise I’m willing to try doing most things at the cottage myself. I spend days painting and nights watching YouTube DIY videos, taking crash-courses in how to plaster and how to reseal a bath.In the garden, I fashion a driveway out of what was a mud swamp and a rough streak of concrete: digging and flattening the earth, covering it in weed matting, then raking over gravel from Jewson’s, neatly surrounded by sleepers.

Did I make that sound easy? The reality involved sliding around in the mud and rain, screaming and spending hours doing back-breaking shovelling to move the gravel into place.Although the end result isn’t nearly as slick as a professional would have managed, I’m still thrilled.