A whole lotta lintel going on

Another day of on and off (and at time torrential) rain today. Will this bad weather never leave! This is certainly not what I came here for.

Rambo and the clouds

At least I suppose Rambo must at least be finding it easier to settle in with the unsettled, cold, windy and rainy weather we are having. This morning started very much as my mornings do out here; I woke up at exactly 6.55am and dragged myself out of bed for a cuppa. I drank my brew, realising it was a bank holiday in England and I wouldn't have a cheerful conversation early. I headed out to see Rambo and cut his stick in half and then proceeded to play with him until the men arrived, throwing his stick and playing tug with it and generally making him feel special.

The task for the men today was to put the lintels in for where they had knocked the walls down the other week. To do this we needed to get materials like more cement and metal for the reinforcing so we pretty much turned straight round and myself and Bekir headed down to the shop to get what we needed. I also bought myself a new saw, some steel brushes to clean the fence for painting, some sandpaper and a couple of rakes. It was a large order but still didn't come to much. We did go back twice though, as twice Bekir remembered something as we were leaving. They must love us, the amount we spend in there.

Sally working

When we got back Sally had just about completed the task of knocking out one more course of bricks and readying the area for the work to begin. He had done his usual of piling up some bricks and putting two or three planks across between them. I did stand on this contraption once but it was so springy from that point on I managed to negotiate my way around the sides without climbing over. Way too dangerous for me! T had also been really busy and had emptied the rest of the sheep shit from the back of Thomas onto the garden; the rear bed of Thomas is now clean; I'm so impressed with how much he did while I was gone.

T fixing the bird netting

I headed upstairs to find that the UK was finally waking up and I put the kettle on to make myself and others a brew. About this time I had a couple of visitors, with the special one rocking up as he does, and a shout of "postey" (said with a short 'o' sound) the Kmet waving a card from my nan for my birthday. I headed downstairs and saw the T was on with the bird netting as I'd asked him to, though the netting they had managed to buy the other day was not really as good as that which I brought from England so he was struggling to make it stretch wide enough. Fair play he does not allow anything to stop him and he has successfully completed this task, including fixing the plastic which had blown out in Sassy's room.

Impressive shot of clouds coming in

I offered coffees all round and, unusually, Special One and the kmet accepted so I ended up not having enough hot water for my own brew. I had decided to take Rambo for his walk early today, with my camera and down to the river, as it was really high because of all this rain and I wanted to grab a picture. I wrapped myself up warm and put a water proof on and managed to calm him down enough to get the lead on his collar and then we set off, going left out of the gate and down towards the river by the path I took the first time I walked him. He was his usual self, pulling on the lead a bit and then settling down after a while, then pulling again. We walked past a dog that was guarding another property and, despite being growled at, Rambo ignored it and we made our way to the bridge.

River so very high

The river must be about 4 or even 5 feet higher than it normally is, and where all the sandbanks normally are there is nothing. Where T and Rambo stood the other day is now well under water and the current was racing past. I would normally have been able to get down right to the edge of the water but now the paths along the bank are completely submerged and I had to keep a tight hold on Rambo to stop him diving down and into the water; he's not the brightest

We went down as close to the edge as I wanted to risk and I decided to take a quick video of it, for posterity and to show you lovely people who bother to read my blog. It isn't long but hopefully it'll give you the impression of just how fast the normally lazy river is going. I will try and remember to repeat this video from the same spot when it is back to normal, so you can compare and contrast. We went a little way onto the bridge so I could snap some more pics and then the rain started coming down hard again so I took us back the way we had come and returned to the house.

Building the wooden frame for the concrete

As per usual, progress had happened in the 50 minutes or so I was gone. Sally was on carpentry detail and he was getting really close to finishing the forms which the concrete would be poured into. They were not only doing the lintel, but also finishing the side so it was done as one. The skill with wood and other materials that my men display every day never fails to amaze me.

Concrete reinforcement taking shape

Not least that of Bekir who seems to be able to do and make anything he wishes. He was on with creating the metal structure which would be the reinforcement for the lintel. He had created a clever little saw horse out of scraps of wood and, when I showed him the ones I had bought at great expense in England, he laughed and said they wouldn't do. I don't blame him, because his one was much better.

Finishing it off

He then used little twists of metal to hold each of the square shapes of metal that he had bent to size, in its position on the long lengths. Without any fuss he constructed a rigid box section of steel which would impart massive strength to the concrete that was poured around it. I do love watching the both of them work, they are so inspiring.

The easel

I was not, however, idle during this time. I had bought the sandpaper for a reason; to enable me to renovate various of the wooden items I had found. The first thing I chose to do with the easel which had been pulled from the attic the other day. I rubbed away the mud (the traditional method of building roofs here involves sealing the gaps with mud; because that will stop the water coming through....) and found that the paint underneath, while a bit thin, was probably still good enough to not need replacing. Having completed the sanding (and got covered in dust) I went and got a painting to stick on it temporarily. Job done. First item of recovered furniture renovated to my temporary satisfaction.

It was then lunch and I had fish fingers butties which were really nice. T sat in Room 13 with me and ate his lunch and we chatted which was really nice then we decided, as it looked like the rain had stopped, to go out and rip out the fence around the garden. As we went outside it started raining really hard so we went back in (there is no point in getting wet and cold to do something as low priority as this) and T went back to doing the bird netting. I went upstairs, whinged on twitter, and then the sun started trying to come out. The weather really was starting to play games with me. I went out to clear the fence.

