Throwing cement at the wall

Another day, another update. Let's get to it.

Bekir and Halil getting stuck into the walls

Look at that double-yolker

Continuing to throw mud

Still mud-slinging

Now we're onto the final wall

I was feeling fully recovered today and dropped Rosie at school. The men were in on time and were back to working in the cupboard under the stairs putting mortar on the walls. Angela cracked an egg for her breakfast which was a double-yolker from our own chickens - superb. The men worked all day on this one job and they didn't quite finish the job. Now it's looking like tomorrow as they switched to the final wall just before the end of the day. Bekir said he may want to skim it again just once more over the whole thing before he says it's done.

The wreath is hung from a bracket

Rosie saying "we did a good job with Sammy!"

A lovely late afternoon light

Broken swing wire

At lunch time today Angela reminded me to hang the wreath outside the front door so I got a bracket and quickly screwed it to the siding. Rosie was very pleased to see it up! After celebrating that a little we went down to swing a bit before watching The Hobbit. Sammy the Snowman is still just about hanging on while all the other snow has totally gone now. The late afternoon was so gorgeous looking across the valley - a stunning colour on the hills. I was swinging Rosie when she noticed an odd sound and I looked up to see the wire we were using to suspend the swing from the tree branch had partially snapped. I immediately took the swing off and the men will buy some more rope to rehang it tomorrow.

So there it is. Thanks for reading, as always, and back tomorrow.

Christmas Eve Eve

Today is Christmas Eve Eve and the last working day of the year for the men (and probably for me as well).

Rosie's super hair do

The sun burns through the fog

A metal strip to secure this block

Continuing to lay blocks

A beautiful flower on my dad's plants

Angela did Rosie's hair in a very lovely plat today and I liked it so much I had to take a picture to share it. I took her to school again this morning, the last day of the year for her as well, and it was foggy and frosty and cold and on the way back I stopped at the top of the village to photograph the sun burning through. Upstairs the workmen were in and carrying on with laying blocks for the walls up there. Bekir showed me how he is tying in the single bricks going up by the wooden beams either side of the storage access doors; he is attaching these metal strips to the wood and then embedding them into the cement. This will make these walls very strong and not likely to topple. I did a little tidying and that while Angela headed to the dentist and saw that my Dad's flowers are blooming where we put them on the windowsills in the lounge. They look lovely, and Angela has done such an epic job of keeping them alive.

A pile of leaves and grasses that Halil raked up

Ready to dump this into the toilet

Starting to clear out this unsightly mess

Burning the waste

Thelma and Xena play tug with the toy

At lunch time I took my food to sit outside on the patio as it was such a lovely day and saw that Halil had been doing some tidying by the end of the patio; he had raked out all the leaves and long grasses that were clogging that area. When I finished my lunch I grabbed the wheelbarrow and started to sift through all this material, removing stones, and put three barrowloads into the humanure and then another three or four over by the garden for Angela to use as mulch. In the mean time Halil was now cracking on clearing up the rubbish pile that has developed in the old lime pit we put there all those years ago. He separated out any wood that could dry and be used in his fire at home while taking the rest over to the other dump to burn. Angela came home while we were doing this and we discussed plans for the garden for next year while watching Thelma and Xena play with the toy.

Bekir continues the block work

Shoveling out years of rubbish

A goat leg, all ready for Christmas

Look at what an excellent job Halil has done

The cable ducts are cemented in place now

Inside Bekir was working away on his own to get as much of the walls finished as possible and he also moved the network cable that goes to Angela's art room. Halil continued with his clearing and tidying task outside and was making great progress, shoveling years of leaves and ashes and other assorted rubbish out of the pit. At lunch time the men had headed out and picked up the goat leg for our Christmas dinner and it looks like a very good chunk this year. By the end of the day Halil had completely cleared that horrible pile of rubbish while upstairs Bekir was done with the walls and had also cemented in the ducts that hold the power lines for the right hand side of the roof.

Rosie with her gifts from the men

Four eggs from two days

Rosie stirs the jelly

As the day came to a close and when Rosie got home from school we gave the men their Christmas gifts and Rosie received some awesome presents in return. I had heard a chicken laying an egg earlier and popped into the chicken house to find that we now have two chickens laying; this is two eggs each from two chickens. Very exciting. While I was writing the first part of this update Rosie was with Angela helping to make jelly for over the Christmas period which she did very well indeed. She's now in bed and hopefully sleeping well as she is understandably very very excited for Christmas.

So there it is. The year is done for the builders and near enough done for us. I may well be back during the week before New Year to catch up on Christmas but we shall see how it goes. Thanks for reading, Happy Christmas to you all.

A weekend, then back to it...

Well here we are again, rushing closer and closer to Christmas but still the men are here. First, however, the weekend.

Rosie with her Playdoh toy

Tidying the magnets on the fridge

This is our first egg

I did not take many pictures over the weekend though it was a fun one. Saturday there was time for play before Rosie and I headed into town to get some stuff including a big present for Angela. We decided to give it to her early so we could enjoy it and so the past couple of days we have begun watching The Hobbit on a brand new television. It is awesome. On Sunday I had a day at my desk but Angela and Rosie had a really fun day including clearing all Rosie's artwork off the fridge so it can be stored safely and making space for all the new drawings she will do. We also had a fried breakfast and this included our first ever egg from our chickens.

