We have workers!

I am back again with another update and as the title suggests, it has been quite a busy start to this week. However, back to last week to begin with.

As is my routine again now, I was working Thursday as I am back to a three day week until Himself arrives home at least, but most likely for good. The only exciting thing I have to report for Thursday was that whilst working on the house next door, the cement truck which turned up had slight difficulty in getting up the newly created lane. I think this was down to sheer weight and the afact that the land is so dry and dusty that he was unable to get a grip.  However, it turned out that as his wheels spun at the bottom of the lane, they were spinning on the pipe which carries our mains water from the main supply onto the land. Not ideal at all! The young worker was pretty good and when I told him it was my water (which was not now coming through), he got straight on the phone to the water board.

Ooooops

The company arrived in absolutely record time and the young worker brought some of his plumbing supplies down so they could get it fixed.  not a bad spud, that one.  However, it very quickly became apparent that these guys from the water board had actually only come out to read the meter. What perfect timing. They were here for a further 30 minutes or so and then they were gone, with my fully restored water pumping away happily. Excellent.

Perfect timing

Then it was to Friday. What did I do on Friday? Ah yes, the dreaded weekly shop and for some reason, I think I hadn't slept very well and had a bit of a lie in, which in turn meant that watering was later and all the other bits and bobs, so I arrived back and was starving.  A plate of cheese fixed that. I do love cheese and these are just fantastic.

Say cheese

Himself is to bring me back more of the ones I like best, so as instructed, these are those, love!

My favourites

The weekend arrived. On Saturday morning I decided that the chickens should be given a bit more freedom. It was a risk, with the dogs, but I carefully had the dogs under relative control and held all of their attentions whilst the chickens and ducks edged their way out, looking wary.  It was apparent that neither Rambo nor the puppies actually cared. Thelma had her ball, so that was predictable, Rambo sniffed and turned to walk back to his bed and Louise was the only curious one and tried to sneak up on them a couple of times, which I suppose is natural.

Free range chooks

Sneaking up

My memory is shocking, but I actually think I did very little in the way of outside work on Saturday. I know I had done a bit of a tidy inside and a couple of loads of washing, but beyond that, I was particularly lazy.

Sunday, I started out to make up for that and having emptied the pond on Saturday overnight, as it was absolutely horrid with algae and duck poo and I cleaned it out and refilled it. You can actually see the bottom (well not now, but then you could!).

Clean water

I also had a task to go through and be ruthless with all of the seeds that we have and bin anything that is out of date. Turns out that the majority of them were, but I could not bring myself to throw them away as Our Little Lady may actually be able to do something with some of these - she has a magic touch for growing - so I am going to see if she wants to try.

Many seeds

On Sunday I did the watering round a little earlier than normal so that I could grab half an hour at sunset just to relax and see it. I don't think I have actually watched a sunset in a good couple of months, not just because I am busy in the evenings, but also the evenings are much shorter now as well. Beautiful. I was happy as.... well. Happy.

Finally, a sunset

On Saturday, I think, the carpenter had called to say that he was coming with the final batch of internal doors that we ordered with him at the end of May! There were ten in total and a couple of concertina style ones for the guest room (which I do not seem to have a photo of, but I will ensure I get one for the next update). Here they are arriving. How exciting.

Doors!

They wasted no time in unloading and letting the driver get away and leaving the man himself to do his work. Now, normally the old frames would have been removed and our men would have helped him with knocking through any additional brickwork etc. but sadly he had to do it all himself. No complaints, he asked for a crowbar and away he went!

Unloading

They are all slightly lower than the originals, about 10 cms, but this was, from what I gathered from his illustrations, because the wood came in 4m lengths and therefore each door was 2m high. Made sense not to add 10 cms to the height and therefore leave the remaining wood too short, creating more cost. They like to be cost effective, these Bulgarians.

First one in

I was pretty busy with the carpenter around, just because he was clarifying a lot of stuff and having quickly discussed a few things with Himself in Belgium, we agreed most of them early on.  However, I was back and forward a lot of the day with him.  I also had a very welcome visit, eventually, from Chaz and Ivan who had been down doing a little bit of shopping locally.  They were due around 10.30am and so by 11.30 I called them to check all was okay. The lazy blighters weren't even within an hour of town and still had to go to the shops.  So much for my promise of lunch! I scoffed some ham from the fridge to keep me going and finally we sat down at about 3pm! for lunch, Needless to say, I had a small snack that night and went to bed early. Was good to see them though.