No more fence

After an hour or so of cutting wire, ripping fencing and digging out rotting wood I decided to have a break and headed back inside. It hadn't entirely stopped raining and I had kept my waterproof and rain hat on and worked up quite a sweat. I looked for T and couldn't find him and a few minutes later he appeared saying he had gone looking for me, seen that the fence hadn't been completely removed, and just got himself stuck in and finished the job. What a star he is.

We agreed, as the weather was holding, that we would head down to the corner near the gate and complete the last bit of fence removal left and on the way I let Rambo out so he could run around and get in our way. It was a bit of a difficult job at times to clear this fence as the brambles and bushes had grown into the fence in such a way that you never knew what was fence and what was plant. Also, Rambo kept trying to grab each bit of wood as we extricated it and at one point he ran into me and made me jump so I bashed T straight in the face just above the eye and cut him. Whoops. Rambo eventually selected a favourite stick and played with it for a long time, running around and humping at it and generally being a pain. He is obviously still a little unsettled because at one point, when I went to take a stick off him, he actually growled at me and went for me a bit. I calmed him down, stared him down, and then gave him lots of fusses; I think he has remembered just who is boss and hopefully he won't do it again.

Loads of dust off the rug

After this we headed back in and Bekir and Sally were just getting to the end of the first lintel. It has taken a bit longer than I thought (I hoped both would be done today) but it has also been done (as per usual) in such a complete and professional way that I can't argue. There was nothing else for me or T to do so I grabbed the dustpan and brush and started sweeping the rug. Don't ask me why, I just did and I'm glad I did so because it was a real therapeutic thing to do. It is still filthy, but at least it isn't bitty any more.

The completed lintel

Sally was now putting the final touches on, using bricks and then broken tiles to fill in the gap above the lintel and packing cement around it. Bekir was tidying and cleaning the tools which had been used and then he headed up into the attic as I had asked him to get the quote together for the materials needed to do the roof. When Sally had done his last bit of bricklaying and was starting to tidy up we went to help (I hate sitting around doing nothing) and set up a chain to pass the bricks he had used to support his scaffolding to be piled back up for further use. After this I got the shovel and dug out the cement which had fallen onto the floor, then we brushed and swept and washed the floor to get as much cement off it as possible; I want to keep this floor and just polish it as it looks awesome. I'm pretty happy with the clean up job we achieved.

Omelette cooking

I had been planning on going to Bekir's pile again to get more tor however it got too late, with the time taken to measure and calculate the materials for the roof, so I just sent them off to have a good weekend and see them on Monday for the bagga machine. I headed upstairs and had a bit of fun on the computer and then decided to cook myself some dinner. I started off planning a normal Nardenitsa fry up with bread, then looked for the spare potato I thought I had (I had used it in the chips last night, I eventually remembered) and then settled on the idea of an omelette. This was a cracking idea (despite one egg being off, and wasting another because I broke the off one into the good one) and the resultant dish was larger than my plate. I ate it all though.

There follows now quite a ran about weather. If you aren't interested in this please stop reading.

Thank you.

Finally the sun broke through

I was sat just after finishing my dinner when I noticed the sun had come out. I ran outside with the camera and round to the back and snapped a shot of the usual direction, looking towards the setting sun. The silver in the sky really is magical here at this time. Bear in mind I haven't really seen the sun for days, not a situation I expected to find myself in here at this time of year I can tell you.

Rainbow through the trees

I returned to my desk and my conversation only to glance up and see an amazing rainbow through my window in front of me. I first of all legged it to what will be my living room and grabbed a photograph of the colours through the trees. I don't know if it has come out as well as I wanted however it'll remind me of the sight so stuff you.

Arching over the school

I then noticed just how strong the rainbow was the other end and so I once again legged it downstairs, outside and round to the back. I wish I had a wide angle lens because the rainbow arched right over the top of the house. It was really magical and you'll just have to imagine it from these two shots which are badly glued together.

Double rainbow

I have rarely seen such a vivid rainbow and it then suddenly developed into a double one, though as always the outer rainbow was very faint. I think you can just about make it out on this picture. I took a fair number of photographs but I am not going to bore you with any more.

Amazing sky; just amazing

After this I went back inside and had a lovely chat on skype, which was interrupted with me legging it to take more pictures of the sky, this time out the back where the clouds and the sun made such a spectacle I'm so glad I saw it.

After this point I have no more pictures however I will try to explain the amazing thing which is being right on the edge of a thunder storm. There was literally a line in the sky above me, with blue sky behind and the most black sky ahead towards Greece. A thunderstorm was brewing but it was a fair way away as, other than on solitary (but huge) rumble everything has been more than 10 miles away. As I sit typing this I am still seeing epic flashes of lightening and hearing huge rumbles of thunder that have gone on for 90 seconds and more; someone somewhere is having a treat of a storm occur over their heads. At one point the front travelled over and the temperature in here dropped about 5 degrees in a couple of minutes. This encouraged me to fire up my fire and I am now listening to it roar in the background, providing a perfect counterpoint to the rumbles of distant thunder.

I will sign off now as I want to get on with other things, but this country even in bad weather just never disappoints.