Back to the Old School

I've decided to take some time this evening and get a quick blog post written rather than saving it up for an epic uber long one again. That last update was crazy-long.

A new day dawns

Patio cleared ready for the delivery truck

The wheel is being fixed on the trolley

Mesut sweeping the dust up

The day dawned bright and early for me with Thelma's nose in my face - A had gone to the guest room as she was a bit unsettled so it was down to me to do the puppy toilets. She headed off to collect the men while I took pictures of the sunrise and then got my graft on. I worked up a major sweat shifting and clearing all the wood off the patio and then did all my chores before heading to my desk. It took ages for A to get back as she had to wait for Bekir to arrange the delivery of wood and scaffold that we needed today and the builders yard was not prepared at all - typical. When they did get back I found that sadly Sally was not with them, nor will he be joining us tomorrow either. He is unwell. I hope he gets better soon. Bekir fixed the trolley wheel that had become loose and then got to work sharpening the chainsaw and also helping myself and Mesut clear out the gym. Never mind running on it, lifting the running machine out was a major workout in itself. With the room cleared Mesut got stuck in to sweeping and dampening the dust down.

More scaffold - I hate scaffold

All unloaded

Bottom corridor full again

Grinding the tiles to shape

Starting to get them into place

Bekir fixing the metal sheet that had blown loose

Before anything else could really get started the delivery truck arrived and, true to form, the driver watched while we unloaded everything. With the three of us it did not take long and everything is stacked safely. It was now lunch time and I was feeling so hungry, a sign I'm tired, while the men took a short break and were back to their tasks very quickly. Mesut was tiling and made a grand start cutting and shaping the tiles for around the door with a grinder. They are going to complete everything in the gym (which will no longer be the gym after this) before moving on to the bigger room; this is because that room will become the tool room with all the shelving units and storage in it (and an airbrush booth as well) so when we clear the large room the shelves and tools will go straight in there. Efficiency. Bekir, meanwhile, went up the ladder onto the Green Building roof and very swiftly patched the sheet that had blown loose.

Bekir taking down more of our dead trees

He's so calm up the tree

Mesut making great prorgess

Bekci sees cows for the first time

Tile status at the end of the day

With the Green Building Roof sorted Bekir went out with the chainsaw to complete the wood job. I received a call from him at one point because Rambo was annoying him, bless, so I had to go and put Rambo away for the afternoon. He is just too stupid and will stand underneath falling branches so it was for his own good. I got another video of Bekir not trying to kill me and then he was on to the Walnut trees down the front. He got all but one of these finished and so tomorrow that will be all done and then we just have to shift SO MANY TREES AND BRANCHES up to storage. Mesut was working away quietly all this time and had made superb progress; he may even finish this room tomorrow. We let Bekci out for a bit and she was bouncing around and having great fun (Bekir loves her) and then she spotted the cows making their way up the side. She was most confused about them. She didn't bark, thought. And that is that. I took the men home and got back in the dark, the clocks having changed, and have done some work and now taken a few minutes to do this update.

Quick fire is the best; I'll certainly try and get the update done tomorrow evening again.

Thanks for reading.

Mountain House is gone

Sunday night and I left it too late in the weekend to begin this as now I'm rushing; of course it does feel later than it is as the clocks changed last night so while it is pitch black it is only 6pm. I've a fair few pictures and videos to go through and I'm going to break it up with some hobby time; last week was incredibly tiring and this weekend has been an enforced break as I've been too tired to do anything much of anything.

Day Eight

What a long time ago Monday seems. I had slept very badly on the Sunday night and was dramatically not in the mood for doing anything, let alone building demolition. Nonetheless A went to collect the men and I met them at the bottom of the hill to swap over to go on to the Mountain House. I had a packed lunch and was going to stay as long as I could.