The reason I was in bed so early was that Bekir and Sally were coming back for the rest of the week to tile our roof terrace before he real rain, wind and cold starts. This is a high priority so that no moisture gets down behind the insulation which is not sealed up top yet and won't be until all the tiling is complete. So great to have them back and they understood when I said on the phone that it was very important to finish that one job. Excellent.

Of course, that meant that not only did I get to see the sun set this week, I also had the pleasure of a beautiful sunrise (and an hour of pitch black prior to that).

Red skies

7.30am on Tuesday and I set off on that familiar journey to get the men. It was great to see them looking so well and they were pretty spritely after their break away. although Sally was still "Goray dollo". He does make me laugh. Literal translation is "up,down", which would be the equivalent of our "so,so".

Whilst I was away, some little brats had found a packet of cotton wool pads, hadn't they. And they looked so pleased with themselves as well.

Cheeky imps

Until I told them it was not what cotton wool pads were for.

Sorry imps

I had started on the Monday evening to clear off the metal shelving units that we had in the corridor and which held all the preserves from the last few years. The carpenter needed the shelves moved before he could tackle the door frame, so I got on with finishing that first thing so I would not be holding him up. There would have been the same again if He had been here this summer. I freeze stuff, I don't do jams. It's the processing of fruit that I hate, so fiddly.

Preserves

Tuesday arrived early and so did my hunger, so once I had got the men back, after a trip out to the builder's yard to get some materials, my tummy was growling. I decided on eggs, because they are such a treat and we never have any in the house at all (this is a blatant lie and the fact is I cannot keep on top of production, so I may end up freezing some for baking).  Poached egg on toast.  There is no better breakfast, or brunch as it was at that stage.

Breakfast fit for a Queen

It had threatened in the forecast that there would definitely be rain, 100%, and it was not wrong. However, it barely managed to wet the dust. Never mind, it meant I was not let off with the watering again. Shame!  Thelma was less than impressed as well.  She went outside, squinted at me then ran back between my legs and into the kitchen.  Fair weather puppy. Louise didn't care at all. She was lizard hunting.

What is THAT?

So the men were back. Sally was systematically following the carpenter around and prepping the gaps around the doors for cement and also, bless him, clearing all the dust and additional rubbish created when the old doors were removed. Such a tidier.

Sally!

Bekir on the other hand was up and on the roof terrace starting the tiling as requested. He wasted no time and thankfully, the rain did hold off and he was able to crack on.

Bekir!

This was the almost offender. Impressive colour, but sadly, full of hot air and it passed by without many droplets.

Incoming storm

The last two doors were in and Sally had done a quick brush around before they left for the day. What a couple of days!

Svershi

I am not going to update about today just yet, but there will be more photos to follow showing the progress throughout the week and hopefully, the final look at the weekend.  Stay tuned.

Leka nosht.
A xx

Day 1 in the big house

Hey there, I'm back for the daily updates; I can hear your cheers all the way over here. No, really!

Anyway, this update is NOT about the journey; that is just too involved for me to go into now and I have a fair bit of editing of stuff to do before I'm ready to write it. Suffice to say I drove for a bit and arrived yesterday and today was my first day waking up at home, finally back next to A, since last March and not before time; I wish I had never had to leave any of this!

I woke up this morning after sleeping the sleep of the just (or sleep deprived; you decide) and then went back to sleep again at the suggestion of A. The next thing I know she'd brought me tea in bed (what an angel) and I stayed there for a bit longer, though I was up before it got totally cold and went through to see what she and the puppies were up to at about 7am or so which isn't much of a lay in but it was enough for me. I found her with another cuppa for me and then we set ourselves to clearing all the stuff that was laying around having been unloaded from the trailer last night. With this completed (it was mostly on the landing) we felt good enough to go down and start to unload Thomas. The Other Brother had yesterday offered to help however there was no sign of him this early and anyway there wasn't a great amount in him after all.

The biggest challenge was unloading the kitchen units and the washing machine however we backed him up round to the side door as we had decided to store the kitchen units in one of the little rooms on the corridor down there and, after getting the trolley and Lucy's ramp, we managed to get the washing machine down and into the garage. Success.

