Charlotte Eve and her partner Kate gambled everything they had on an ancient cob cottage by a lake. Would they find happiness messing about in mud?Eight years ago,I was working in advertising, spending too much time and money in the pub. My partner Kate was burnt out working as an art psychotherapist in a forensic secure unit. Kate had spotted an ad in a magazine for a cob house building course abroad, or it grabbed her. Cob is made from subsoil,water and straw, and it’s a cheap, and natural and energy efficient building fabric. Kate had trained as a sculptor and the plan of sculpting our own house from mud seemed totally incredible. She handed in her notice to work before she even went on the workshop – she was so certain cob building was her fate.
Kate returned from the course totally fired up. One cold and foggy day we were wandering through the cobbled backstreets of Norwich when we spotted a sign in the estate agent’s window for a tiny run down thatched cottage for sale. It was the smallest house I’d ever seen,and no one had lived in it permanently for decades. It was made of mud, overlooked an idyllic and remote lake with otters and kingfishers, and was just waiting for us to come and fix it. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com