The second of our friend's freezers is shifted

It's very cramped working in under there

Halil rests from lobbing bricks

Sweeping as he works

Ending the day doing rock wool

This morning it was still overcast but at least not raining any more. The men were in on time and the first thing I had them do was to help shift the second freezer out of the back of Thomas and into the garage. After that they mixed more mortar up and Bekir got stuck into rendering onto the walls while Halil was both mixing and when not doing that, tidying and clearing. He has thrown all the bricks that were in the roof down onto the ground outside and then stacked them up. Bekir made great progress and by mid afternoon he had done all the way round the bay and also round the corner a bit. He ran out of cement at this point however as I had to go to town in Thomas I set them to working on the insulation rather than wasting time coming with me to get to the shop. A good thing too as I was out for ages.

Happy watching The Hobbit together

When I got home Rosie was already back. We sat and watched The Hobbit together, then had dinner, then after dinner finished the first film off. Christmas really is here!

So, there it is. Thanks for reading, we'll be back tomorrow.

Carrying on with the car port

Another day of progress and warmth (it is so warm right now, I think it was getting towards 30 degrees over the weekend and today). Let's get to the update.

Saturday sunrise, and a lovely day it was

Xena giving me a toothy grin

Dippy Duck Eggs, and they were great

Filling the watering can from the rainwater

A Sunday Roast, and half a bottle of beer

Looking down on the car port

The weekend was very much me recovering from last week and the travelling and all the emotions. I didn't do much other than several loads of washing, some shopping, and sleeping. It was a beautiful weekend, though, and I got to have some dippy duck eggs on Sunday morning for breakfast. The water was very low pressure so I ended up doing the watering in the garden with a watering can from the rain collection container and this was a very successful experiment so even though the water is back on, I did the same today. Dinner was a lovely roast chicken and then after I pulled the washing in I decided to pop and get a picture of the progress from a slightly different angle. It's looking great.

Long wood hanging out of Thomas

The wood is lifted up and attached

Halil breaking his back on the wood treatment

Bekir adds two nails per plank

A long handle made this job much easier

Trimming the edges with the chainsaw

Today was a day of progress and visits to the shops. First thing the men went out to get more wood and other bits and pieces while they waited for the roof to dry from the dew overnight. When they got back Bekir fitted the extra beams to the underside of the planks while Halil got back into painting the wood treatment all over. Bekir was both screwing and nailing these new beams in place as they are there to prevent the boards from lifting in the strong winds that we get here. They headed out again later on to get more materials, and also we had a delivery of hardboard (we really struggled to find a supplier for this) and the end of the day saw all the treating finished and Bekir making good progress on tidying the edges ready for the decorative shuttering to be affixed.

So there it is; another day done and progress is good. They may be onto the hardboard tomorrow I think! Exciting. Thanks for reading, back tomorrow.

Sunday working

The men were in today as expected so that means there's a bonus Sunday blog for me to write. Let's go back to yesterday first.

The men burned our undergrowth

Playing kerplunk with this one

Very happy with the egg she found

The moon rises over the hills

Rosie with her sparkler

Yesterday was a very busy day for me as I spent lots of time cleaning and tidying in various parts of the house. Angela and Rosie were both pretty sick with this cold but Angela still found the energy to get out and plant in the garden as well. One of the jobs I did was to tidy the balcony and rearrange it which was a successful change up. While I was shifting things I noticed that the men had set fire to the undergrowth, probably with the welding machine, but had kept it very quiet and not told me. No harm done. Other than that the lounge was done and then I threw myself into shifting things from the Games Room up into the roof space which was a huge task and I'm still aching from it now but I got it done. I had some time to play with Rosie and then when she was feeding the chickens and ducks with Angela she found the first egg we've had so far! Very cool! The moon rise last night was amazing, really large and yellow, and after she was ready for bed Rosie got to have the last sparkler in the pack.

A morning glow

Lifting the 7m lengths onto blocks

The men help with the swinging chair

A lovely spot for us all to sit

Before it was filled with cuddly toys

Halil sets to painting

Today has been another lovely warm sunny day. The sunrise was beautiful but I was the only one awake to see it; Rosie had an epic lay in as she really isn't well at the moment. She's slowly got better through today thankfully. The men were in at their normal time and, after lifting the remaining steel lengths up onto the blocks where they would be more in the sun to dry off, they helped me by carrying the swinging chair frame around to the back of the house to pass up to me on the balcony. This was the final part of the balcony reorganisation. Angela then asked me to put up a toy sling in Rosie's bedroom so that wasn't a tough thing to do. The men did some chopping of wood while the steel dried then they set to painting and spent a large chunk of the day getting every thing bit of steel that was not yet painted covered up. Thinking about it I may ask them to go do the grapevine frame tomorrow as well

The locust that Rosie and Angela found

Rosie playing on her scooter

Her very own design

A huge pile of wood to be stacked

Angela spent most of today with Rosie and they had a lovely day, doing lots of things inside and out. At one point I was called to see an interesting creature which turns out to be a locust. It was very large! Other than that Rosie had lots of fun on her scooter, and she's getting very good at it indeed. When Angela took a well deserved rest I read with Rosie then she played with her peg board. Outside the men had finished doing the painting of the steel and were now back to it with all the wood, splitting in tandem. There is so much wood! We may have bought too much.

So there it is. There's a chance that tomorrow we'll have the crane here and the long lengths will get lifted into place. Either way there is a lot of work for the men so back tomorrow. Thanks for reading.