New cooker, and my desk

I'd put the kettle on with the idea of getting a brew down us after we finished loading but this was forgotten until we were already out the door and in town with a shopping list of two items; more storage and a cooker. We found storage at the first shop (as well as some more strimmer cable) and then went to the white goods store and found an excellent cooker with a super wide body and a half and half gas/electric hob. When we got back I set to putting the shelving units together while A got on with adding receipts into our accounts spreadsheet. I very quickly got bored of building these shelves as they are fiddly and annoying to do. With three new shelves done, and A stacking stuff on them as fast as I could build them, I turned my attention to the new cooker. It needed a plug putting on it (I did have to resort to google to work out which colour went to which prong) and then the gas burners needed fettling with and the gas pipe attaching. After a bit of a struggle these tasks were complete and it is now sat cooking sausages and potatoes for our dinner right next to me where I sit typing this blog at the desk.

Enjoying the sun together

Other than that there hasn't been a great deal going on. The weather hasn't been great sadly and there was a pretty good storm that went over earlier however just about 4pm as we reached the end of our tether with cleaning and tidying the clouds cleared and the sun came out. This prompted us to get some small beers and go out with the girls to sit on the patio and enjoy the pure pleasure of soaking up the rays.

Littles and large

The girls and Rambo were playing together really nicely and they have made such good friends already. We also took a little turn down around the jungle that is the "front lawn" and I reckon it'll need at least a solid week with no rain before it is dry enough for me to get in with the scythe and trim it all down again. The girls were very funny bouncing through the long grass though Thelma did back out and only Louise came the whole way with me.

We were also able to go and see the neighbours, who were up on the top bank behind the house burning some rubbish which prompted a short excursion through more long grass (I'm going to busy with that scythe) to see them. I was asked if I had a tool to fix a bike and so we went to the side gate to check out what was needed and the Little Lady and the Other Brother's Wife were also there which was lovely. We were invited for coffee tomorrow which is an appointment we will have to keep. One thing that was great was A's demonstration of her language skills. It's so brilliant to see how confident she is; what a woman!

A few comments on our plans for the next weeks. First of all we are going to attempt to put tiles down ourselves in Room 13 (which is why the cooker and my desk is out on the landing) and our plans are to slowly transfer things out until we have an empty room and then give it a go. Secondly we've found that the floor in the kitchen is pretty badly damaged; it was only ever a thin screed directly on top of dirt. This has prompted us to decide that we need to get this dug out and a solid floor laid before we can do anything; particularly before the spiral staircase can go in, I've contacted Lyubo already to see whether the building firm who did the drainage may be able to quote for this work. If so I hope we can arrange it very soon. We'll also get them to do all the structural changes there at the same time. That will be very exciting indeed if we do get it done.

Table for two by the window with the view

And so I'll wrap this up showing where shortly we will be sat eating our dinner. To have the dining table by these windows was something that we have talked about for months and so we cleared the space (mostly taken up by train set boxes which went into the loft) and cleaned the dust from the table and it will be a magical dinner sat in our temporary dining area eating bangers, mash and onion gravy.

Cheers for reading, and I'll be back again tomorrow.

Progress

I am back! Two days I have to cover and it is already 8pm here, so I won't drone on too much, for a change.

What happened yesterday? Well, I was working, so I really did not get up to very much outside of that. The men however, they were cracking on and the front section of the house is now having its drainage trench dug out.

Front trench

Inside, Bekir and Sally were flying through the tiling and were almost fished by lunchtime. Bekir laying the tiles and spacing and Sally grouting. What a team.

Tiling

I am missing photos from a couple of hours in the afternoon as I had Lubo, the architect, pop by and he was meeting the boss from the building firm who are doing the drainage. There was a lot of looking around and chatting in Bulgarian and everything seemed to be ok, Lubo explaining that in some points they cannot dig down much further as there is a risk to the building and also discussing where the out pipe will go and flow to. There was a more serious discussion to the rear of the building where there is a slight alcove/inlet and where the back door and door leading from the garage are. Initially, translated through Lubo, they wanted to bypass the inlet and build a retaining wall behind the piping and stick some membrane on the wall. Now, I'm no builder, but my gut instinct was to say no. At that point Bekir came out and I was so glad. Much as I do not always fully understand everything he says, I got enough to see that he was not happy and quite frankly, nor was I. It was at this stage I called the Mr. I explained about the wall and the angle they wanted it and also the fact that they wanted US to build it in anticipation of them laying the pipes. After a pretty harsh discussion on Skype with Lubo, and ongoing discussions via a video call outside, the pipe will now be laid in the inlet as we originally wanted it and no need for a wall. I was extremely stressed. All that Bulgarian being spoken and I had only a small grasp of what was happening. Scary when it is as important as the drainage system. Anyway, we were happy, they less so, but we are paying them for what we want after all.