There is a lot of stone here

We got up to the house in good time and Halil and Halit (I discovered their names this week) joined us quickly. First of all I helped the men clear out the ground floor. It turns out that there actually were floor beams underneath the ground floor but they were sitting directly on the dirt; not the best of plans I would have thought. With this done I got stuck in with my shovel clearing away rubble on the stairs and then getting stuck in to clearing away the pile of rubble by the bad wall (the pile I had begun clearing onto the lane on Friday) to help out when we got to demolishing that wall. I also jumped inside the house to assist with throwing stones out. The routine was Bekir and Mesut would be knocking walls down and then when they had done a fair amount myself, Halil and Halit would go in and remove the stones into the piles that were growing ever taller around the edge of the demolition site.

Another Autumnal lunchtime

Pulling beams up while stood on them. Yep.

Lobbing stones out the wnidow

Everyone hard at work

Nasty barbed wire that was stretched around the house

The end of Monday

Come lunch time and we sat in the next door field again and chilled out, but it was far cooler today than it had been on Friday so before lunch was over I jumped up to have a stroll and get a few pictures. Bekir must even have been a bit cool because he was also up and working before the hour was over. The rest of the day was spent throwing stones and shoveling rubble, for me, and it was tiring but massively satisfying. I enjoyed every second and the progress was awesome. One strange thing that we discovered was barbed wire that was wrapped all around the outside of the building - nasty rusty stuff and we took it with us to dump in the bin on the way home.

A day off - tree lopping at The Old School

The sharp eyed of you will note that we gave the men a lift to the Mountain House on Monday and yes that is because Mesut's car was a writeoff. Such a shame; hopefully he'll be buying a new one soon enough.

Bekir after the excitement

A man comes to fix the cables

The damaged insulator

Mesut had to take his Mrs to town on Tuesday so we gave the others a day off and Bekir came to the Old School to trim the trees, a task we've been wanting to do for a year now. He sharpened up the chainsaw and was up one of the tea trees very quickly, attacking the high up branches. I stood out watching and videoing and then suddenly noticed that the branch he was cutting was falling my way, and towards the power cables. I tried to warn him but of course he didn't hear so I stopped the camera, turned, and ran as fast as I could with bangs, crashes and sparks exploding behind me. The branch, fortunately, bounced off and behind and didn't take all the cables to the ground but I was still pretty shaken. I was sure the cable was damaged and tried to point this out but Bekir was sure it was fine. I spotted, a bit later, that the insulator had come off the pole and after some time I was able to get Bekir to see this. He rang the electric people and just before lunch a technician appeared, switched the power off and fixed the damage in about five minutes. That was not the start to the day I was expecting but fortunately no one was hurt.

One quote for the ages for you; apparently that cable didn't matter as much as it is "only the earth cable"..... This is why I'm going to get the house earth feeding into the lightning conductor earth - the power company things it is optional!

Trimming the plum tree

Trimming the Pear tree

A birds nest in the branches

The rest of the day went to plan with Bekir cutting down loads of wood and me sat at my desk working away. He did trim my favourite Pear tree but didn't get all the way around so there's probably another half day or so of trimming to be done before all the trees are tidied away. It left us with a huge pile of wood to clear, however. The humanure was buried.

Day Nine

A very misty start to the day

Sun begins to burn through

Over the tea tree

Wednesday dawned super misty and A was really careful driving to collect the men and this time she took them all the way up to the Mountain House. This was the first time she had been up there since we began the demolition and it was great to know she was going to get to see it.

Dragging the branches out onto the patio...

... and then taking them round for storage

The end of the day at the Mountain house

Old staircase removed

I spent the day working at my desk and took a break at lunch to drag some wood out of the tangle and get it stacked up round the corner to dry. Soon enough it was time for me to drive over to collect the men and see the progress

Day Ten

A sheet torn off in the winds

There was some seriously crazy winds over night and they were so strong they tore a panel of metal sheeting off the roof of the Green Building. I could hear something banging during the night so went to investigate and then went inside again as I was worried it would tear completely loose and fly off. It didn't, and it's still there now waiting to be fixed next week.

A really beautiful start to the day

It stayed glorious all day

Twelve eggs we found hidden

Dragging the Crown of a tree

The picture she called Tree Beard

Once again A took the men up the mountain while I had a bit of a lie in (it had been a very late night) and then got up in time to get pictures of a stunning sunrise. It was a really glorious day all day and I tried to get outside a bit to enjoy it. We found a stash of eggs from the chickens while we were clearing the wood at lunch and I dragged the whole crown of one of the trees round, getting A to get a snap of me doing so. She then posed me as Tree Beard in the pile of wood that we are collecting together. That'll be some chopping exercise when we get to it!

