Bits and pieces

 Today has been a super busy day for me, and a day of bits and pieces for the men.

Halil measuring for a fill-in piece

This section of the roof is completed

Putting up the curtain rail in the library

Fitting new lights in the balcony

More shelf supports going up

My dad's drill still being used

The first thing the men did when they arrived was go on up to the attic and finish the plasterboarding. That area is now so much nicer it's really awesome to have it done. Next week the weather will change and they can get back to the outside tasks but I'm very tempted if they have to come inside again to get them to complete the "entrance area" and even put the walls up to separate the two zones in the attic. Very exciting indeed. Anyway, with the finished the next tasks were to put up the curtain rail in the library and then fit the new lights in the balcony. It was very funny to find that the lights were only fittings and we didn't have any LED strips to go in them. Oh well. They will have to be purchased tomorrow. With that job done the final task at the end of the day was to start putting some more shelves up in the Games Room. I am also considering taking the black plastic shelves down and replacing them all with the flexible shelving and I may get them to just stay in there tomorrow and do this. It was very awesome to see my Dad's old drill still going strong and being used for this job.

Rosie "working" at mummy's computer

After school there was play time with Rosie and Peppa Pig as well. She also wanted to "work" on mummy's computer and she now has a file that she is typing into. During today Angela cleaned and tidied and put together an entire new set of bedding for Rosie who was VERY pleased with her unicorn bedding. She's a joy (mostly).

So there you are; thanks for reading, as always.

Paint and finishing up

Another day of progress here as we head towards the end of the renovation year; what we've achieved this year really does blow my mind

Raining and miserable

Preparing to paint

Bringing the old light fittings back to life

Sally paints the ceiling

Cutting pipe for a curtain pole

It has rained all day today, I was even woken in the night (mainly because I ran to shut windows) and there was flickering of lightning but no thunder. I took Rosie to school this morning and she cried a bit as I handed her over. The men were a little late arriving but were there by the time I got back. Hikmet was in today but due to the rain I didn't see him at all as he was inside the shed breaking the wood up. Inside Sally and Halil were into the library, Halil scraping the walls and Sally masking off, so they could get started on the painting. Bekir was preparing the light fittings for the upstairs corridor as they needed cleaning and polishing, and then the actual globes needed washing as well; we are reusing the old light fittings from the corridor so they were in quite a bad way. With the preparatory work done the paint started to go on the ceiling in the library. Bekir and I headed out to the shops to pick up some more supplies and we also went to the steel yard to get a pipe that will be used to hang curtains across the end of the corridor, if we decide we want to.

Fittings being fitted

More ceiling paint

Lights are done done

Curtain pole for the inside window

Now the walls are being painted

Rosie proofing the games room

A tribute, from Halil

When we got back Bekir carried on cleaning then suddenly he was ready and fitting the fitments to the ceiling. Downstairs the first coat went on before lunch and the second coat shortly after lunch and so the ceiling is all painted! All of a sudden upstairs the globes were in place, bulbs fitted, and now the upstairs corridor is officially completed (barring that new curtain pole but it needs painting before it can be fitted really - tomorrow maybe) with the curtain rail by the bedroom inner window fitted as well. Very very exciting and this continued with the wall paint being applied downstairs (though neither Sally nor Halil were very impressed with our choice of colour!). Upstairs Bekir started to fit the door latch to the games room door, so we can keep it secure from Rosie and we ended up with Halil writing Rosie's name in paint just before they finished the first coat. I had collected Rosie from school just an hour early today, which is incredible, and picked up more paint for the walls as they were running out already and I want at least one more coat if not two on there.

Rosie stares at the rain

Dinner time rainbow

An amazing sky

Jumping in puddles

It really did rain all day today, and neither Rosie nor the puppies were very impressed by this, but then suddenly it cleared and the sun came out and there was a stunning rainbow and an INCREDIBLE sky when we went out for puddle jumping after dinner.

A busy day indeed; final update of the week tomorrow so see you then.

Two weeks until Christmas

Hey there, I'm back with another update. It's a tired one as I woke up super early this morning and just got out of bed and got on with things rather than laying there not sleeping and disturbing A. We've just got back from a cycle ride up our hill and back again which was lovely but that has also tired us both out. I'm going to get some of this done now and then probably finish it later on this evening. Hopefully it'll be a short one anyway.

Around the house.