The men were pretty much done in the bedroom for the day at around 4pm and so, as I had asked last week, Bekir had brought his chainsaw with him so that he could tidy some of the broken branches and sort out the ones hanging from the trees around the land. There are quite a few. He was cutting away and I had just finished up a rather long piece of work when I looked out the window and saw him up the tree, chainsaw in hand. They are afraid of nothing!

Tree climbing

This was a delicate job as there was a telephone line running through the branches and I have no idea how, but they managed not to rip it down. Sally was meanwhile tidying up the branches and piling them up on the driveway.

Broken trees

The oak tree had some damage also and I will have to go out and gather that up to keep it dry. Perhaps a job for tomorrow?

Old oak

I went back inside to finish the last piece of work and I heard shouting and laughing. Our little neighbour had arrived with Turkish coffees for us all and they all settled down to have a chinwag - I just listened and laughed when they did, it was great fun.

Coffee break

As I was getting my things together in preparation for the drive back with the men, Little Lady and Usmivka came in for a look at what the men are doing. I showed them the almost completed terrace on the roof and they were all smiles and loved it. This was a good feeling. I then took them down to show them the bedroom tiles and immediately the little Lady said "where are you sleeping?" and I think then suggested that if I needed a bed I could sleep at her house - these people are so kind. I showed her that I was perfectly set up on a bed in the guest suite and she was happy to let that be. Herself and Usmivka started to remove the plants that she had stored in one of our rooms over winter, so I left them to it and went off with the men.

Well, that was Monday. I had a day off from blogging yesterday as the update came from the UK and so, exhausted after not sleeping well on Sunday, I headed to bed just before 9pm and I slept reasonably well which was very much needed.

Today started at about 6.15am and I was up before the sun again, making my coffee and wishing I had stayed in bed until the alarm went off. Never mind, I was up now. Rambo was still asleep and didn't even get up when I went in to open his door, the lazy sod.

It was due to be a cloudy day and sure enough, it did not fail the forecasters.

Cloudy start

I came back from getting the men and there was no sign of the drainage man - that is disappointing.

With the last bit of grouting finished off first thing the next job was to start running cables for the electric. We were not going to do this yet, hence the floor being laid but I would like this room to a stage where it is pretty much finished with the exception of the electricity being connected. It would just be nice to have it painted - yes, I know, I am such a woman. So Sally was preparing to make a mess of something and was covering the window and the floor. I had no idea what to expect, but they know what they are doing!

Covering up

I took myself off to the shops in town and once in the second shop I thought "oh, I made a list". It was on my phone. My phone was not in my bag. I got that awful dread feeling in my stomach that it had been stolen from my bag. Then I thought it was in the car and had maybe fallen out. I rushed around the shop picking up the things I could remember and legged it outside to the car. No phone. Then I tried to remember if I had actually brought it with me as I got interrupted by Bekir mid-process. Anyway, if it was gone I would just have to deal with it, so I set off for home.

Arriving back to a very excited Rambo I rushed past him and up into Room 13, much to his disgust, to find my phone on charge on the desk. Relief!

Shopping put away and I was off out to the garden determined to get my onion sets and potatoes planted. I had got a telling off from the Little Lady yesterday for not doing it yet. So I dug out the rest of the thistles and weeds and came across this little guy - so bright!

Caterpillar

I also heard a lot of buzzing activity and there are some huge bees out here, much like a bumble bee but completely black and about an inch, if not bigger, in size. I am rather pleased with this shot.

Huge bee

I finished the bed finally and I was rather pleased, especially with the one solitary purple broccoli plant that has survived the winter.

