I was lucky enough recently to spend a few days of gloriously unexpected springtime sunshine working outside in an area of fabulous beauty, with spectacular views over the North Cornwall coast, down to the Camel River near Wadebridge, which, at this time of year, is girding its estuarial loins for the tourist assault that begins with the Easter holidays. My working holiday was spent helping my brother-in-law prepare for the forthcoming season of his alternative holiday company, Yurtworks, by building a new solar-heated shower for the visitors.
As always, the design for the shower room is bursting with individuality: Tim never does things the easy way, partly because there are tight planning restrictions in such special environments and partly because inside his head is a busy place to be. There was, undoubtedly, a plan in there somewhere, and fortunately it was one that allowed for a satisfying amount of just the sort of building work I enjoy most: making it up as you go along!
And, because we were working in wood, nothing could be easier. It’s such a flexible material: you can chisel away a bit here or add an extra brace there; you can glue, screw or pin it; you can bend it – as Tim has done with the frame for this larch construction – and generally tweak it to your exact needs.
Apparently there have been a number of enquiries from local authorities who are keen to use this eco-friendly building style in toilets for allotments and similar public spaces: it ticks all the right boxes, as it were. So we were aware, as we put it together, that this may only be a draft of the final version, something that could be produced by others in a consistent (aka fool-proof) style. (And even then, as anyone who works regularly with the public will confirm, a fool-proof system is no match for a system-proof fool.)
We certainly made some mistakes on the way, but these were easily corrected or, as in the question of how to fill the end panel, were solved by some lateral thinking. Initially we looked at cladding this with larch or with tongue-and-groove timber. We then considered whether it should be partly lined with canvas to repel the inevitable spray from the shower. But, as we chatted through the options in the sun, Tim suddenly suggested that we fill the space with glass or, with safety in mind, with Perspex so that the showerist might feel at one with the moss-covered ancient oaks immediately behind the building.
Fortunately there are no neighbours to shock, but that doesn’t mean your ablutions would be un-observed. I’ve found that whenever I’m working outside, whether it’s a suburban street or a rural idyll, I tend to get a few passers-by stopping to see what’s going on. In Cornwall, the onlookers were a family of wallabies that have ‘gone native’ in this area, having escaped from a nearby visitor park some years ago. We nodded at each other in a companionable way, as we all enjoyed the sunshine and the special magic of these secluded, ancient woods.
I’ve done enough of it to know that physical work can be boring, dangerous and unpleasant. But, at its best, it is a rich and satisfying pleasure to get your hands dirty, to witness a curved and gracious structure emerging from the ground and take its place in such a special environment.
Maybe you can’t always get what you want, but, as Sir Michael Jagger so eloquently put it, sometimes ‘You get what you need…’.