We've not had any more builders in the building this week so it's all been us making progress around the place. There's been a few things done so here goes.

Up on the small scaffold fitting the new curtain rail

Empty nook ready for me to work in

The nook dressed once more - a lovely room indeed

Room 13 is a real building site

Disaster strikes!

All fixed and looking awesome

Storage for the modeling stuff (and some models)

The spud towers have been reduced in height

Another raised bed completed

First of all I got the curtains hung in the nook and they are awesome - they make 2 degrees difference over night (it was 18 degrees when I got down this morning) and also have really cut the echo in that room. They also look amazing and finish the room off nicely, barring the light fitting which will be done soon  I hope. There was a slight miscalculation in that the curtains weren't made wide enough for how far past the edges we want them to hang so in the spring I'll have to take the bar down and alter it slightly. For now we're just going to clip them together in the middle. Oh well. I've also got into Room 13 a little bit however my plans for running all the cables then stopped were stumped by the plaster on the roof being very loose. I've just fallen back on stripping that down (hard hat was worn) and scraping the walls. Hopefully Bekir and Sally will be here before Christmas to make a start on finishing this off. Downstairs A tidied out our pantry and then there was a disaster as one of the shelving units collapsed. Amazingly only one jar smashed and it didn't take long to tidy up then get a new shelf in and this time screw it to the walls. I've modified one of the old tables from the school to add a shelf which is now holding the scenery pieces I've been working on, getting them off A's island. Finally I got round to changing the spud towers into beans beds and also got the raised bed finished outside and started planning for another half size one. All in all it's been quite productive.

Other stuff

Well it IS going to be a nice short update; there's not enough really to put another whole section together around. Let's get this wrapped up and published.

Kettle on the stove

First brew is made

So first of all was the first use of the copper kettle. We have been washing it and getting it ready for use over the last week or so and finally it was deemed ready so we filled it up, stuck it on the stove, and waited. I was super excited as I poured out the first cup of tea. Since this it has not been off the top of the stove; we refill it after every use and get it to near boiling then shift it to one side until we're ready for the next one at which point it is simply shifted back over the hot plate and a few minutes later (hopefully) it's steaming away and ready. This doesn't always work out, particularly in the mornings when the fire is cold, or at night when it has burned down, but during the day we haven't run the kettle for days. Such an energy saving.

Sat in the sun playing with the puppies

24 degrees on December 9th! Amazing

Lunch time outside with this lovely lady

Snow still remains in the shadow of the Green Building

Ice from top to bottom

That is a solid lump of ice in there

As I've mentioned already it has been lovely weather here recently. We've been seeing very warm days and have been able to spend time sat outside, even eating our lunch sat on deck chairs by the front; this area outside the kitchen is an awesome winter sun trap and it was lovely to eat and soak up the rays. The nights are a different story, dropping well below freezing. There's still some snow hiding in various places around the property where the sun never reaches and the black box that was left by the back door and filled with ice has frozen completely solid from top to bottom - an impressive thickness of ice indeed.

Our favourite restaurant all lit up for Christmas

My meal - Lamb in the oven

A munching her sesame chicken

Local chicken and rice dish

We went out for food on Thursday night to our favourite restaurant and had a lovely meal; I had the lamb in the oven while A had a picky meal with chicken with sesame and pork ribs and cheesy chips. Lovely. She also cooked us the local Chicken and Rice dish. We took lots of pictures to put a recipe up so I'll try and remember to come back and link to it when that is done; it isn't written yet it is now, so there is the link. This is such a wonderful meal, so simple but it tastes epic. Well worth giving a try.

Rambo relaxing in the sun

Waiting for us to finish eating

Total commitment to the snooze

In their favourite place

The puppies have been their usual awesome selves, even Rambo has been slightly less annoying. It's been good to get outside working in the garden and eating and that as he loves the company. Thelma and Louise love the fire and spend as much time as possible sleeping under it or near it. While we eat they are so good, always staying in their beds but as they sense the meal ending they become more aware and you often see a head poking round the corner to check if they can come see us yet. Bless them.

The sun is down there, somewhere

There it is; taken from the parking area

And there you have it. I'll leave you with the sky this morning at about 6am when I'd been up for about two hours; stunning, and then the sun as it rose just before we went to hang our washing to dry on the line. It was a pretty chilly start but glorious during the day; hopefully it's all dried fine.

Thanks for reading; until next time :)