Dug out bed

I was having a quick break and a drink and pulling out my sets and seeding potatoes when the Little Lady came running over and was taking charge! Haha. I was actually rather glad as I have never planted either a potato or an onion before and after watching her do the first row of onions, we finished the bag of sets off together. Now, I would have covered them in more soil if I had been left to my own devices but she was insistent that only "malko" soil. A little bit. We then did the same for the potatoes and again, I would not have done it the same way, but two Marie Piper's went in the same spot as they were very small seed potatoes and one King Edward in each hole. Again, I would have covered with more soil, but she has been doing this for years, so I am grateful for the lessons. I asked if I should water them and a definite "No" was uttered. So that was it. In a matter of ten minutes, my first lot of spuds and onions are in the ground. I am so excited!

Potatoes, onions and broccoli

I tidied away all my tools and thanked the Little Lady very much for her help, bless her, she is very good to me. I was about to water the seed pots when I noticed that I have babies! Look!

Babies!

In this pot there are broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower and I have a few of each that have shown. How exciting!

I went off to see how the men were getting along and progress was great. After misdirection from me on the location of the armoured cable, Bekir had moved everything around to suit our requirements and had been drilling away with the hammer drill all afternoon.

Big drill!

Sally had also been busy and they had pulled down the cables we need for the plug points and light switch. Sally had painted our bedroom pink. There will be a Barbie theme going on in here. Only kidding, this is some form of sealant I think and the Mr tells me that the plaster will probably be easier to apply once this has been applied as the walls are dusty - I have no idea.

Pink!

I had been thinking about all of the lizards I have seen out and around the School over the last few days and so I went lizard hunting. I had seen two this morning whilst I waited for Rambo to finish his breakfast, one being bright green and the other similar to this.

Lizard

They are so fast and timid that they scuttle away faster than you can even catch a glimpse of them and as I startle them, they in turn make me jump. I am such a coward though that any noise makes me jittery.

So the men left, I made a bolognese and I feel happy with the progress this week so far, so much has happened. I am going to leave you now and put my feet up for a half an hour before I go and hit the hay.  I hope you enjoyed the update as much as I enjoyed telling you about it.

Leka nosht.

A xx

The Great Pack Debacle

So here I am, sat on the freecycle sofa in a front room that is still full of boxes and things to be taken, on Monday evening, and with just as many questions left unanswered about the packing as I had on Sunday morning. Indeed I could probably say that I have many more questions than that simple, innocent time.

 

A putting bubble wrap around the extractor fan

We were up at 8am Saturday morning feeling rested (I had slept better again) and I got started straight away on the task at hand which was to fit everything into Harrison. The first thing I started on was removing the hinges and handles from the doors of the kitchen units; the fitter had done a pretty good job packing the units up but these little details weren’t done and it was clear that they would both risk being damaged and take up more space than needed if all these bits were still on. I got them all removed while A headed to the shop to get some super strong black bags to act as additional packing around the unit packages. When she got back we finished off wrapping up the delicate items in the smaller bubbled bubble wrap and stacked it all carefully, ready for putting on the van.

 

How the back of the van looked in the morning

The night before I had done a few bits and pieces in boxes in the space above the driver and then wedged the top of the desk behind the cooker to provide a bulwark against them all falling out. The plan called for the two seater sofa to go on its end next to the cooker and act as a continuation of this wall and A was a superwoman as usual and between us we managed to manhandle it from the front room and put it in place. With this done I slotted a few bits and pieces in the gap behind the sofa (like the all steel spade and a few of the packs of railway track) and then we were ready for the next step.

 

Strong woman with wood

On the left, in front of the upright two seater, the place was to have the scaffolding planks stacked up as wide as a sofa and then to put the three seater on top of them. These had, as you know, been stacked up in the backroom on the Thursday evening by my work colleagues and now A proved once again her super woman status by carrying them through to me to put into Harrison. There were only a very few that were still so wet they were too heavy to carry for her and she did such a cracking job. Shortly after I took this picture she was getting irritated that I wasn’t ready to take the board from her. Ooooops.

 

Planks loaded its time for a brew and then the straps

It probably only took us about half an hour or so to get them all through though I forced a couple of rests. The strictest rule of the day was never to work too hard; to do what you could and then rest before you felt completely shattered. It worked in the main and we kept our energy up well. With the stack built, four wide and six high, I hooked on the straps which would be used to secure the sofa and fridge freezer which would be stacked on top next. We then managed to lift the sofa into place and finally A exerted herself to raise the fried freezer and position it on top of the sofa. We had to do this a couple of times as at first it was pushing the arm rests in a bad way so we took it off and put the backs of the sofa between so it would actually be resting on them and not the arms. This worked well.