Very nearly no house left

The last wall to come down

I headed over to collect the men a little concerned about the tent with how strong the winds had been however it looked like it hadn't even moved slightly. The men were still at work when I got there so I took some shots and helped a little before we headed back. We had been told there was an alternative route home, going over the mountain behind the house, and were going to give it a go. It was certainly shorted distance wise and I think quicker as well; I've now driven it a few times and like the route, though the track is terrible in places. Unfortunately the video stopped half way through, I think Bekir's thumb must have caught the screen, but you get the idea; it's pretty rough. We had been told the track got better after "50 meters or so" which was clearly not true!

Day Eleven

I had another late night and did not sleep that well and was still asleep when A headed off to get the men. I was able to message and let her know that I was up and about and able to take the men on to the Mountain House so she could get the rest of her day done without too much disruption.

Such a red sky on Friday morning

Amazing colours; no filter

The first frost of the year

A very nearly gone house

These flowers survived the trees falling around them

On the front field, some more flowers

It was a glorious start but had been cold the night before, A had to scrape the car windscreen with the temperature at -2 degrees, and there was still frost on the grass when I walked to the corner of our land to meet her and take over driving. I had made up a packed lunch and tea in a flask however I was feeling very jaded indeed and in the end I stayed long enough to eat all my food for breakfast, drink some tea, read my book sat in the sun and then head off home for a rest and to get some more work done on my website that I am working on. I also got out into the garden to do some more clearing of wood; we needed to be able to get to the humanure by the weekend so I could get the week's collection stashed away. A took Pat to get her winter check up done at the garage, and her winter tyres on, and I was strolling around outside with Bekci looking at the flowers and clearing some spikes when she messaged me to go and collect her as Pat wouldn't be ready until the next day.

A really lovely drive up this road

The Old School is visible, just

And so the house is gone

Packed and ready for the off

An extra passenger

I drove back to the Mountain House via the new route and stopped to take a couple of pictures, one of the road ahead through the gloriously coloured trees and another from the top of the road looking back at the Old School which is visible, but more clearly in the morning when the sun is shining on it. I got back to find no house at all, the final breaking of concrete being done, and the dirt bank I was concerned about crumbling had not crumbled at all and my fears were for nought. With the video shot and the photograph of the day taken I took the tent down with Bekir's excellent help, loaded up Thomas (pushing those wheelbarrows up the hill again!) and then waited for Bekir to buy ANOTHER pigeon, thihs time he put it into a home made cage. I covered the cage with my jacket to calm the bird down and we made our way safely off the mountain and I dropped them off. Project Take The Mountain House Down had been a full success.

The weekend

Just to round this off I've a few pictures of the weekend and then I'm done.

Space in the bottom corridor for stuff

Clearing away the wood

Out for dinner

Such lovely food

A Sunday morning game

Puppies sleep through our fun

We've both been really jaded this weekend from the efforts of the week; all that driving really took it out of both of us on top of busy working weeks as well. We've done some clearing and tidying ready for the men who are working here next week on a few tasks, and also cleared a load more of the wood - A got her chainsaw action on and we uncovered the humanure in time for me to do my chores this morning. We then went out for a lovely meal last night to our favourite restaurant and it did not disappoint. It was just awesome to get out together and spend some time together. Today we played a game and that was also a lot of fun, though I got beaten badly in the end. And since then I've tried to work done some hobbying and eaten an AWESOME Sunday roast that A prepared. Now I'm going to go see her for a bit, do some more hobbying and then get to bed.

I do love shots like this

I also love how the rays of the sun shoot in this picture

Thanks for reading what has turned out to be a super long update. I'll probably try and get regular next week as the men are here so I can do multiple short updates. We shall see.

An update on Rambo as well - his stitches are out, the vet was very pleased, and he seems back to his normal self again. This is a huge relief!