 

Bacon and egg for me, peanut butter for her

By this time (9.20 am) I was starting to get a bit hungry so I went in to make a fry up. A wasn’t in the mood for a full bacon and egg butty so I made her some toast which she covered in a huge amount of peanut butter. We sat down with a brew and rested and ate with pleasure. We had reached a point where it would be nice to have Loz arrive soon but were not expecting him for another half an hour or so.

 

I look happy; I'm actually in pain

After the rest I felt good enough to make a start carrying the scaffolding poles round from the back garden to stack up on the drive next to Harrison, preparatory to loading them. A pulled Thomas out and across the driveway so I had space and then I set to. I did a load, then rested with a brew, then went out and did a load more and pretty quickly actually they were all out the front, in organised piles, and ready for putting Loz to get there to help stack them on the right hand side of the van. Towards the end of this process, after having had gorgeous clear weather all morning, it started to snow and shortly after that this turned to rain which set in for the rest of the day; not ideal packing weather and quite annoying as it would mean the scaffolding poles were soaked in Harrison. Never mind, there was nothing we could do about that.

 

Loz watching as I strap up the stacked items

I had been watching my phone but not that closely, to see if Loz has text, but when he arrived he said he had got lost and it was only then I noticed his messages. Stupid me, if I had seen them he would have arrived earlier and could have helped me move the scaffold. We set him straight to work passing a few boxes into the van to fill some gaps and then we dragged the two huge awnings for S and S and balanced them atop the fridge freezer before finally getting the straps and securing the whole lot against toppling over.

 

A large amount of steel piled up

After this there was a short break (quite early in the piece for Loz but I was ready for one after my exertions with the scaffold) and then we went back outside and we put the whole scaffold into the back of the van without taking a break. The weather was getting horrendous by this point and poor Loz (he is from Spain, and he lives for the sun) was stuck out in it getting soaked through passing up pole after pole. We worked very well together, however, and the stack was perfect once we had completed the whole job. It was exactly as I envisaged, including three of the black-sacked kitchen units filling the gaps under the poles. The process of putting the units into the black sacks had been ongoing while we were loading the scaffold as A was working away like a Trojan to get it done for us.

 

Very proud of having packed everything in Harrison

Once we had loaded all the scaffold it was time for everything else and we kept at it with the same routine of a burst of activity, then sit down for a breather. In one of these breaks we had cake (as promised to Loz to reimburse him for his time) and this was a really tasty way to rest. Things stacked in nicely and exactly as I had planned, with the bubble wrapped kitchen doors sliding between the edge of the scaffold poles and the side of the van exactly as I envisaged. The knackered old mattress top laid nicely over the top of those same poles and acted to support the bits of kitchen unit and other stuff that was stuffed down the middle of the van. We lifted the two single seaters on top of the mattress then I carefully put some of the more delicate items on them packed down with the cushions and finally the bookshelf was secured with a strap, the office chair was stashed in and we were done. Look at how pleased and proud we look. What an awesome achievement!

 

The tyre pressing against the bodywork

Very low on its suspension

Everything fit in and there was even space for Rambo at the front. Harrison was at a very slight tilt from not being quite balanced but we had largely solved that by shifting some of the scaffold to the other side of the vehicle. It was only when I reversed him back towards the house so he wasn’t sticking out across the pavement that the big issue became glaringly obvious. I heard a really nasty squealing sound and pretty much immediately guessed what the problem was; the wheels were rubbing on the bodywork. This is not good; at any speed at all we would be facing two blow outs – they were touching both sides.

What a disaster.

 

Metal poles removed and van repacked; still too heavy

The day turned from a “we’ve finished by 1.30 pm and fit everything in isn’t it wonderful” success into a sudden “Oh no what are we going to do!” problem. The whole point of buying Harrison was to take this scaffolding back with us and now it looked like we wouldn’t be able to. Or rather, it looked like that was ALL we would be able to take. I pulled him back forwards very carefully so we could lower the tail lift easily again and looked at it, then we went inside for a cup of tea; such an English solution but it really does help. After sitting staring at the wall for a bit I decided that we would just have to take the scaffold back out and the rebalance the wood across the floor and see where we got to. It took an hour to do this, with Loz passing the poles out and me carrying them to the back garden. Again. Afterwards we did the rebalance and found that with the sofa and fridge freezer the suspension was still very low and there would be no chance of getting the kitchen in.

 

I've eaten all the chocolates and now I've collapsed

And so it was quite a dispirited group who sat down for a rest inside and waited for the awesome lasagne to be ready. This lasagne was the second part of the promise to Loz in return for his assistance and he was a star all day; with the mistake with the load weight we would have been totally screwed without him; it was only getting so much done so quickly (and to be fair myself and A starting so early) that meant we had time to rearrange things before it got dark. I had been wolfing down chocolates all afternoon as my plan to finish early and relax all afternoon fell apart but the lasagne went down so very well even if I was too tired to eat a huge amount.

So we were left trying to work out what to do. We had taken the metal poles out and also the actual units for the kitchen with only the kitchen doors packed and still there was very little space around the tyres in case of bumps or potholes; a serious issue for the roads we would be driving on. There appeared to be loads of space above each wheel for the suspension it was just the actual body work curved round and across in above the outer tyre meaning the rub occurred. I had the idea of getting a hacksaw blade and cutting the fibreglass away inside above each wheel so there would not be a problem should the suspension compress but this felt like a bit of a risky proposition. Who knew but maybe this design of the bodywork was there to prevent you overloading the vehicle and, if it was overloaded, that could cause problems on the journey if we were asked to go on a weighbridge.

After Loz headed off I went into the bath and soaked in super hot water with loads of Radox muscle relaxant, a pint of beer, and a good book and stayed there for about an hour, topping it up every now and then when the temperature dropped. I really needed to do this. I was by this time feeling really foolish about the whole exercise. I had decided that we would have scaffold to take back and then gone and bought Harrison to take the scaffold back and then collected other things which we now wanted just as much as the scaffold like the sofas and the cooker and the kitchen and now it looked like the original plan, to take scaffold back with us, was a bust.

When I got out of the bath A was asleep on the sofa and so I joined her and we started talking about our options. We discussed getting a trailer (I had decided on Friday night that if everything didn’t fit physically we would just get a trailer to be brought over when I drive on my own) but finding one that was big enough to take the scaffold poles and kichen units however we were still left with the fact the suspension was low and we’d need to cut out above the wheels to prevent blowouts at speed. Then the talk turned to the discarded plan to get a cherry picker and I realised that the attempt to avoid having another trailer had put me into a tunnel vision where I refused to consider all other options. I had a lovely chat with my parents on the phone towards the end of the evening and they told me the same thing, and while we chatted about the potential of them driving with me with the trailer it wouldn’t really work out as their time is limited and driving across Europe twice would mean that they’d only get about a week in between.

Today I searched for cherry pickers for sale in Bulgaria (as of today there were eleven on a well known website in the entire country) and then turned to Greece and I found one about 350km from the Old School and at a reasonable price. I cast around in my mind for someone who speaks Greek and thought of my mate Stu who immediately rang the guy and found he spoke English so I rang him back. It was a strange conversation where he refused to do a cash on delivery deal, but would be very happy to deliver if I came to have a look at it first. I have left it that I will ring him when we arrive and maybe drive over to view it then, with him delivering it as well.

 

The load waiting for Loz to help remove the planks

So after all that it looks like I need to sell this scaffold I was so excited about and of course this means that the boards need to come out of Harrison; yet more packing is to be done. This evening as soon as I got back from the office we sorted out the kitchen units into the front room then unloaded the light stuff from the back of Harrison. Loz, bless him, is going to come past again tomorrow evening to give us a lift off of the planks and assist moving the sofa  and fridge/freezer again. Hopefully with all the scaffold out we can manage to get everything else in, weight wise, but if not I’ll just be left with some kitchen units to go into Thomas for my drive which is not a hardship; we’ll be focusing on the bulky items not the heavy ones tomorrow.

I’ll leave it there now and either update what happens tomorrow (today as you’re reading this) at the weekend or maybe if it is another saga you’ll get another “out of band” update this week. Aren’t you lucky lucky people.